[Sca-cooks] Re: Cock-a-leekie soup reference

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach johnna holloway:
>There's no doubt in my mind that the Scots served soups or
>broths with chickens in them prior to 1600, but it's also
>apparently clear that the term itself didn't arise until
>at best the late 17th or early 18th centuries.
>I don't believe that one can stretch the term back to say
>that Mary Queen of Scots was responsible for it.
>
>We know a great deal more about the history of actual Scottish
>foods now than we did say 20 or 25 years ago. Catherine Brown
>is the lady behind much of that research.

The ma-leachi reference apparently comes from an SCA website (a
college in South Dakota) which speculates that ma-leachi is a
14th-century English dish, and that "ma" refers to fowl (presumably
we're supposed to assume "leachi" means "leek"). No documentation is
provided and it is unclear what language this is supposed to be,
although there _is_ a 14th-century English dish called malaches (and
some closely related spelling variants), which is essentially a white
pudding used as a tart filling -- ordinarily it would go in a sausage
casing or a bag of some kind, like fronchemoyle. Little or nothing
like cock-a-leekie.

Adamantius