[Sca-cooks] Funeral foods ...

[Judith L. Smith Adams]

"Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:     >>> In the 17th century you also start to run across various 
quelquechoses, florentines, and various other names for a collection 
of items, often baked under puff pastry. At around the same time we 
also start to see "puddings" moving away from a sausage form factor 
toward puddings steamed or boiled in a cloth, or baked in a dish. 
These last also often involve a pastry shell and/or cover. <<<
   
  Aha, which is how "blood pudding" is related but certainly not similar to "Christmas pudding"!


>>SNIP In general, though, I don't think an oven is a really efficient way to 
convert fuel into cooked meat in really large pieces. Although the 
Romans appear to have baked hams wrapped in pastry (which they 
probably removed for service, and they may or may not have eaten the 
pastry). >>
   
  Edible crusts seem to post-date inedible ones.... the crusts sealed in moisture and seasonings and acted as a cooking pot inside which the foods could braise and be tenderized... Salt- and Mud-crusts are 
  OLD... archaeology and all that - can't remember a reference to save my life, of course... Pastry wrap that was knocked off and discarded is a logical successor and might, from the cook's point of view, have represented an improvement along the lines of wax paper being succeeded by plastic wrap - easy, clean, as effective or more so for the purpose.

>Judith wrote:
> And, medievally, was "coffin" the term for both a pastry 
> enclosing food and a burial box? I've never noticed! In recipes 
> I've seen so far (not such a large sample yet) there's no sense of 
> punning about calling the pastry a "coffin," but do you/does anyone 
> here know of it being a literary pun, by Shakespeare or anyone else??


  >>>  Adamantius wrote:
  I'm not sure. Probably, but I can't put my finger on any specific 
examples, and then, of course, I couldn't say what relationship 
exists between the two concepts in non-English-language terminology. 
But in English, there are several period terms for the box one buries 
a corpse in, while today there are normally only two, and only one 
also can refer to a pastry shell.  <<<

  So-o-o-o, what might be the English period terms for burial box??  (And box my ears, but I'd spaced that in period, of course!, nobody was speaking "English" as we know it, not even in England... :)
   
  Judtih
   

		
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