[Sca-cooks] A pleasant Italian Fish recipe

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 26, 2006, at 7:23 AM, Tom Vincent wrote:

> Someone a few weeks complained/implied that I thought a recipe  
> 'sounded' or 'looked' period when I provided a few non-documented  
> recipes with ingredients that were all period (well, except for  
> green beans in one).

FWIW, I remember, at the time, thinking about one of the recipes that  
the ingredients were period, although not necessarily in that  
combination, and probably not with that cooking method -- it was for  
oven-roasted artichokes with lemon, I think. Ovens seem to have been,  
in large part, the jurisdiction of the baker, so the number of oven- 
roasted or baked foods you find in period sources other than pies and  
breads is pretty limited. I suppose you might find a recipe for  
artichokes baked in the ashes on the hearth (maybe wrapped in caul  
fat or paper to keep them clean?), but to me the oven-roasting seemed  
a bit of a red flag. I could be wrong, but that was the first thing  
that struck me.

I don't think that anyone wants to discourage you from posting  
recipes, or even that recipes have to be from documented sources.  
What happened in that case is that someone pointed out to you a  
different way of thinking, and maybe a different approach or  
philosophy, one which says we can learn a lot more about the habits  
of our ancestors, and seeing how those habits fit together, than we  
can by taking modern processes and tailoring them to fit what we  
think we know. It's like designing and building a machine for doing  
Job X -- it's likely to be more efficient than one designed to do Job  
Y, then altered to do Job X.

>   I figure that so many period cookbooks have been published,  
> distributed, dissected, redacted and wrestled with in Med/Ren  
> groups around the country that there isn't too much 'new under the  
> sun', so to speak.

You might be surprised, then, I think. There aren't any new medieval  
manuscript sources being written today, and most of the extant ones  
have been discovered, perhaps, but some of them are garnering new  
interest, new research, and most importantly, a _lot_ more easy  
accessibility.  When I first started playing this game 20-some-odd  
years ago, there were probably no more than a dozen secondary source  
medieval and renaissance cookbooks that we all used. Sure, there were  
primary sources for those lucky enough to have good library access  
and the time to be a reasonably serious scholar, not to mention the  
inclination and skills, but the sources weren't nearly as accessible  
then as today, not in translation into English for those that need  
it, and available via a few mouse clicks. Maybe we should ask for a  
show of hands, and get people to talk about the transcription and  
translation projects they've been involved in, in getting some of  
this previously hard-to-access material out there and easily  
accessible. Say, in the past five years? Just to show how the pool of  
resources has grown? For example, in addition to cooking and teaching  
in the SCA, I went out and located an old printed copy of a 15th- 
century English cookbook in verse, scanned it, got it transcribed,  
and now it's webbed. I'm working on a translation of the late-13th/ 
early-14th-century Enseignements. I suspect there are at least a  
dozen comparable projects done by members of this list in the past  
few years, and these are all going to be sources that the average  
hobbyist didn't easily have access to several years ago.

This is in no way an attempt to belittle your efforts -- rather, it's  
an attempt to show you that this field is pretty vital just now, and  
more so than it used to be, and I don't really buy the "nothing new  
under the sun" scenario. Or maybe there's nothing new, but a lot  
that's old and undiscovered, being discovered ;-) ?

>   So, I look for pleasant, easy recipes that lend themselves to  
> feasts -- does *anyone* do Med/Ren cooking for less than 50  
> anymore? :)

That's an interesting question... it turns out that with the advent  
of the printing press, there are probably more Renaissance recipes  
designed for cooking in relatively small quantities than there are  
for cooking for a huge Royal household.

> -- have period ingredients & techniques that might help or inspire  
> someone.  Fancy & complex I'll save for arts entries. :)
>
>   Here's one from today's "The Splendid Table"
>
>   Enjoy!
>
>   Duriel
>   [go ahead and shoot me because I share]

Nah. How about axes and targes? Or not. We like sharing...

>   This is the way Italians love fresh fish—simply poached and  
> served warm with a little good olive oil and fresh lemon. The  
> secret is in careful attention to the quality of each element.  
> Poach the freshest fish, drizzle each piece with olive oil you want  
> to eat from a spoon. Squeeze fresh lemon over the fish and dust  
> with salt and pepper.

Sounds lovely. A reasonably similar poached fish recipe from Harleian  
MS 4016:

> Perche boiled. ¶ Take a perche, and drawe him in þe throte, and  
> make to him sauce of water and salt; And whan hit bigynnet to  
> boile, skeme hit and caste þe perche there-in, and set him; and  
> take him vppe, and pul him, and serue him fort colde, and cast  
> vppon him foiles of parcelly. and þe sauce is vinegre or vergeous. 
> (Note: Douce MS. vert sauce.)
I'll bet some of that white balsamic vinegar would make a lovely  
dipping sauce for a firm chunk of sweet white fish...


Adamantius





"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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