[Sca-cooks] Generys' Feast/Rolls and butter

[Sue Clemenger]

I dunno...there are a number of recipes for "flatbread" (usually in the
context of creating something multi-layered and sweet, so it's hard to
say if it's more of what we'd consider a pastry, or a crepe, or the
"flatbread" it always seems to be translated to), and some of them use
oil. I *think* those are usually ones that are clearly unleavened,
though (the stuff's at work, so I'd have to check there).
--maire

"Decker, Terry D." wrote:
>
> It is probably a condiment.  Most of the modern Moorish breads don't seem to
> use fat in the making and the addition of fat to bread dough appears to be
> something that is retained after it occurs.  And as with most of the
> European sources, it is hard to tell how wide-spread the use of butter as a
> condiment was.
>
> Interestingly, butter mixed with barley flour appears to have been a common
> condiment for bread in Ireland (not necessarily surprising given the cattle
> based economy and the fact the Irish still produce a prodigious quantity of
> butter and turn a nice profit smuggling it into Northern Ireland, unless the
> recent EU unification has put a crimp in the trade).
>
> Bear
>
> > I also ran across a mention, in one section of the Anon. Andalusian
> > cookbook (I've been spending a lot of time in it lately),
> > that refers to
> > some people's custom of using butter with their bread, although I
> > remember thinking that it was unclear (to me, at least) if that was a
> > reference to butter-as-ingredient or butter-as-condiment.
> > --Maire
> >
> > Terry Decker wrote:
> > >
> > > There is evidence of butter being used as a condiment for
> > bread, but the
> > > extent of use is difficult to determine.  Flavored butters appear in
> > > Elizabethean writings.  Honey butter appears only as a medicine.