[Sca-cooks] Sauce Bob? (was STC was Dayboard anxieties)

[Olwen the Odd]

>Also sprach Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur:
>>>  Yeah.  Here in Bright Hills they eat it on everything.  Typically we
>>>serve
>>>  it with veggies, not on them, but these folks would eat it simply on a
>>spoon
>>>  or finger.  Sauce Bob is the same.
>>>  Olwen
>>
>>What's Sauce Bob?
>
>Sauce Robert. In Taillevent, it is referred to as Taillemaslee, ou La
>Barbe Robert, and no recipe is given. Somebody roughly contemporary
>gives a recipe (I think it's added into maybe the Pichon edition, and
>included as a footnote in the Scully edition of Taillevent, but I
>could be wrong here). It consists, IIRC, of shredded onions, sauteed,
>mustard, vinegar and/or verjuice, and probably the juice of any roast
>you may be serving it with. In its day it has also been served with
>rabbit, fried fish, and eggs, too.
>
>La Varenne [c. ~1650 C.E.] gives a different version, involving
>semi-emulsified butter, mustard, something vinegary, and, I think, no
>onion. Sorta like a mustardy beurre blanc. However, given that the
>earliest versions I've seen involve sauteed onions, and subsequent
>versions also involve them, even today (okay, except the modern
>version usually calls for demi-glace instead of roast meat juice, but
>still has the mustard and onion component), I'm inclined to think the
>oniony version without butter is both the Ur-Bob and the Final
>Edition Bob, while the buttery, non-oniony version, while pleasant,
>is not the Real McBob. Today it is most commonly served with pork
>dishes and rabbit; sometimes the onions are strained out before
>serving.
>
>Be that as it may, to make a long story short, it seems to me that
>what most SCAdians are thinking of when they hear "Sauce Bob" is the
>buttery version. <shrug>
>
>Adamantius

Thank you for getting Avraham an answer faster than I.  I'm at the studio
now and did dig out the recipe that we use here in Bright Hills.
Barbe Robert: from A 1583 cookbook, attributed to Le Viandier de Guillaume
Tirel dit Tallevent, edited by Jerome Pichon.  Recipe 207.  Translation:
Take small onions fried in lard (or butter according to the day), verjuice,
vinegar, mustard, small spices and salt.  Boil everything together.

A similar recipe is mentioned in Le Menagier de Paris in recipe 30 when
describing sauces suitable for serving with Sole:  "then eat with..or in a
sauce of old verjuice, mustard and butter heated together."

La Varenne, in The French Cook, recipe 80 adds capers to the recipe:  "you
may put it with butter, a drop of verjuice and some mustard, you may also
mixe with it some capers and chibols."

Ingredients (for the version we make here in Bright Hills):
1 tsp minced capers
2 tsp minced green onions (white parts only)
2 tsps mustard (we usually use Bec's homemade mustard)
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp cider vinegar

Melt butter, add onions and capers, saute' lightly.  Add remaining
ingredients and whisk until smooth.

Olwen

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