[Sca-cooks] Alows of Beef or Mutton

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach david friedman:
>Lady Anne du Bosc asked (see earlier post for full recipe):
>
>>Three questions:
>>
>>In this recipe, what are
>>
>>1. Quyschons?
>
>The word I think must be cushions; I'm not sure what part of the cow
>that is, but the alternative is "mutton of the butts".

I was interested in this, too. There doesn't seem to be a modern
equivalent of "cushion" (or, I haven't seen it if there is), but it
occurs to me this might be taken from the French "cuisson", or thigh.
My dictionary defines "cushion" (among several definitions) as
something shaped like a cushion. Not much help there... However,
Taillevent does specify the cut of veal he uses as coming from the
knuckle, another leg portion (and the butt can also be a leg
portion). I'm thinking they may be talking about the eye of the
round. No really hard proof, though.

>>2. swette?
>
>Suet.

Yes. The suggestion of butter is perhaps not what they had in mind
because butter melts into a liquid, while earlier versions of the
recipe use firmer, fatty stuff like suet or marrow, both unrendered
fats; the idea being (probably) to keep some of the structure of the
fat when it's cooked, rather than have something that'll just melt
away. Remember, fat was food to these people, and it was a pretty
recent development when we decided that was a bad thing.

Adamantius