[Sca-cooks] Ein gefulten kuchen

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 12:35  AM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> Someone posted to another list:
>> I have just begun doing my own redactions. Usually I can figure out
>> at least a beginning "recipe" but this one is totally defeating me.
>> It is from Guter Spise:
>>
>> 13. Ein gefülten kuchen (A filled cake)
>> Zu gefülten kuchen nim dez dobriz und zuslahe den mit eyern und tu
>> dar zu ein wenie brotes oder gestozzene vische oder daz dicke von der
>> mandel milich. hie von mac man machen mit gutem krute kuchin oder waz
>> man wil von mus.
>>
>> To (make) a filled cake take this dobriz and mix it with eggs and do
>> thereto
>> a little bread or beaten fish or the thick of the almond milk. From
>> here one may make, with good herbs, cakes or what man wants of puree.
>>
>> (Dobriz is described in source A's glossary as a condiment made of
>> peeled and chopped apples, cooked in honeywater and preserved for a
>> year. The description comes from recipe 141 in the "Mondseer
>> Kochbuch''
>> (the original of which is, according to source A, stored in the
>> collection of
>> the Austrian National Library as Codex 4995).)
>>
>> Here is my initial interpretation:
>> okay, I don't have an initial interpretation. I'm stumped. This
>> description could not possibly make anything resembling "cake",
>> especially not with fish in it... unless it's more like a crabcake...
>> but with apple preserves?
>>
>> Any ideas?
>
> Any suggestions as to how to interpret this for her? Is there some
> other meaning for "kuchen"?

For kuchen, yes. But I suspect the lady may simply have a very
tight-focus definition for "cake" when thinking of kuchen, so a
modern-ish apple or almond kuchen wouldn't raise an eyebrow while a
fish-and-apple kuchen would. But, as she mentions, there are always
crabcakes, fish cakes, and also a plethora of dishes around the world
involving seafood and a sweet condiment.

Melitta Adamson translates this as a patty, and she also translates the
apple stuff as apple stuff, and fish as fish. I wonder if the fish may
actually help as a binder; some of them (such as cod) are quite
gelatinous when cooked; with a dried or salt cod this might actually be
a very nice kuchen, almost a sweet, rich, latke kind of thing.

Adamantius