[Sca-cooks] Brawn in peuerade - Pre-Redaction Questions

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Barbara Benson (and I will nag periodically):
>Here is what I have translated:
>
>Take mighty broth of Beef or Capon, and then take clean Fresh Brawn,
>and seethe it, but not enough; and if it be Fresh
>Brawn, roast it, but not enough, and then slice it in pieces, and
>cast it to the broth. And then take whole onions, &
>peel them, and then take Vinegar there-to, and Cinnamon, and set it
>on the fire, and draw it through a strainer, and
>cast there-to; then take Cloves, Mace, and powdered Pepper, and cast
>there-to, and a little Saunders, and set it on the
>fire, and let boil till the Onions and the Brawn be enough seethed,
>and not too much; then take liquor made of Bread and
>Vinegar and Wine, and season it up, and cast there-to Saffron to
>make the color bright, and Salt and serve it forth.
>
>Now, I was reading through it, having never seen anyone else's
>redaction and came up with what I thought I would try. I
>then got online and looked for other redactions, and it seems that
>what I thought would be the way to do it has not been
>the way it was interpreted.
>
>Here is what I thought:
>Take your broth and bring it to a boil on the stove.
>Take your fresh beef and roast it in the oven until about half done.
>Take beef out of oven and let sit to reabsorb juices.
>Slice beef and cast into simmering broth.

Okay, sounds good, but here are a couple of questions to consider.
The impression I get is that options are being offered above. Are we
using Fresh Brawn for preference, and roasting it, then finishing it
in a broth-based sauce or pottage, _or_ are we possibly using salt
meat and just boiling it in that broth (presumably after soaking,
etc.)?

Secondly, are you sure beef is what is being discussed? "Brawn" can
mean just about any hunk of meat, but to me the default setting seems
to be pork; certainly most of the later, more detailed recipes for
collars of brawn seem to be talking about either whole, boned-out
pigs, portions thereof, such as heads, or other significant hunks of
pork. It seems to me, that unless another meat is specified, pork is
probably intended, unless the recipe author really doesn't care what
meat you use, which I suspect he would state. To me, it reads as if
to suggest you're supposed to know what meat the author intends. The
trouble is, it's less obvious to us no-account moderns. Still, I'd
use pork.

>Here is where my thought process diverged. After the recipe says to
>cast beef into broth there is a period. I took that as an ending.
>Then:
>Take onions and peel them.
>Put them in a pan with some vinegar and some cinnamon, probably
>cover with aluminum foil.
>Put it into the oven and cook until soft.
>Take onions out of oven and put into blender, puree.

An alternate interpretation: since roasting of meat (assuming the
meat is fresh rather than salted, and you _are_ indeed roasting it in
the first place) would generally be accomplished on a spit rather
than in the oven, I think this dish might be cooked in a kitchen
lacking an oven, or at least in a part of the kitchen separate from
the bakehouse. So, considering all that, what are the odds we're
talking about partially cooking whole onions (otherwise why not mince
or shred them first to let them cook faster and let them leech out
humoral nasties, which, as I recall, several sources recommend) in
spiced vinegar? Then straining them out, and adding them to your
braised meat and broth... .  And then you can use your warm vinegar
to help soften that bread in the next step.

>Add onion puree to broth.
>Add cloves, mace, pepper, saunders.
>Cook some more.
>Take bread crumbs and mix with wine and vinegar (more wine than
>vinegar) add Salt and Saffron.
>Add bread mixture to beef & onions.

My suspicion is that somewhere along the line the word "lyour" (from
French terms meaning "thickener", as in "liaison", "fond lie", etc.;
it appears all over the 14th - 15th-century Anglo-Norman corpus) got
changed to "lykour". I think we're softening bread (not necessarily
even in the form of crumbs) in wine and vinegar, till mooshy enough
to stir into the broth to thicken it.

>It seems everyone else that I can find online took the instructions
>to mean that you are to put the onions directly into
>the broth and beef. I think it is saying that you cook the onions up
>and then "put through a strainer" meaning force the
>onions through a sieve to achieve onion puree. Then add the onions
>to the broth.
>
>What I would like to know is if this is an equally valid
>interpretation of the instructions? If not, why?

Could be... the onions are clearly being at least partially cooked
separately, then being added to the partially-cooked meat in the
broth, then finished together. I'm not sure they're being pureed,
though. I think, given the instruction to use them whole, they might
be intended whole. Alternately, if they're gonna be pureed, why take
the trouble to chop them? Could go either way. Me, I'd leave 'em
whole.

Adamantius