[Sca-cooks] Are cobblers, crisps, pies OOP?

[david friedman]

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>Greetings.
>
>I know the question is probably very basic, but as you all know I am
>VERY new to this. How do I even go about finding out if something is
>OOP or not? Like apple crisp/Betty or apple cobbler or even apple
>pie (substituting almost any fruit)?
>
>I do hope you don't get too annoyed at some of my questions. I have
>been lurking and some of the things  you talk about are WAY OVER MY
>HEAD (Yep, even bump.bump) but at least I know that I am in the
>company of experts.

Questions are good.

At the most basic level, my response is that you are starting at the
wrong end. You are starting with a modern recipe and asking "is this
period?" To really answer that question, someone would have to take a
stack of period cookbooks and go through them, trying to see if he
could find a period recipe similar to the modern one. That is a
pretty inefficient way of finding recipes. And it encourages the
attitude, too common in the SCA, that "documentation" means, not
learning things about the past, but finding excuses to do what you
decided to do before you started "documenting."

In my view it makes more sense to start with the period cookbook and
look through it, not for evidence that something you already know how
to make is (more or less) period, but for period recipes that you
would like to cook.

Two other and related points:

1. Looking for evidence that something you are already familiar with
is period has some tendency to lead to misreading period recipes--you
start out looking for angel food cake, or meringue, or apple pie, and
interpret  the period recipe as being that, without being careful to
see how well it fits. The last example is ours--interpreting
something as an apple pie, and not noticing that it never said to cut
up the apples, suggesting that it might be more like the quinces in
pastry I give below.

Getting back to your question ...  . Here are some things that are at
least related to what we think of as pies. Note that the first part
(in italics if your email program reproduces them) is from a period
cookbook. The rest is our interpretation of how to do it.

Quinces in Pastry
Du Fait de Cuisine no. 70

Again, quinces in pastry: and to give understanding to him who should
prepare them let him arrange that he has his fair and good quinces
and then let him clean them well and properly and then make a narrow
hole on top and remove the seeds and what they are wrapped in, and
let him take care that he does not break through on the bottom or
anywhere else; and, this being done, put them to boil in a fair and
clean cauldron or pot in fair water and, being thus cooked, take them
out onto fair and clean boards to drain and put them upside down
without cutting them up. And then let him go to the pastry-cooks and
order from them the little crusts of the said pastries to put into
each of the said little crusts three quinces or four or more. And
when the said little crusts are made fill the holes in the said
quinces with very good sugar, then arrange them in the said little
crusts and cover and put to cook in the oven; and, being cooked
enough, let them be served.

3 quinces	pie crust:	1 1/4 c flour
5/8 c sugar		6 1/2 T butter
(1/8 t ginger)		3 1/2 T water

Core the quinces without cutting through to the bottom. Simmer them
in water about 15 minutes. Make pie crust, divide in half, roll out
bottom crust and put in 7" pie pan. Set quinces upright on top of the
bottom crust, fill with sugar, put top crust over them. Bake at 450°
for 15 minutes, then at 350° for 35 minutes.

Note: there is a similar recipe in Two Fifteenth Century Cookery
Books p. 51. The differences are that the quinces are peeled, they
may be replaced by warden pears, there is a little powdered ginger in
with the sugar, and the sugar may be replaced by honey with pepper
and ginger.

To Make Short Paest for Tarte
  A Proper Newe Book p. 37/C10

Take fyne floure and a curscy of fayre water and a dysche of swete
butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolkes of two egges and make it
thynne and as tender as ye maye.

3/4 c flour	1/2 stick = 4 T butter	1 egg yolk
1 T + 1 t water	6 threads saffron

Cut butter into flour, then crush saffron into 1 t of water; mix that
and the rest of the water with the egg yolk and stir it into the
flour-butter mixture.

A Tarte of Strawberries
  A Proper Newe Book p. 39/C11

Take and strain them with the yolks of four eggs, and a little white
bread grated, then season it up with sugar and sweet butter and so
bake it.

2 c strawberries	1/2 c bread crumbs	4 T butter, melted
4 egg yolks	1/3 c sugar	8" pie shell (see recipe above)

Force strawberries through a strainer or run through a blender, then
mix with everything else. Bake crust for 10 minutes, then put filling
into the crust and bake at 375° for 20 minutes.

--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/