[Sca-cooks] Doreures et leschefrites

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Alex Clark:
>Thanks! Maybe I should read _Curye on Inglysch_ every time I have 
>questions about _le Menagier_. :-) It seems like "doreures de 
>pommeaulx et de pe`s d'Espaigne et de chastellier" might translate 
>pretty well to "English" as "pomme dorryse and potte wys and 
>chastletes". That's IV 182, IV 185, and IV 197.

Well, frankly, what better way to answer a question you may have from 
a 1390 CE cookbook than another 1390 CE cookbook, if possible? ;-)

>  This raises a new question: the recipe for chastletes seems to 
>distinguish between the fillings that retain their natural color and 
>those that are colored with saffron, saunders, or something green 
>(parsley, perhaps); does this mean that only the fillings are 
>colored, or should the pastry be colored too? Taillevent isn't 
>helping -- he wants to cover his tower with linen, which suggests 
>that it's not for eating.

AAAAGGGHHH!!! Would Johnnae and the lady who was translating the 
Italian recipe for stuffed shoulder of castrone please look at 
Taillevent, recipe #212, and tell me it's not either the same recipe 
with minor changes, or possibly inspired by the same thing? I'd 
assume that after having gone to the trouble to make the filling 
edible, it's intended to be eaten. I wonder if your translator's use 
of "linen" is correct. Taillevent uses the noun "ratiz", which might 
be from the Latin "reticulum", which is a sort of net, I believe, but 
Chiquart uses the word "crepinette", which, as today, can mean 
_either_ a kind of cloth, but _also_ caul fat and foods bundled 
therein. Today, a crepinette in culinary parlance is a sort of 
sausage-burger wrapped in caul.

>BTW, Scully's Taillevent is now on my shopping list.

It's a good piece of work. The other gentle who also responded to 
your question, Thorvald, also has done a good translation of 
Taillevent. You might ask him about it. I STR there are some areas 
where Thorvald and Scully disagree, but I believe both are better 
than most of the other versions available.

Adamantius