[Sca-cooks] Tempering was: fennel sauce

[Louise Smithson]

Avraham replied to me with:
> > Okay, then what is wrong with "temper"? As I understand the term
> > "temper" it seems to fit here. I thought temper meant to make less
> > sharp. Here, to ease the sharpness of the pepper by mixing in
> > a little verjuice. To mellow it.
>
> "Temper" has two very specific meanings in modern cookery. It means to
add a
> small amount of hot liquid to an egg mixture to warm it, before adding
the
> eggs to the main pot, so as not to make scrambled eggs (as, for
instance, in
> custard making), or alternatively, to heat and cool chocolate by turns
to
> stabilize the cocoa butter crystals and keep the chocolate from
blooming.
Stefan wrote:
What is the medieval defintion of "temper"? Is that no longer a
valid defintion of it today?

If we're dealing with modern terminology only, then I'm not sure
"distemper" works either. Unless we are talking about dogs.
---
Somewhere I have a copy of an article by Terrence Scully that talks
about Tempering in medieval recipes and how it often refers in recipes
to a different process than the one we mean modernly.  If I remember
rightly (because I can't find the print out in my files at home it might
still be on the computer at work) in many medieval recipes you are
tempering the humor of the ingredients.  I.E. a meat such as beef has a
hot and dry humor so you temper it with something cool and wet (such as
verjuice).  I can't remember which recipes he was dealing with, I will
have a look when I get to work and send some more details.
Helewyse