[Sca-cooks] Re: Strawberries and Snow

[Lis]

Hi all. Here's a diary of my Strawberries and Snow experiment.

The recipe says:
Take a pottel of swete thycke creame and the whytes of eyghte egges, and
beate them altogether wyth a spone, then putte them in youre creame and a
saucerful of Rosewater, and a dyshe full of Suger wyth all, then take a
stick and make it cleane, and than cutte it in the ende foure square, and
therwith beate all the aforesayde thynges together, and as ever it ryseth
takeit of and put it into a Collaunder,....

Assumption: Thre recipes mean to take cream and *beaten* eggwhites and
combine them with sugar and rosewater.

7:45 AM. Ripped maple stick off of tree on the way out to drive the kids to
school. Stick is approx. 1/2 inch wide. Am assuming it's a green stick,
because it's very hard to cut dry wood with a knife in the manner indicated.

8:30 AM Returned home. Broke stick off at approx. 16 inches. "Cleaned" stick
(whittled off the bark, rinsed under water to get rid of loose bits). Used
knife to start at one end, slicing through stick. Stick does not like to be
split like this, from the end to the middle. Stick decides it would rather
be several shards of green wood than a culinary tool. Stick now lives in the
trash can.

8:40 AM Ripped another stick off of Maple tree. Broke stick into an approx 1
foot length (tree is looking a little bare on one side now).Whittled off the
bark and rinsed. Began splitting the stick in the middle to one end with the
tip of a sharp paring knife. Success! What I now have is a tool that looks
like an open-ended whisk (4-strand) when the quarters of the stick are
separated. Note: Surprisingly, the stick does not want to seperate further
from my cuts. This is good.

9:00 AM Began by whipping the egg white with the stick---used only one white
in case this didn't work. Stick does work to whip the whites, but very
slowly. Noticed that small bits of the stick are appearing in the egg white.
Removed small bits. Scrubbed the stick vigorously under running water (it
now sinks in what the author meant by "clean the stick". He does not mean
remove the bark. He means us to actually clean it). Returned to whiping the
eggwhites, making a mental note to myself to cut the stick into more
segments if I am ever so foolish as to do this again. Also made mental note
to imbibe more caffeine before undertaking such a project again.

9:10 Egg whites are now somewhat frothy, but no where near where I want them
to be. Feeling superior over my experiment in neaderthal cuisinology, I
cheat and use an ergonomic teflon wire whisk expressly made for whipping
eggwhite.

9:13 Whites are forming soft peaks. Good enough for me. I added 1/4 cup
heavy cream, 1 tsp sugar, and since I still don't have any rosewater, I do
not add the 1 or 2 drops I would have used. Briefly stare at my Mother's Day
roses, and discard the idea of imbibing pesticides along with the rosewater
I could possibly make by cooking them briefly with some water. At this point
I fetch a collander (pierced tin, and antique), a basin to catch any drips
from the collander, and large spoon, as the recipe indicates that I'll need
them.

9:18 The ingredients are being whipped together, once again with the stick.
While they are combining nicely, I'm not seeing any froth to lift off. It's
all rather frothy and uniform, but I'll keep trying.

9: 30. I've beat the bejeebers out of this stuff and it isn't changing in
the least. I abandoned the stick and went back to the whisk, thinking an
air-volume and speed equation might be my problem. No such luck. What I have
in my hands is a bowl of satiny, but still semi-liquid frothy stuff that
resembles the texture of cooked icing in it's runny-but-frothy stage. It
hasn't changed by now, and I doubt it's going to.

9:33 I pour the "snow" into the collander, which is in the basin. I wait.
Nothing happens. No drips. This stuff is too thick to pass through the
holes. I taste the mixture, and it is delightful. Sweet, frothy, light, but
still semi-liquid. Not as stiff as the snow I made in accordance with
other's techniques (beat cream and whites seperately and then combine). But
it's pretty close, and it has much more silky texture.

At this point by ideas about the recipe have changed. I think that the
author probably beat the egg whites, then poured them on the top of a large
basin of cream (how big is a pottle anyway?) and other ingredients, and THEN
started whipping on one side to incorporate the whites bit by bit, removing
the resulting froth with a spoon to make room for the upcoming bits of froth
from continued whipping.

Conclusion: In all, I like this mixture/procedure, but probably won't use
this method for feasts, since time and economy with ingredients are as large
a factor as authenticity. At home, however, it's another story. I'll
probably try it the other two ways (the above method and the
combine-raw-ingredients-before whipping method) sometime, just to see what's
what. If my arms ever recover from so much hand-whipping. Where are those
kitchen slaves when you need them?

Aoife