[Sca-cooks] Junket

[Stefan li Rous]

Vittoria asked:
> "Junket.
> Take pure milk, clear, strained, and add kid or lamb rennet; and when 
> it is
> curdled, wash it well, and put it between reeds, and give it to your 
> Lord;
> or put it in cold water instead until it is time to eat."
>
> Since the meal I'm planning this for is at a camping event, I'd need to
> make the junket anywhere from a week to a day in advance, so the 
> pressed
> version seems more appropriate.  On the other hand, if it's going to be
> very time-consuming or difficult, perhaps I ought to just buy more 
> cheeses
> and devote my energies to the more substantial and central parts of the
> meal... which brings me back to the question of what a finished junket
> looks like, anyway. :-)

Thanks for this quote and source. I don't think I've seen this 
particular one before.

This should be a rather simple cheese for you to make. I've never done 
it myself, but we've had various discussions on fresh cheese here 
before and I've attended several classes on making cheese. This is 
pretty much the first cheese which is usually discussed. Your main 
concern is going to be getting a hold of some rennet. Today it may be 
artificially produced rather than being recovered from kid or lamb 
stomaches. But it should be readily available to you locally as well as 
online. I think there are some sources for rennet given in these files.

Here are a few Florilegium files in the FOOD section which might be of 
use:
fresh-cheeses-msg (43K) 3/28/04   Fresh cheeses such as ricotta, cream 
cheese
                                      and cottage cheese. Non-aged 
cheeses.
Cheese-Making-art (30K) 9/29/97   "Cheese Making for the Compleat 
Novice" by
                                      Lady Aoife Finn.
cheesemaking-msg (100K) 1/23/05   Comments and info. on cheesemaking. 
Recipes.
cheese-lnks      (15K) 10/ 1/04   Links to medieval and modern cheese
                                      by Dame Aoife Finn of Ynos Mon.
cheese-msg      (124K) 3/28/04   Medieval cheese. Recipes.

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 ****