[Sca-cooks] Lemonwhyt?

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:

> Someone posted to rec.food.historic, asking about a dish called
> "lemonwhyt".  It was clear in context that she's a SCAdian in
> Lochac.  She said that the dish was very popular at feasts in her
> group, and she would like to document it.
>
> After a little web-searching on a variant spelling, I found that it was
> a rice dish with lemon peel and currants.  This rang a a bell in the
> dim recesses of my memory, and sure enough, I found
> "Lemonwhyt" in _Fabulous Feasts_.
>
> I posted a reply, telling the lady where the recipe was from, and
> adding that I didn't think it was period.  I haven't seen a recipe like
> that in any of the period sources, and lemon peel seems rather
> unlikely in a pre-Renaissance English recipe.
>
> Then again, it's possible that this is an altered medieval recipe -- I
> believe other dishes in _Fabulous Feasts_ have substitute
> ingredients.
>
> Anyone with a better knowledge of the Anglo-Norman canon want
> to weigh in on this question?
>
>
> Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann


Well, as usual, I'm at work and the reference library is at home--I'm not
even carrying bits of it in the briefcase this week. Anyway. I don't
recall seeing much, if any, mention of citrus peel, lemon or orange, in
the A/N corpus. Nor do I recall much about rice in grain form. Rice in
flour form, yes. But, I will have to check when I get home.

If the computer was on the same floor as the library, it would make things
a lot easier...

Margaret FitzWilliam