Cheese Goo was Re: [Sca-cooks]

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 11, 2006, at 11:44 AM, ysabeau wrote:

> Digby says:
>
> Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best
> of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of
> thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the
> like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or
> gravy of Mutton: and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages
> among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or
> Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon
> a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to
> Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew
> some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of
> White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.
>
>
> My interpretation is that they would have used a pan that had
> already served a purpose and had bits left in it to add flavor.

Can you tell us a little more about your line of thought here? The  
recipe says, essentially, to add some liquid from a previous recipe,  
including as possibilities the melted butter "sauce" from cooked  
vegetables [IOW, more, I suspect, like beurre blanc than like simple  
melted butter], or meat gravy from a roast or a stew, and then it  
says you can add some of the vegetable from the butter sauce, if any,  
or bacon, or slices of fresh meat (I assumed that's where you were  
going with your cheese-steak interpretation), or onions, chives, or  
anchovies. I don't think flavor is going to be a problem ;-).

It also says to heat all this in a chafing-dish. I'm not sure if a  
chafing-dish is something that would ever be used for cooking bacon  
or steaks in any quantity.

> The cheeses melt fairly quickly so it could be done as the last
> stage of a meal or to prepare a quick snack between meals with
> pans that hadn't been washed yet (hygiene not being what it is
> today).

I'm seeing it as a cheese course served at the end of a supper,  
possibly using the butter from a boiled sallet served earlier in the  
same meal...

Cheese often seems to show up at or near the end of a meal: from the  
middle ages and beyond, it was thought by most medical authorities to  
close up the chest and stomach, which is something you don't want  
happening at the beginning of a meal...

As for hygiene, I'm not sure there's too much evidence that suggests  
medieval and Renaissance cooks were any less interested in it than  
modern ones, and their labor costs tended to be lower, so lower  
technology levels wouldn't automatically translate into more dirt or  
pathogens.

Adamantius (nudging)



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04