[Sca-cooks] suet & vinegar

[Alma Johnson]

Kim wrote:
>   Greetings to the list,
>
> I am new to the list and if you don't mind, I have a some semi food
> related questions to ask for Kataryna Dragonweaver.  She has some
> documentation for Psanky or Ukrainian Easter Egg painting

> This is the reference she used.
>
> How to acid etch eggs from 
The Jewel-house of Art & Nature
 by Hugh
> Plat 1594:

First, please let your friend know that this is not documentation for
pysanky.  Hugh Plat is not a Ukrainian resource, and is not describing the
same process.  Pysanky is a modern tradition, which _may_ have roots in the
ceramics industry which was the major industry in the area we call the
Ukraine during part of the Middle Ages.  Please understand that I have been
making pysanky for over 15  years, and I love it, but as much as I love it
I've yet to find any documentation for pysanky as we know it, namely a wax
resist dye process on eggshells, which dates back to the middle ages or
renaissance.

However, it is very interesting to understand the process described here.
The effect of the wine vinegar is to leach out the calcium from the shell,
leaving the stain of the vinegar and possibly a depressed area wherever the
suet has not acted as a resist.  This does not require the suet to stand up
to abuse as it would with pysanky.  Further, the scratching off of the suet
would scratch the surface of the shell which would cause the reaction of the
vinegar to be enhanced. Leaving any egg in any dyestuff long enough will
result in the color leaching through the shell and onto the surface of the
egg, and the vinegar would pickle the egg underneath.Wherever the calcium
has leached out, the shell will be soft, and the final product of the hard
shell with depressed dyed design sounds neat.  I think the next part of the
process is possibly referring to the removal of the softer etched part,
leaving a filigree of shell, but that would only work with some designs, or
by only removing enough of this part to remove the egg from within.  I'll
have to see just how this works. I think I'm going to try this and try to
post some pictures.  This look like fun.

Rhiannon Cathaoir-mor



> 
32. How to grave any armes, posies, or other devise upon an egg shel, &
> how to through-cut the same, with divers works & fancies, which will
> seem very strange to
> such as know not the maner of the doing thereof. Dippe an egge in suet
> being molten, first the one halfe, and then the other, holding the same
> betweene your thumb and forefinger when you dippe it, let the same coole
> in your hand, and beeing colde, with a sharpe bodkin or some other
> instrument of iron, worke or grave in the suet what letters or
> portrature you wil, taking away the suet clean, & leaving the shell bare
> at the bottom of your worke. Then lay this eg thus engraved in good wine
> vinegar or strong alliger in a Glasse or stone Pottinger, for some six
> or eight houres, or more, or lesse, according to the strength and
> sharpnesse of the Vinegar, then take out the egge, and in water that is
> blood warme disolve the suet from the egge, then lay your egge to coole,
> and the woorke will appear to be graven in the shell of a russet color.
> Saepius probatum. And if the egge lie long inough in the vineger after
> it is so graven, and sovered in suet as before, the letters will appear
> upon the egge it selfe being hard sodden, or else if you care not to
> loose the meate, you may picke out the same when the shell is through
> graven, and so you shall have a strange piece of work perfourmed.

>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Ciar
> The Shire of Harrows Cross,
> in Avacal
>
>
>
>
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