[Sca-cooks] Ballottines and Galantines, was: Ballantines

[Huette von Ahrens]

Actually the proper spelling is "ballottine".

According the the Oxford Companion to Food:

*Ballottine, a French tern which refers to a hot 
or cold dish consisting of meat or poultry that
has been boned, stuffed, rolled, tied up (often
inside a cloth), and braised or poached.  Its 
name is a diminutive form of French "ballotte",
which in turn is derived from "balle", meaning
'bale', to which a ballottine has an obvious
resemblence in form, although very much smaller.*

The OCF does not give the history of this dish.
Nor does the Larousse Gastronomique.

However, the LG did point me to Galantine, which
is related.  This is what the OCF says about
Galantines:

*Galantine, a culinary term in both English and
French, whose derivation presents complicated
questions which have been summarized by Ayro
(1993).

In early English cookery books, the term referred
to a sauce, previously written as 'galandine' and
before that as 'cameline'.  Even in the late 17th
century it is clear from the recipes of Robert 
May (1685) that galantine then was a 
dark-coloured sauce made with vinegar,
breadcrumbs, cinnamon, and sometimes other
spices.

Further back still, before developing into the
name of a sauce, galantine had meant simply the
jellied juices of fish or meat.  This sense
lingered on in France and eventually, in the 18th
century, crossed the Channel to England and
assumed there, as in France, its current meaning
of a preparation of white meat, 'boned, cooked,
pressed, and served cold with aspic'.*

So, while I can see a resemblence of a ballottine
to "olives of beef" [or various other spellings],
at this time I would say that both ballottines 
and galantines [as the meat dish, not the sauce]
are not period.

Huette

--- Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
wrote:
> Christianna mentioned:
> > He was making a Ballantine (meats wrapped and
> cooked
> > to form concentric circles when sliced).  He
> had  venison filet to use
> > as the center, but as the whole thing was
> assembled and ready to go, 
> > the
> > venison could not be found.
> Does anyone know if this dish is period? It
> sounds a lot like a 
> soteltie they would make, although fairly
> simple in shape. Kind of like 
> a tubular Turkducken(sp?).
> 
> Are these wrapped in a dough? Are these just
> made of meats or are there 
> other things used, such as a paste between the
> layers or perhaps 
> vegetable layers as well as meat layers?
> 
> Stefan
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad  
>  Kingdom of Ansteorra
>     Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas     
>     
> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: 
> http://www.florilegium.org ****
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>
http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks


=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree