[Sca-cooks] Meringues?

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- a5foil <a5foil at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> You know you're in the SCA when ... your
> 15-year-old daughter decides to
> translate and redact recipes from Taillevent
> for her French II final
> project.
> 
> She just asked me if meringues are period. She
> has lots of egg whites left
> over from making Tostees Dorrees and is looking
> for a way to use them. This
> is out of my area of expertise, so I thought
> I'd ask.
> 
> Cynara

According to the Oxford Companion to Food, 

"It sees to have been only in the 16th century
that European cooks discovered that beating egg
whites, e.g. with a whisk of birch twigs (in the
absence of any better implement), produced an
attractive foam.  At first the technique was used
to make a simple uncooked dish called Snow, made
from egg whites and cream.  However, cooking such
a foam would not have resulted in meringue, for
any fat in the mixture, as represented by the
cream, prevents the egg whites from taking on
the proper texture. (This is why when meringue is
made, the fatty yolks have to be carefully
separated.)  Even if the cream had been omitted,
there would have been technical problems.  The
presence of any particle of sugar larger than a
tiny speck causes absorption of moisture and the
problem known as 'weeping', drops of sticky
syrup.  The sugar has to be ground very fine and
added gradually.  Furthermore the light texture
of meringue makes it such an efficient heat
insulator that anything more than the thinnest
layer of meringue must be cooked very slowly
--more dried than baked--or the centre remains 
raw and collapses in a gummy mass.  Nevertheless,
snow was a beginning.

When true meringue made its appearance in the 
17th Century, it still lacked its name and was 
often called 'sugar puff'. Sometimes there were
flavoured with caraway seeds ..."

"It first appeared in print in Massailot (1691),
although earlier recipes for the same thing but
without the name had been published.  The name
travelled to England almost at once and first
appeared in print there in 1706."

Here is the recipe for "To make a dyschfull of
snowe".  From "A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye"
approx. 1575.

Take a pottell of swete thycke creame and the
whytes of eyghte egges, and beate them altogether
wyth a spone, then putte them in your creame and
a saucerfull of Rosewater, and a dyshe full of
Sugar wyth all, then take a stycke and make it
cleane, and then cutte it in the end foure 
square, and therwith beate all the aforesayde
thynges together and ever as it ryseth take it of
and put it in a Collaunder, this done take one
apple and set it in the myddes of it, and a thick
bushe of Rosemary, and set it in the myddes of
the platter, then cast your Snowe uppon the
Rosemarye and fyll your platter therewith.  And
yf you have wafers caste some in wyth all and
serve them forthe.

Here is my take on this:

8 egg whites
8 cups whipping cream, chilled
2 tablespoons superfine sugar
2 tablespoons rose water
1 medium-sized apple
1 8" sprig of fresh rosemary
Wafers or wafer cookies


Since beating egg whites and cream together won't
create a satifactory rise, beat the egg whites
until stiff, then beat the cream until stiff.
Beat in the sugar and rose water into the
whipped cream.  Fold in the egg whites and
the cream together until well blended.

Wash and dry the apple, pull off the stem, and
slice a piece off the base of it so that it will
stand firmly.  Rinse the rosemary in cold water
and shake off all the moisture.

Place the apple in the center of a serving dish 
and insert the sprig of rosemary into the apple
so that it is secure.  Shake several spoonfuls of
the mixture over the sprig, then pile the rest
lightly over and around the apple and the lower
section of the rosemary.  Set the wafers upright
into the mixture around the edge of the dish and
serve immediately.

I hope that this helps you.

Huette

=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.


	
		
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