[Sca-cooks] Ember Day Tart

[Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au]

Katja wrote:

You might find my paper interesting:
http://www.geocities.com/katjaorlova/ymbredaytart.html.

I did, thank you Katja, especially as I ran a redacting class on this subject a little while back, and wrote an article on my results.  One of the things I noted in that class, and note about your paper, is the way that we treat onions in medieval cooking.

(Now the following is just a general bit of personal note, 'cause this is one of my areas of interest, and NOT directed particularly at Katja, who did a bloody marvellous job)

For everything in the recipe you investigated thoroughly the item and its use. (and I must note I was most impressed by your thoroughness)  For the onions, you even investigated which onions to use, which is great, and rarely done.  However it looks like you may have made the same leap as pretty much all of us do - what you do with the onions.  Without thinking, we all peel the onions and quarter/chop/slice them.

But did they?  The recipe clearly states that the onions are parboiled then "hewed small" afterwards. It seems reasonably possible they would have parboiled the onions whole. So, why quarter them?

It is also a possibility (that we never think of) that they may have done so without even peeling the onions first. Would it make a difference? Perhaps, perhaps not, but certainly onion skins are used to make clothing dyes so potentially the onion skin could colour the rest of the onion in cooking.

I know that perhaps I am being a tad literal about all this, but I just find this sort of thing fascinating; I suspect that I, as a modern medieval cook, often make these little leaps of assumption, and I find it intensely interesting to question them when I stumble across them.

Kiriel