[Sca-cooks] Compost: Black Radishes, Carrots

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I'm going over my website, doing a little fine tuning - i'm 
redecorating for visual consistency and doing a very modest amount of 
re-writing to make my recipes clearer. (Don't all go rushing over to 
see, i haven't loaded the changes up yet)

While going over my Compost recipe, i discovered i had a couple 
questions about what i did, the reasons for which i am uncertain.

Here's the original recipe:

Forme of Cury 103
Take rote of parsel, of pasternak, of rafens, scrape hem and waische 
hem clene. Take rapes & caboches, ypared and icorue. Take an erthen 
panne with clene water & set it on the fire; cast all (th)ise 
(th)erinne. When (th)ey buth boiled cast (th)erto peeres, & perboile 
hem wel. Take alle (th)ise thynges vp & lat it kele on a faire cloth. 
Do (th)erto salt; whan it is colde, do hit in a vessel; take vinegar 
& powdour & safroun & and do (th)erto, & lat alle (th)ise thynges lye 
(th)erin al ny(gh)t, o(th)er al day. Take wyne greke & honey, 
clarified togider; take lumbarde mustard & raisouns coraunce, al 
hoole, & grynde powdour of canel, powdour douce, anys hole, & fenell 
seed. Take alle (th)ise thynges & castt togyder in a pot of erthe, & 
take (th)erof whan (th)ou wilt & serue forth.

My Modern Transcription
Take root of parsley, of parsnip, of radishes, scrape them and wash 
them clean. Take white turnips & cabbages, pared and cored. Take a 
ceramic pan with clean water & set it on the fire; cast all these 
therein. When they have boiled cast thereto pears, & parboil them 
well. Take all these things up & let it cool on a clean cloth. Do 
thereto salt; when it is cold, put it in a vessel; take vinegar & 
[spice] powder & saffron & and do thereto, & let all these things lie 
therein all night, or all day. Take Greek wine [i.e., sweet white 
wine, NOT retsina] & honey, clarified together; take Lombard mustard 
& raisins of Corinth [i.e., dried currants], all whole, & grind 
powder of cinnamon, powder douce, whole anise, & fennel seed. Take 
all these things & cast together in a ceramic pot, & take thereof 
when thou wilt & serve forth.

First, for a reason i no longer remember, i used black radishes in my 
Compost (recipe in Form of Cury), not daikon or rosy salad radishes. 
Anyone have any theories as to why i might have done this?

Second, i included carrots in my Compost, which seems a common thing 
to do among us SCAdian cooks, as well as parsnips. But carrots aren't 
actually mentioned explicitly in the original recipe. Grieve's Herbal 
has useful info at
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/c/carrot24.html
regarding the "confusion" among parsnips, skirrets, and carrots. So, 
should the Compost have only parsnips or only carrots? Does it make 
sense to include both? I am asking from an historical point of view, 
not a flavor or appearance point of view.

In case anyone wants to look, my recipe is at
http://home.earthlink.net/~lilinah/2000_Boar_Hunt/2000-0c-compost.html
Note that there are typos on the page which I have corrected in the 
not yet up-loaded new page.

Anahita