[Sca-cooks] Fw: [SCA-AS] Links: The Staff of Life

[Phlip]

Aoife's latest List of URLs should be of interest to all of us...


Saint Phlip,
CoDoLDS

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lis" <liontamr at ptd.net>
To: <sca-aethelmearc-cooks at yahoogroups.com>; <scabakers at yahoogroups.com>;
"Thamesreach" <Thamesreach at yahoogroups.com>; "Stefan li Rous"
<StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>; "Siusan" <blondq at ptd.net>; "SCA Kingdom MOYs
List" <SCA_kingdom_childrens_officers at yahoogroups.com>; "Meg"
<lionus at ptd.net>; "Kathy Said" <sobheya at msn.com>; "Justin"
<publisher at scatoday.net>; "Joe Chrifffrillier" <chiffj at urbancom.net>;
"Joanne Herr" <jlherr at comcast.net>; "Gilbert" <wildcat2 at ptd.net>; "EKSouth"
<EKSouth at yahoogroups.com>; "Coco" <double07 at ptd.net>; "Briant"
<ladybriant at comcast.net>; "ArtsSciences"
<artssciences at lists.gallowglass.org>; "Alastar" <smorrisson at nauticom.net>;
"AE List" <sca-aethelmearc at andrew.cmu.edu>; "Endless Hills General
Discussion" <endlesshills at endlesshills.org>; "Mid List"
<johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Cc: <mk-cooks at midrealm.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 6:43 PM
Subject: [SCA-AS] Links: The Staff of Life


> Greetings everyone!
>
> This week's Links List is a bout Bread. Bread, yeast, flour, Baker's Marks
> and ovens are all covered here. Thought there were no surviving recipes
for
> bread? Think again. Can't figure out how to make Sourdough? This list is a
> good place to start. Want to build a medieval style bread oven? You can,
> with the information below.
>
> Please use this information as you see fit and "pay it forward" to those
who
> would be interested. Remember to carefully weigh the information you read.
> Not all of it should be taken as gospel. I've included, at the end, an OLD
> webpage of mine from many moons ago...when I built and fired and used a
> bee-hive oven for an even here in the Barony of the Endless Hills (or,
Shire
> as we were then!). I'd do it a bit differently if I could do it all over
> again, you know, mostly because I have so much more information to draw
from
> nowadays. Meanwhile, my old page stays up. It pops up every now and again
> when people contact me out of the blue for oven information. If this is a
> subject that is near to your heart, please join the SCAbakers list-serve
> (link below). Folks on there know a LOT about Historical baking, and the
> archives alone are filled with baking gold.
>
> Cheers
>
> Aoife
>
> Dame Aoife Finn
> Riverouge
> Aethelmearc
> a/k/a Lisbeth Herr Gelatt
>
>
> FAQ Medieval Bread
> http://www.whirlwind-design.com/madbaker/breadfaq.html
> (Site Excerpt from the "What was the Leavening used?" section)  Generally,
> sourdough - much like today, they would create a culture with flour and
> water to attract the local yeasts. This would either be maintained as a
> separate culture to mix into each batch, or more often, a bit of dough was
> kept from one day's batch to start the next. "Barm", or ale yeast, was
also
> widely used. Since producing carbonation for beer does not exhaust ale
> yeast, the dregs can be strained out and used to leaven bread. Bakers and
> brewers were often working side by side, if not the same person. (and from
> the "Were only Men allowed to be bakers?" section) Old English has both
> masculine and feminine words for bakers (baecere and baecestre) and the
word
> "lady" comes from the Old English word hlaefdige, which derives from
> hlaibadigon, or bread kneader.
>
> History.UK.com  Medieval Bread
> http://www.history.uk.com/recipes/index.php?archive=13
> (Site Excerpt) Its likely that trencher bread was only served at feasts
> where a person of substance was paying the bill. For the wealthier host,
> bread trenchers were relatively cheap and had the bonus of being easy to
> prepare and use. Meat with sauce was served directly onto the bread
platter,
> which had a shallow hollow or 'trench' cut into the bread to retain any
> gravy or juices. Medieval meat was served in bite-sized chunks. The cut
> worked well on the platters and was easily eaten with the fingers or
stabbed
> with a thin bladed knife. Slices would have been much harder to handle.
>
> The World of Richard Cullinan: A Short Note on Medieval Bread.
> http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rcull/bread.htm
> (Site Excerpt) One of the main components of the European diet is bread.
One
> of the most surprising things I encountered when I first started looking
at
> period recipes was the lack of recipes for bread. In fact, this belief is
so
> widespread that Black has this to say:
> We have no recipes for medieval breads, but we know their names and uses
as
> well as Chaucer's miller did. The finest, whitest wheat flour, boulted
> several times, made bread called wastel or paynedemain (demesne bread).
This
> is what the prioress fed to her dogs. The only finer flour was the wheaten
> type used for the light pastries called simnels and cracknels, or wafers
> (the sacramental Host consisted of these delicate white wafers).
>
> Bread Oven, Thetford Priory
> http://www.aoqv41.dsl.pipex.com/album/priory/oven2.htm
> A photo of the oven, which is completely intact, circa 16th century.
>
> History Learning Site: Medieval Food and Drink
> Food and Drink in Medieval England
> http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/food_and_drink_in_medieval_engla.htm
> (Site Excerpt: Note, this site is for school children and is somewhat
> simplistic) Most people in Medieval England ate bread. People preferred
> white bread made from wheat flour. However, only the richer farmers and
> lords in villages were able to grow the wheat needed to make white bread.
> Wheat could only be grown in soil that had received generous amounts of
> manure, so peasants usually grew rye and barley instead.
>
> Midlaurel Links Medieval Arts and Sciences Web: Bread Articles Links
> http://www.midlaurel.com/wsnlinks/index.php?action=displaycat
>
> Early Agricultural Remnants and Technical Heritage: Aspects of Swedish
> prehistoric bread: identification and symbolic use   by Ann-Marie Hansson
> http://www.earth.arts.gla.ac.uk/Activities/Hansson.htm
> (Site Excerpt) Loaves of bread are sometimes used as grave gifts in
> cremation graves, especially during the later Iron Age. In many graves
there
> are also found small burnt concretions, some of which might be fragments
> from bread, porridge or the like. It is now possible to separate this type
> of organic remains from organic residues of other origins, using help of
> Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy analysis.
>
> Stefan's Florilegium: Ancient Grains
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/Ancent-Grains-art.html
> Also see: Food - Breads and Grains
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/idxfood-breads.html and the
> Ovens Message at
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-UTENSILS/ovens-msg.html
>
> The Flour of Chivalry:
> The Rise of Bakers' Guilds in the Middle Ages
> http://www.whirlwind-design.com/madbaker/bakerguild.html
> (Site Excerpt) The most widespread regulation was the "Assize of Bread".
> This English law of 1266 attempted to standardize the various local
> policies - although in practice, it was not any simpler. The Assize
directed
> bakers to make a common weight of bread known as a penny loaf. However,
the
> loaf could vary in weight, and thus price, according to the type of flour
> used: the white loaf was made from the finest white flour available; the
> "wheaten" loaf was coarser, and weighed half again as much; "household"
> loaves were approximately double white loaves, made from unbolted flour
"as
> it cometh from the mill." This sounds fairly clear, but bread weights were
> inconsistently based on the going local rate of grain, and weights
differed
> throughout the country. The Judgment of the Pillory was a law spelling out
> procedures to investigate and punish offenders.
>
> A bit more information on Baker's Marks
> http://www.whirlwind-design.com/madbaker/marks.html
> (Site Excerpt) (After making the dough into loaves, but before baking) the
> bread then received a "mark" unique to each baker which permitted, at the
> time of inspection, a quick and indisputable identification of the bakery
> where the merchandise came from. The marking of bread, like that of beer
> barrels and many other non-alimentary products, only became obligatory
> throughout Europe in the second half of the 15th century. The bakers
became
> constrained at the time they set up shop, when they "put out their
shingle",
> to choose a mark.
>
> Gode Cookery: Breads, Cakes and Pastries recipes
> http://www.godecookery.com/mtrans/mtrans.htm#breads
>
> History Magazine: Bread
> http://www.history-magazine.com/bread.html
> (Site Excerpt) Bread and the Law Bread was so vital to people's lives that
> it was subject of special laws almost everywhere. As early as medieval
> times, bakers were subject to regulations which were supposed to protect
the
> consumer. The price of wheat in England has been recorded continually
since
> about 1200 and even in times of generally stable prices, it could
fluctuate
> dramatically. What made the price of bread so sensitive is that most
people
> had little opportunity to substitute other foods.
>
> SCA Bakers e-group homepage (be sure to look at the archives, too)
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scabakers/
> (Site Excerpt) This site is for bakers of all ages and skill, to gather
and
> discuss baking techniques from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, roughly
> 600-1600 ce. This includes any manner of breads, cakes, or pies that would
> have been baked in an oven or over a fire and the items that would have
been
> used for baking (pots, pans, ovens, kneading troughs, rotary kerns, etc.).
> Our discussion need not be limited to European recipes, and can include
> recipes and techniques from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. This site
is
> primarily for people who are members of the Society for Creative
Anachronism
> (SCA), but anyone who is interested in learning about the history of
baking
> is welcome.
>
> A Brief Note on Yeast (Stefan's Florilegium) copyright Terry Nutter
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/BNYeast-art.html
> (Site Excerpt) In their article "Winemaking in the Modern Middle Ages" in
> volume ten of the Boke_of_Divers_Knowlege_, Lord Ivan Kalinin and Lady
> Valentina Krasnaya (Jay
> Toser and Christa Toser) write: "Yeast is not mentioned as a separate
entity
> until Louis Pasteur discovered it in 1857." Claims of this sort must, I
> think,
> be very carefully stated, or they risk misconstrual. It would be natural
to
> concluded from this, that medieval brewers, bakers, and cooks had no
notion
> of
> an ingredient corresponding to yeast, let alone of different strains of
it.
> That conclusion would be false; and the culinary recipe corpus clearly
> attests
> its falsehood.
>
> City of London Worshipful Company of Bakers
> http://www.bakers.co.uk/
> (Site Excerpt from a bakers guild that is 800 years old) The Company is
one
> of the oldest City of London Liveries with a history dating back over 800
> years. The first known records of the existence of the Bakers' Guild are
> contained in the great 'Pipe Rolls' of Henry II which listed the yearly
> 'farm' paid to the Crown and in these it is shown that the Bakers of
London
> (the BOLENGARII) paid a Mark of gold to the King's Exchequer for their
Guild
> from 1155 AD onwards. (See also 2000 years od baking at
> http://www.bakers.co.uk/about-history.php4  and Olde Recipes at
> http://www.bakers.co.uk/recipes.php4).
>
> MOAS Atlantia
> http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/topics.htm
> Click on the Cooking and Food links, and scroll down to Bread, to find a
> large array of links. Many are not working, but many of them ARE. Large
> number of links for ethnic breads.
>
>  Medieval Russia -- Food and Drink
> http://medievalrussia.freeservers.com/food-hungry.html
> (Site Excerpt) what foods were eaten in medieval Russia? It is simple
enough
> to deduce what foods were not part of the diet, since some staples of
modern
> Russian cuisine are New World foods: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, green
> peppers. And some standard foodstuffs are as old as the land (or almost):
> rye, wheat, millet, barley, oats. These grains were used predominantly to
> prepare sourdough bread. Buckwheat was introduced only in the XV century,
> but as we know, it has become one of the most common foods in Russian
> cuisine. Grains were also used to prepare a variety of porridges ("kasha"
> refers to a porridge-like dish, not to buckwheat only). These porridges
> could be sweet or savory, a meal in themselves or a side dish.
>
> Building and Using a Medieval-Style Hemispherical Bake Oven © 1999 Carolyn
> Priest-Dorman
> http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/brikoven.html
> (Site Excerpt) Our oven is an unvented hemispherical structure with one
> door, built on a small wood-framed platform; the oven causes no fire
hazard
> to turf because of the dirt-filled, brick-faced platform. Our oven is
based
> on one from the 12th century found in an excavation at York, England
(i.e.,
> Norman period), although it is similar to earlier Viking Age ones. The
> original was made out of wickerwork and completely covered inside and out
> with daub. However, in order to make a wickerwork oven you need a
three-week
> period before use in order to ensure that it is dried and fired correctly.
> Needless to say, we don't have that kind of time at Pennsic, so we make do
> with a different armature.
>
> Experiments with Early Medieval Ovens by Matt Smalley, UK
>
http://www.rete-amicorum.de/english_version/projekte/experimente/lehmofen/lehmofen.html
> (Site Excerpt) The oven at West Stow was built by members of the living
> history society Angelcynn. Its 'footprint' was the exact shape and size of
a
> 7th Century oven found on the site during archaeological excavations. The
> height of the original oven is unknown. The reconstruction was carried out
> by members of the society with previous experience of reconstructing early
> medieval ovens. The base of the oven consisted of a layer of flint,
covered
> with a mix of straw, sand and clay. The walls were constructed with a
wicker
> framework of young, green willow withies, over which was plastered, both
> inside and outside, a thick layer of the clay mixture. The oven was quite
> small, had a smokehole at the back and a low entrance tunnel at the front.
> After construction the oven was allowed to dry slowly, then 'fired' by
> building a fire in the front entrance of the oven, and then slowly moving
> the fire inside over a period of several hours.
>
> A VERY old site of Aoife's, and she was surprised to see it was still up
and
> active and HIGHLY traficked:
> Beehive Oven: how we did it, why we did it, what it was like.
> http://members.tripod.com/~AoifeFinn/oven.html
> (See espescially the photos. Site excerpt) How to fire and use an earthen
> oven:
>     Use kindling to start a small fire inside the oven. Chop firewood
>     into slim, short pieces and use these to build a quick, hot fire.
>     Keep this fire going fairly strong (fire shooting out the top hole
>     (if you have one) is appropriate so long as you do not set the camp
>     on fire! We pre-heated the oven for the length of time it took the
>     bread to go through 2 risings on a chilly day (about 3 hours). By
>     this time we judged it had stored enough heat to bake our bread.
>     The fire was shovelled out and the ashes swept out quickly, and the
>     loaves were placed in side. The oven was sealed with a rock door
>     that had also been pre-heated (use thick leather gloves to handle
>     large, hot rocks!). The bread baked in the expected amount of time.
>     The oven had to go through another brief firing in order to bake a
>     second batch.
>
> Simple Sourdough
> How to Bake the Best Bread in the World By Mark Shepard
> http://www.markshep.com/nonviolence/Sourdough.html
> (Site Excerpt) It's funny to hear people talk about buying sourdough
> starter. Buying starter is a lot like buying air. Because that's where the
> sourdough "yeast" comes from. Forget fancy starter recipes-especially the
> ones telling you to add baker's yeast! Just put a little whole wheat flour
> in a small dish and mix in some water till it's like pancake batter. Then
> set it out uncovered, in a warm place, but out of direct sunlight. (Exact
> amounts really don't matter, but if you need a guideline, try half a cup
of
> flour with an equal amount of water. After evaporation, that should yield
> about half a cup of starter.) The starter mixture will pick up wild
"yeast"
> from the air-actually, a variety of microorganisms-and feed them. Within a
> few days, the mixture should bubble and smell sour.
>
> rec.food.sourdough FAQ.Starter.Doctor
> http://www.faqs.org/faqs/food/sourdough/starters/
> (Site Excerpt) When you are getting started, or when you are trying to
> troubleshoot
> a starter, then the first thing you need to do is accurately
> determine what state it is in.  I've noticed that many people,
> including people with more experience, still have questions about
> determining what the current state a starter is in based upon visual
> clues.  I'm sure everyone knows at least most of the following
> material, but there should be a little something for everyone in it.
> Neophyte sourdough bakers or people starting new starters should find
> the most use out of this information.  Finally, although these
> techniques work well and are well-proven in my kitchen, they are by
> far not the only techniques which work.  They are good guidelines
> though and the neophyte should at least try following them before
> experimenting with other methods.
>
> The Biodiversity of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Greek Traditional Wheat
> Sourdoughs Is Reflected in Both Composition and Metabolite Formation
> Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology
> http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/68/12/6059
> (Site Excerpt) Application of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel
> electrophoresis of total cell protein, randomly amplified polymorphic
> DNA-PCR, DNA-DNA hybridization, and 16S ribosomal DNA sequence analysis,
in
> combination with physiological traits such as fructose fermentation and
> mannitol production, allowed us to classify the isolated bacteria into the
> species Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, Lactobacillus brevis,
Lactobacillus
> paralimentarius, and Weissella cibaria. This consortium seems to be unique
> for the Greek traditional wheat sourdoughs studied.
>
> You can buy regional Sourdough strains from around the world at:
Sourdo.com
> http://www.sourdo.com/
> (Site Excerpt) Sourdoughs International is dedicated to promoting the
> resurgence of sourdough bread baking. For over 5 ,000 years, from man's
> first bread in Egypt to about 100 years ago, all bread was leavened with
> wild yeast. In addition to the many wild yeast strains in sourdough
> cultures, lactic acid bacteria generate 45 flavor producing ingredients.
> Breads baked with commercial yeast can never equal the flavor and texture
of
> sourdoughs.
>
>
>
> "How many ideas have there been in history that were unthinkable ten years
> before they appeared?"--Fyodor Dostoyevsky
>
> _______________________________________________
> Artssciences mailing list
> Artssciences at lists.gallowglass.org
> http://lists.gallowglass.org/mailman/listinfo/artssciences
>
>