[Sca-cooks] Non-feast cooking

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> I'm curious:   The Pottage of Cracked Wheat, you substituted barley 
for the wheat.  Now, I love barley as much as anyone, but I wondered  
why you choose that.  Also wondering why you don't have the almond milk,  
sugar and saffron listed as optional.



Thanks for catching that; the first recipe, for cracked barley, was 
omitted on the page:

40. POTTAGE OF CRACKED BARLEY

POTAJE DE FARRO (29)

You will take farro and wash it with cold water two or three times; and 
when you have washed it well, put it in the pot where it must cook and 
cast in good hen's broth with the farro all together and cook it on the 
fire; when it is more than half cooked, you will take good almond milk 
and cast it in the pot; and then you will put good sugar in the pot 
while the pot cooks; and when it is well-cooked, take it away from the 
fire wrapped in a cloth. And when it has rested well, prepare dishes and 
cast sugar and cinnamon on them.

And likewise if you wish to make sauce you can make it just the same. 
And if perhaps you wish to make a dish of cracked barley which will be 
delicate, make it in this manner: take the farro and cook it in good 
hen's broth, or mutton broth, and when it is more than half cooked, 
strain it through a woolen cloth; and the strained liquor that comes out 
must finish cooking with the almond milk; and cook it until it is 
thickened and then cast sugar upon the dishes; and this dish is good for 
invalids because it is very delicate.

-----------

Taken together, the two recipes mean to me that if you want to cook 
cracked wheat or barley, and your broth is fatty enough, you can safely 
omit the optional almond milk, etc. 

The reason I don't list those as optional on my recipe online is 'cos I 
originally put it up as documentation from a feast, so it only shows 
what was done for the feast. I've done it both ways.

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on 
imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." 
	-- Harry S. Truman