[Sca-cooks] Walms?

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Christine Seelye-King:
>anyone  know how long a walm is?  A recipe for Gellye of Pippins calls for
>boiling the pippins for half a dozen walms.  Sounds to me like the length of
>time it takes to say a particular prayer, but I don't know for sure.
>Anyone?
>Christianna

A related, but somewhat different, approach than those that have 
already been given, is mentioned in Spurling's edition of Fettiplace. 
As I recall, she says one walm is the equivalent of "bringing it to a 
boil", as in, "letting it boil a walm or two", which would involve 
putting your pot on the heat, letting it come to the boil, in the 
case of one walm, or in the case of two or more, removing it from the 
heat until it is no longer boiling (say, getting down to 160 Degrees 
F or so -- easily visible to the eye of at least an experienced cook: 
when it is no longer simmering), then putting the pot back on the 
fire and bringing it back to the boil. You do this for as many times 
as there are walms called for.

It reminds me of some old German beer brewing recipes: a fairly 
accurate way of adding a specific, if unmeasured by thermometer, 
number of kCAL to the stuff in your pot.

IIRC, Spurling discusses this method in connection with boiling a leg 
of lamb, and it seems to work, at least in that context. Of course, 
that could be coincidence. In a perfect world, your recipe would say 
how many walms you want, and also how to test the doneness of your 
pippins, using, say, a quill to poke them, or whatever.

Adamantius