[Sca-cooks] Question to the Group

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Glenn Crawford wrote:


> Second: I am interested in serving some fish dishes.  Has anyone done the
> research on which species are native to the region and actually used in that
> time period? I am interested in both fresh and salt water fishes.


In order, MS. BL 46919 (c. ~1325 CE), an English translation (in part)
of an earlier Anglo-Norman MS, mentions salmon, eels, luce (a relative
of the pike), perch, turbot, lampreys, whelks, oysters, and mussels.
Other likely 14th-15th century English fish (you can tell 'cause they
wear little monocles and bowler hats) include dried cod, salt herring,
lobster, bream, tench, sturgeon, whiting, periwinkles, pike, sole,
porpoise (yes, this is a mammal, but not to them), plaice, roaches
(a.k.a. rouget, goatfish, or red gurnard-- looks like a little red
mullet), conger eels, gurnards (sea robins to North East-coast Americans
   ), mackerel, codling or hake (you've prolly eaten this as "scrod"),
loaches (similar to catfish), and...

Have I made my point yet? ;-)

Notable is the absence of clams in all this, but even though the
adjective "clammy" appears two or three times in the medieval English
recipe corpus, clams as food don't seem to appear in the recipes we have
for the upper classes. Of course, clams don't appear to be nearly as
popular in  France or England today as they are in the US, although
again, I wonder why the adjective appears but the clams do not... maybe
they were lower class food or the word refers to something other than
the bivalve.

I'm also surprised to see no reference (in a quick scan, anyway) to
trout, which, for all I know, was introduced to English streams and
waters after this time period.

You might enjoy a look at Izaak Walton's "The Compleat Angler" (Is that
the title? I'm tired...). While post-period (contemporary to Pepys, the
Great Fire of London, etc.), it has pretty comprehensive instructions
for catching most of the freshwater English fish mentioned above.


> Finally - for the New England area folks - how many of you are going to the
> Market Day on Feb 2 at Rockingham? We will be there around 11AM on and would
> love to put some names with some faces!

Unfortunately, not me, although I do live in the East...

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98