[Sca-cooks] cherry soup

[Stefan li Rous]

Brighid commented:
> All of these recipes look OOP to me.  I don't recognize any of them as 
> being
> from period sources, and they all have a modern "feel" to me.
Yes, that is my impression as well.
> The cherry soup recipe sounds vaguely familiar.  I think I saw 
> something like it
> in the recipe section of the Known World Handbook, many years ago.  It 
> was one
> of various traditional ethnic recipes that were provided as possible
> selections for a medievaloid feast.
Well, cherry soup shows up twice in the Florilegium, one in the feast 
menus file and once in the cherries-msg file, in this message where 
Adamantius was replying to me:
> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 15:22:57 -0400
>  From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
>  Subject: Re: SC - cherries
>
> Mark Harris wrote:
> > Is this Russian Cherry Soup period? Sounds like it probably isn't. 
> Could
>  > you please post this recipe anyway? Or send to me by email? It 
> sounds
>  > interesting.
>
> I suspect that it probably is period, or derived from some earlier
>  version that is. An earlier version of the "Syrosye" recipe calls for
>  the inclusion of "vlehs gret", or great flesh, which is probably 
> chunks
>  or slices of a large joint cooked (or partly cooked) whole and
>  separately, either by boiling or roasting. The thickening of bread
>  crumbs suggests it is quite early, too. Actually the Russian Cherry 
> Soup
>  sounds like borscht made with cherries. (Doesn't borscht just mean 
> soup
>  anyway? But you know what I mean.)

<snip>
>  Adamantius

And later in the file:
>  Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 20:43:27 -0400
>  From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
>  Subject: Re: SC - RE: Cherry soup? Or cherry pudding?
>
> "Peters, Rise J." wrote:
>  > So... do you have a recipe you're willing to share?  Since you say 
> "always
>  > made" it, I'm assuming it turned out well enough that you were 
> willing to
>  > eat it more than once.<g>
>
> Courtesy of East Kingdom 12th Night, A.S. XXXI...
>
> Syrosye
>
> "To make a syrosye.  Tak cheryes & do out *e stones & grynde hem wel &
>  draw hem *orw a streynoure & do it in a pot.  & do *erto whit gres or
>  swete botere & myed wastel bred, & cast *erto good wyn & sugre, & 
> salte
>  it & stere it wel togedere, & dresse it in disches;  & set *eryn clowe
>  gilofre, & strew sugre aboue."
>        Curye On  Inglysch, Book III, Utilis Coquinario,  Ed. Constance 
> B.
>  Hieatt & Sharon Butler, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985
>
>         In other words... To make some cherries. Take cherries, pit 
> them, pureé
>  them, and put them in a pot. Add lard or sweet butter and some white
>  bread crumbs, and add some good wine and sugar. Salt it and stir well,
>  serve it in dishes, and garnish with cloves and sugar.
>          I’m assuming some actual cooking takes place here, if only to 
> melt the
>  lard or butter.  Bread crumbs are a matter of taste. I opted for a
>  rather thin soup, but the actual dish was probably a bit thicker. Some
>  people use enormous quantities of bread crumbs to get a pudding-like
>  "standing pottage", but the recipe doesn’t call for that, and it’s
>  nasty, to boot. I suspect the cloves are intended to be left whole,
>  rather than ground, since powder of cloves is a known, standard, 14th
>  century ingredient which could have easily been specified if intended.
>  We used powdered cloves, to avoid expensive dental accidents in dim
>  feast halls.  As for sugar, it was probably sprinkled lavishly on top
>  partly for the look, which probably  means there was a bit less in 
> total
>  than if it had been simply mixed in.
>
>         For eight servings:
>
>         2 quarts pitted morello cherries in juice (If jars are less 
> than a
>            quart, add bottled or canned cherry juice to compensate)
>          1/2 - 3/4  cup unseasoned white bread crumbs, preferably fresh
>          1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar (granulated light brown is ideal, but 
> white is O.K.)
>          1/2 cup red wine
>          3 Tbs butter
>          1/2 - 1 tsp powdered cloves
>          Salt
>
>         Puree the cherries in a food mill or processor. Put everything 
> but the
>  butter, the cloves and the salt into a pot and bring to a boil, 
> whipping
>  to break up any breadcrumb lumps. Add cloves to taste. Cut cold butter
>  into small pieces and drop them into the simmering liquid, one at a a
>  time, whipping constantly until each is melted and incorporated, 
> before
>  adding the next (otherwise you’ll have a layer of grease floating on
>  top). Salt to taste and serve.
>
> Adamantius

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****