[Sca-cooks] Looking for info on mulberries and murrey
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Wed Jan 18 04:47:51 PST 2006
On Jan 18, 2006, at 12:44 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> I got this question this evening from a Florilegium reader. I can
> remember mulberries being discussed here only a little bit and the
> only "murrey" which I remember discussing there was the Arabian
> condiment "murri" made from rotten/fermented barley.
>
> I'd be interested in seeing any comments anyone has on period use
> of mulberries or this murrey. Please remember though to copy her on
> any messages on this subject, as she is not on this list.
>
>
>> I've got a quick question about something I came across in a
>> book called "Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention" (by Lee Reich).
>> In the section on mulberries, the author says that in medieval
>> times, mulberries were used to make something called "murrey",
>> which he described as a pudding or a sauce for meats. When I
>> tried to look for a recipe for murrey (on the Internet), all I
>> could find was the description of murrey as a color in heraldry,
>> not as a food at all.
>> Can you shed some light on this for me please? Thanks so much.
>>
>> In service,
>> Lady Corinna Lionwynde
>> (mka Sylvia Shults)
>> pompeii100 at yahoo.com
From MS D, ff. 86r-96v, a.k.a. "Ancient Cookery", a.k.a. Book II of
"Curye On Inglysche", 'Diuersa Servisa', c. 1381 CE:
"37 For to make murrey, tak mulbery & bray hem in a morter & wryng
hem (th)orh a clo(th), & do hem in a pot ouer (th)e fyre; & do (th)
ereto bred & wyte gresse, & let yt na3t boyle non ofter (th)an onys.
& do (th)ereto a god perty of sugur, & 3if yt be no3t ynowe colowrd
brey mulburus; & serue yt for(th)e."
[37. To make murrey, take mulberries and crush them in a mortar, and
wring them through a cloth [puree/strain them], and put them in a pot
over the fire. Add white bread [crumb portion, soaked as for
thickener] and white grease [probably rendered lard], and let it come
to a boil no more often than once. And add a good amount of sugar,
and if it is not colored enough crush more mulberries, and serve it
forth.]
There's a series of fairly similar, generic medieval English
pottages, all based on crushed fruit (raspberries, strawberries,
cherries, etc.), all, for the most part, named for the fruit in
question. I see these as more like a thick fruit soup than the
puddings people often interpret them as -- there's no instruction
here to make the dish "standing" or "chargeaunt", so I'm not sure why
so many people assume it's supposed to be so thick.
Specifically regarding murrey, there's more than one such recipe
available, including an earlier one which appears to contain no
mulberries, but which is thickened like the rest and colored with
saunders to resemble a berry dish. Some versions of these pottages
specify meat (either calling for it as an ingredient or mentioning in
passing that the dish is to be poured over meat), and some don't, but
it's conceivable that the ones that don't mention it could still be
considered sauces.
Adamantius
"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
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