[Sca-cooks] Drachma Weight

[Terry Decker]

>Cooks bought some things (meat, fish) by Avoirdupois (or by local
>weight).  Cooks bought the spices and related items including sugar
>by Troy (Apothecary).

What evidence do you have that the cooks made the purchases?  While the cook
might have been consulted and may have evaluated the food, the actual
purchase was more likely to have been made by the steward or an assistant.
Foodstuffs would have been released to the Kitchen based on the menu and the
input would be compared to the portions delivered to the bar to determine if
there was any defalcation in the Kitchen.

>For things like butter, we can't make up our minds today.  One recipe
>will call for butter by weight, and the next for butter by US volume.

Weight is more accurate, but standard volumes can be equated to weights.
Baking and large scale cooking tend to go with weight.  Small family cooking
recipes tend to make things simple by using volumes.

>
>Is there any archaeological or documentary evidence to prove what
>a cook did in any particular time and place in the middle ages?

Yes.  IIRC, both Rumpolt and Chiquart describe the duties of the cook, there
are a number of paintings and drawings, and the household accounts provide
an interesting look at the economics of the Kitchen and the Bakery.

>
>   Interesting aside:  Even until quite late English bread was sold by
>   Troy weight.

Actually, it was sold by multiple standard weight loaves as defined by the
Assize of Bread.  After the Assize was rescinded, bread was sold strictly by
weight.  The use of Troy measure is merely a matter of traditional weight
originating under the Assize of Bread.  I suspect that this may not be based
on a true Troy measure, but on the "Tower" weight of the pound sterling
which is similar.
>
>
>Viandier *does* specify in some recipes that he is using the Paris
>volume measure.  Menagier *does* give two versions of a recipe for
>Hippocras, one for Paris volume measure, and one for the local volume
>measure for Béziers, Carcassonne, and Montpellier (presumably the
>three were close enough that the same recipe would work for any of
>them).  So clearly they were aware of the issue for different
>volumes.  Was there an issue for weights?  Or was it too obvious
>to require writing about?
>
>
>The Hippocras recipes in Menagier give us one more data point.
>
>The second Hippocras recipe implies that there may have been two
>sets of weights in the kitchen, for it says (Power translation)
>"with it put a pound and half a quarter (by the heavy weight) of
>lump sugar".
>
>Does this mean that he is using Paris or Avoirdupois for the
>lump sugar?  The Paris and Avoirdupois pounds weigh more than
>the Troy pound, and either might be the "heavy weight".  On the
>other hand, the Troy ounce is the heaviest of the three.
>
>If the lump sugar were exceptionally weighed using "heavy weight",
>this suggests that by contrast that all of the other spices were
>being weighed using the "light weight".  If the comparative weight
>of the pound is what mattered, this would strongly suggest that the
>spices were being weighed, even in the kitchen, using Troy (Apothecary)
>weight.  So the lump sugar may have been purchased using Troy and
>weighed in the kitchen for this recipe using either Avoirdupois or
>Paris weight.
>
>
>Thorvald

Paris weight is based on the French standard livre.  Since this is heavier
than the equivalent Troy measure, it is probably also Menagier's "heavy
weight" while the Troy measure is probably the "light weight."  As I recall,
Menagier is roughly contemporary with the establishment of the Paris
standard.

Bear