[Sca-cooks] Brears on the Boiling House

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

This is the stuff from Peter Brears, _All the Kings Cooks_ on the Boiling
House at Hamptom Coure palace.

"At Hampton Court, a lead, or copper boiler, was installed in the boiling
house in September 1531. It was probably coated with tin inside, like the
boiling vessels listed in the inventory of all equipment in palace's
kitchens drawn up for the Commonwealth in 1659, and like the copper pans
used in any modern restaurant kitchen. (Without this tinning, the copper
is attacked by the acids in the food, dissolving into it, spoiling the
taste and eventually causing poisoning.) Early in the morning the lead
would be filled with water -- it probably had its own supply on tap from a
cistern full of spring water in the rooms above. Faggots or similar
fast-burning timber would then be lit and fed into the long firebox
underneath, which had raised firebars to ensure that the fuel burned as
fiercely as possible. From here the flames played directly on to the base
of the copper and then were drawn up the flues at the back of it and
forwards around the upper parts of both sides, to ensure that they made
maximum contact with the huge cauldrom before being carried away up the
chimney.

Although Hampton Court's original copper does not survive, the dimensions
of the surrounding masonry and furnance arch show that it must have held
around 80 gallons (364 litres), which would have given it the capacity to
boil batches of around two hundred messes-- enough to serve eight hundred
people at a time. On the other hand, given that the household regulations
state that its primary purpose was to boil all the beef, it would have
been barely large enough to meet the demands placed upon it unless the
better-quality beef for the the nobles etc. was boiled in the Lord's side
kitchen -- as may have been the case.

>From its position, it looks as thought the boiling house was used as a
preparation facility for the pastry and main kitchens too. There would
certainly have been time to recieve the raw meats from the larder each
night or early morning, parboil some of them between, say, 5 and 7:30 a.m.
for transfer to the pastry for pie- and pastry-making, or to the kitchens
for roasting, and still boil a batch of 200 two-pound (900g) beef joints
ready for dinner at 10 am. Needless to say, the boiling house would have
been constantly bustling, the staff busy non-stop with trimming and
trussing the joints, putting them into the copper, stoking the fire,
baling out the boiled meats into kettles and pans for transfer to the
pastry, the other kitchens or the serving hatches. Then, once dinner had
been served, they would start all over again so as to be ready for the
four o'clock supper. For all this, in addition to their wages, the boiling
house staff recieved the strippings from the brisket joints, the grease
produced from the transfer of the meat from the boiler into the kettles
and pans, and the dripping from the roasts in the kitchen.

The major by-product of the boiling house was pottage. As the
ever-informative Andrew Boorde recorded, 'Pottage is not so much used in
al Crystendom as it is used in Englande. Potage is made of the lyquor in
which flesshe is sodden [boiled] in, with puttyng-to chopped herbes and
oatmeal and salt.'"

Later on, Brears says (in reference to the kitchens):

"It is possible that the cooks followed the international peasant practice
of maintaining what Alexandre Dumas called 'the eternal kettle.' The
enternal kettle is -- or rather was, since this illustrious gastronomic
institution long ceased to function-- a receptacle that never left the
fire, day or night. As a chicken was taken out of it another was put in,
as a piece of beef was taken out, another would take its place; a glass of
water would be added whenever a cup of broth was removed. Every kind of
meat that cooked in this boullion gained rather than lost in flavour, for
it inherited the juices provided by all the meat that preceded it and in
turn bequeathed some of its own. It was not necessary to leave the meat in
the kettle any longer than it required to cook, so it lost none of its
qualities."

Of his own experience with a variation of this method traditional to
Yorkshire, he says:

"... I was able to put it to the test there by cooking all my food in a
cauldron over an open fire for two weeks. In this region, the pot was
taken off the fire every evening, so that in the morning when it was cold,
all the congealed fat was carefully skimmed off, the pot placed over the
fire, fresh water added until it was half full, and all the scum skimmed
off immediately it came to the boil. The meat, such as fresh beef or
mutton or a trussed chicken, was then put in, each at the appropriate
time, so as to be just ready for the required meal, and left to barely
simmer. About an hour before they were to be served,  the larger whole
scrubbed vegetables  were added, their unbroken skins ensuring that they
maintained virtually all their original flavour as they cooked.
(Alternatively, the smaller vegetables such as peas and beans, and the
larger chopped ones, can be put in a little later, having first put them
in a thin cloth or a string bag.) Neither salt nor spices were put in,
though, because their flavours would accumulate and spoil the stock. When
the meal was ready, some of the stock was simply ladled out into a dish as
the first course, then the meat and the vegetables withdrawn a little
later for the main course. After this the skimmer was used to remove every
particle of solid food from the pot, and it was set aside in a cool place
until required again, unless needed to prepare the second meal of the day.
Since the stock was boiled for two or three hours every day, and contained
no cereals or other solid matter at any other time, it always remained
perfectly sweet, its flavour improving in richness and quality as the days
passed. This very practical method would certainly have been suitable fr
use in the kitchens of Hampton Court."

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
 "in verbis et in herbis, et in lapidibus sunt virtutes"
(In words, and in plants, and in stones, there is power.)