[Sca-cooks] olives and candied carrots

[Jennifer / Guenievre]

> > Le Menagier de Paris (Janet Hinson, trans.)
> > "Take, around All Saints Day (November 1), large turnips, and peel them
> 
> Uh, Doc-- the part with the walnuts is PART of this recipe-- it's all
> one big layered preserve. Meant to mention that to you when I saw the
> recipe parsed that way on the medievalcookery page.


I'm a little confused as to why you say this - after reading the recipe
several times, it doesn't appear to me that it ever says to combine, or even
layer, the ingredients, just that they're all treated the same way, and the
dates are just as an indication of how mature the produce should be. Is the
combination assumed just b/c it's called compote?

Guenievre






> By the way, that medieval cookery page is wonderful, esp. the food
> index. Thanks for putting it up.
>
> Here's the complete preserve recipe:
> 
> 
> THIS IS THE WAY TO MAKE COMPOTE. Note that you must start by St. John's
> Day which is the twenty-fourth day of June.
> 
> First, take five hundred new walnuts, and be sure that neither the shell
> nor the kernel are yet formed and that the shell is also neither too
> hard nor too tender, and peel them all round, and then pierce them
> through or in a cross. And then put them to soak in water from the Seine
> or a spring, and change it every day: and they must soak ten to twelve
> days and they will become black and when you chew one you will not be
> able to taste any bitterness; and then put them on to boil in sweet
> water and let them boil just for the length of time it takes to say a
> Miserere, and until you see that there are none which are too hard or
> too soft. Then empty the water, and put them to drain on a screen, and
> then boil a sixth of honey or as much as they need to be all covered,
> and the honey should be strained and skimmed: and when it is cooled down
> to just warm, add your walnuts and leave them two or three days, and
> then put them to drain, and take as much of your honey as they can soak
> in, and put the honey on the fire and make it come to a good boil and
> skim it, and take it off the fire: and put in each hole in your walnuts
> a clove in one side and a little snip of ginger in the other, and then
> put them in the honey when it is lukewarm. And stir it two or three
> times a day, and at the end of three days take them out: and gather up
> the honey, and if there is not enough, add to it and boil and skim and
> boil, then put your walnuts in it; and thus each week for a month. And
> then leave them in an earthenware pot or a cask, and stir once a week.
> 
> Take, around All Saints Day (November 1), large turnips, and peel them
> and chop them in quarters, and then put on to cook in water: and when
> they are partially cooked, take them out and put them in cold water to
> make them tender, and then let them drain; and take honey and do the
> same as with the walnuts, and be careful not to over-cook your turnips.
> 
> Item, on All Saints, take carrots as many as you wish, and when they are
> well cleaned and chopped in pieces, cook them like the turnips. (Carrots
> are red roots which are sold at the Halles in baskets, and each basket
> costs one blanc.)
> 
> Item, take choke-pears and cut them in four quarters, and cook them like
> the turnips, and do not peel them; and do with them neither more nor
> less than with the turnips.
> 
> Item, when gourds are in season, take those which are neither too hard
> nor too tender, and peel them and remove the seeds and cut into
> quarters, and do the same to them as to the turnips.
> 
> Item, when peaches are in season, take the hardest and peel them and cut
> them up.
> 
> Item, around St. Andrew's Day, take roots of parsley and fennel, and
> scrape them, and chop them into small pieces, and split the fennel and
> remove the hard part, and do not do this to the parsley, and prepare
> them exactly the same way as told above, neither more nor less.
> 
> --
> -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
> "The toad beneath the harrow knows/exactly where each tooth-point goes,
> The butterfly upon the road/Preaches contentment to that toad."
> 			- Rudyard Kipling