[Sca-cooks] Need some fast help

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach RV Carper:
>Hello everybody, my name is Elewyiss and I'm a ditz.

I doubt that. Is this some kinda 12-step program? What you are is a 
person who doesn't know something, and wants to find out. Like 
Stephen Hawking and Einstein... Leonardo da Vinci... Deal, okay ;-) ?

>  I have an herbal tea I am giving for my Barony on Wednesday. I know 
>nothing about tea and how to make it. I was going to make a sage tea 
>and a mint tea. Do I just steep the fresh leaves in hot water? Do I 
>have to add anything besides the sage? Does anybody know if it was 
>actually called tea in period?

I think an herbal infusion in most of period is known by some 
variation on athanasia: in English, often the word "tansy" is used 
(this also can refer to an herb by that name, but usage should make 
that fairly clear usually). "Tea" is derived from the Chinese "cha" 
or 'chai", and doesn't show up in England (and probably elsewhere in 
Europe) until the 17th century or so, and referred to the actual tea 
plant and infusions or decoctions thereof.

I'm not sure what I can add to your technique, except to recommend 
you try different ways.

>I was also going to make sekanjabin (Sorry, lost the sticky with the 
>proper spelling), does anyone have a favorite flavour? I was 
>thinking lemon or orange. Having used the mint in the tea.

I think if you use lemon or orange, you're straying into jalab 
territory, or simply "syrup of X".

>Also, I have a recipe for ketsup I was hoping to get some input on 
>the redaction.
>
>Take a pound of anchovies washed and grated, mace and cloves, half 
>an ounce of each; a quarter of an ounce of pepper, three races of 
>ginger, a pound of shallots and a quart of flap mushrooms well 
>rubbed and picked. Put all these to one gallon of strong stale beer 
>and boil it till it is almost half wasted; then strain it through a 
>Flannel Bag, and when cold bottle and stop it close.
>
>
>
>I only want to make at most half this recipe. Should I use canned 
>anchovies or anchovie paste?

Hmmm. Paste, I think, or possibly one of the Asian fish sauces. What 
the recipe is calling for are salted anchovies, which are little salt 
fish, and not the salty fillets in oil that we often get in cans or 
jars in the US. You may find that if fat gets into the ketchup, it 
could become rancid. (I'm guessing here.)

>  And what is a race?

A root. A single, large, branch, I'd say, as opposed to a "hand", 
which is the entire connected root system or a large portion thereof. 
So, a whole finger instead of a hand, if you follow this rather vague 
illustration.

>  And when they say shallots, do they mean the small bulb onions?

I can't see why they wouldn't mean what most moderns (regional 
dialects notwithstanding, like, say, areas where scallions or green 
onions are known as shallots) mean: a multi-cloved, small sweet 
reddish-skinned oniony entities.

>  And how much will it change the recipe if I don't use stale beer? 
>Was the use of stale beer because of taste or economics?

Stale in the sense of, fully fermented and not full of active yeast, 
not stale as in funky-tasting and no longer fresh. As in the 
expression, "English Ale, good and stale". I'd use something not very 
hoppy, maybe a bock beer (Hi, Gunthar!), which is strong and of good 
mouth feel/body/gravity, but not really bitter, especially if it's 
going to be reduced by half.

HTH,

Adamantius
-- 
  "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04