[Sca-cooks] non-sweet Elizabethan dishes

[Terry Decker]

While it doesn't provide a truely vegetarian answer, here is a little recipe
which may help.

The attribution is an error propagated through me when I received the recipe
second hand.  Rather than Pynson, this should be,  A.W. Book of Cookery,
1591 (as presented in Food and Cooking in 16th Century Britian by Peter
Brears).  The A.W. may stand for anonymous writer (anonymous woman?).  My
thanks to Johnna, who spotted the error.

I served this at the Protectorate Feast several years and had none of the
dish returned to the kitchen.  Using whiting allowed me to serve fish
without busting my budget.

Bear

Filet of Whiting in Apple and Wine Sauce

To fry Whitings. First flay them and wash them clean and
seale them, that doon, lap them in floure and fry them in
Butter and oyle. Then to serve them, mince apples or onions
and fry them, then put them into a vessel with white wine,
vergious, salt, pepper, clove and mace, and boile them
together on the Coles, and serve it upon the Whitings.

Richard Pynson
The Boke of Cookery, 1500
(as presented in Food and Cooking in 16th Century
Britian by Peter Brears)

Note: The are some questions about the authenticity of this
recipe. I chose to use it, giving Brears the benefit of the doubt
that the recipe does exist and that the only alteration was to
modernize the language.

According to Terry Nutter, Pynson was a printer who set the
Noble Boke off Cookry, of which edition the only known copy
is in the in the library of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat
House. The Napier edition of the Noble Boke off Cookry does
not show a recipe for whiting, but this may be a difference
between the two editions or it may be that Brears has
modernized the English, replacing a more archaic term with
“whiting.”

8 filets of whiting, skin removed
1-2 cups flour
4 Tablespoons of butter
4 Tablespoons of olive oil
Rinse the whiting filets and dredge them in the flour until
coated.
Heat a large frying pan on medium high heat and add oil and
butter.
Fry the filets until brown.
Drain the filets and serve with the apple and wine sauce.


2 apples, peeled, cored and minced
1/3 cup white wine
1/4 teaspoon verjuice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground mace

Sweat the minced apples in a sauce pan over medium heat
until very soft.
Add wine and verjuice. Stir.
Add spices. Stir.
Cook together for 5 to 10 minutes. Add water or more wine
if necessary.
Serve on the whiting filets or in a bowl with them.

Notes: The oil and butter for frying the fish needs to be very
hot to keep the filets from being oily.

I recommend using the amounts of ingredients in the sauce
recipe as approximates and that the sauce be prepared by
taste.


>However, she can
>eat seafood, dairy and eggs.  Another friend of mine locally is an
>ethical vegetarian but not totally hardcore about it; she chooses not to
>eat meat, but would not freak out about meat and vegetables served on
>the same plate.  >
>
>Katherine