[Sca-cooks] Ember Day Tart

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au:

>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?

Another consideration might be that period cooks _may_, at times,
have been boiling everything in the stockpot (with or without the
expedient of sealing the food to be boiled in jugs first). It seems
to me that fishing whole onions out of the stockpot (which, BTW, may
not actually contain animal proteins or fats) may be easier than
sifting chopped ones out.

I used to work for an executive chef who had a bee in her bonnet
(this is in addition to being certifiably insane) about clean cuts
for various vegetable garnishes, so things like carrots and onions,
even for stews, braised meats, etc., had to be cooked whole, removed
from the stew when cold, carefully cut to spec, and returned to the
pot for reheating. It actually does look better. Whether that's an
issue in this case, I don't know, but frankly, doubt.

>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.

Sometimes steps in old recipes are taken for very good reasons which
we won't understand until we actually try the recipe. At other times,
they're gratuitous silliness. It can be very hard to tell which it is
at any given moment.

Adamantius