[Sca-cooks] Re: Documentation help

[Barbara Benson]

Greetings,

I am afraid that you might run into difficulties there for the
following reason. These rhyming recipies, taught by mother to
daughter, were created to pass down information to those that could
not read. It was a way of passing on information by those who were not
literate. So, I believe that it will be very difficult to find written
documentation of items such as this:

1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk.
2 eggs beaten as fine as silk;
Salt and nutmeg, lemon will do,
Baking Powder teaspoons two;
Lightly stir the flour in,
Roll on pie-board, not too thin.
Drop with care the doughy things
Into the fat that briskly swells
Evenly the spongy cells.
Watch with care the time for turning,
Fry them brown just short of burning.
Roll in sugar, serve them cool
Price a quarter for this rule.

Lucretia Allyn Gurney, Oregon, 1851

Most of our written culinary manuscripts reflect the upper levels of
whatever society they were written for, and such rhyming verses are
found in the lower classes.

With that being said, I do have a link to a 16th century poem written
by Thomas Tusser: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/tusser1.html
It is 100 Good pointes of husbandrie, about gardening and household
management - not cooking.

Glad Tidings,
--Serena da Riva

> 1) I was actually asking about writing in verse.
> 
> 2) Any ideas on possible sources that might qualify as pre 15th Century?
> 
> -Ardenia