[Sca-cooks] OOP: Frozen sauces

Daniel Myers eduard at medievalcookery.com
Sat Jun 3 10:00:19 PDT 2006


On Jun 3, 2006, at 11:43 AM, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>
> On Jun 3, 2006, at 10:26 AM, Daniel Myers wrote:
>
>> Curye on Inglysh gives the equivalent recipe as follows:
>> Freseys.  Streberyen igrounden wyth milke of alemauns, flour of rys
>> othur amydon, gret vlehs, poudre of kanele & sucre; the colur red, &
>> streberien istreyed abouen.
>>
>> Nothing in Curye on Inglysh suggests this is a sauce.
>
> Well, it depends on what you mean by sauce. I think the 14th century
> version calls for cooked meat to be added -- "gret vlehs" is believed
> by most authorities to be the equivalent of the "gross char" you
> often see on menus: a big hunk of boiled, or perhaps roast, pork,
> mutton, or possibly beef, cut into slices or bite-sized pieces for
> service (probably the latter size for this purpose).
>
> I think freseye recipe #13 from the Herebert MS in CoI is for a
> pottage that is, itself, meat in sauce, but not a sauce in the sense
> of a condiment, an end user-controlled means of adjusting the flavor
> of the food, and certainly not a dip.

I missed that.  Hmm ... odd.  Could the interpretation of "gret  
vlehs" as "large flesh" be in error here?

The term shows up a few times in CoI, both times in a section of the  
recipe surrounded by spices and the like.

"Spinette ... flauour of the flures, & of amydone; gret vlehs, genger  
itried, sucur clene ..."  CoI I, 11

"Rosee ... flour of rys other amydone, gret vlehs, poudre of kanele &  
sucre ..." CoI I, 12

"Freseyes ... flour of rys othur amydon, gret vlehs, poudre of kanele  
& sucre ..."  CoI I, 13  (full text above)

"Scirresez ... a pertie of ducre so that hit beo wel isauoured of  
cheseberien, vlehs gret, & cheseberien istreed abouen; ..." CoI I, 14


In none of these does it give suggestions as to what type of meat it  
should be (e.g. "meat of pork or other great flesh").


The other place it shows up is in what is clearly a meat recipe.

"Vor met of Cypree ... soththen nim fat broth & swete of porc othur  
of vthur vlehs; tempre thin alemauns ..."  CoI I, 56

Here the word "vlehs" obviously means "meat".


I'm beginning to think that "vlehs", like "char", means the edible  
portion - the flesh - of meat or fruit or other foods.  Kind of like  
how we can talk about the flesh of a peach or nutmeats.

For recipes 11, 12 & 13 this could mean that the amidon is being  
added in "big chunks", a use that is different from the normal method  
of grinding it before use.

Recipe 14 could be read something like "... so it will have the taste  
of big chunks of cherries, sprinkle about with cherries."


> What's interesting is that if you go further along to #37 in the
> same manuscript, you find yourself in the middle of a section that is
> clearly an English translation of at least part of B.L. Ms Add.
> 32085, or what I like to call Cuskynole Country. Recipe #37 is
> another freseye recipe (this time spelled fresse), clearly another
> seasoned, thickened strawberry puree, but this one with no reference
> to meat as an ingredient or as a substrate, and generally pretty
> similar in substance to the 15th-century version.

There's the interesting addition of bread to #37.  Maybe added for  
additional texture?

> It gets even more interesting if you look at that Speculum article
> with Constance Hieatt's translation of B.L. Add 32085 and Royal Some-
> number-or-other-I-can't-be-bothered-to-look-up-right-now. That
> freseye recipe, the one with the grosse char, is in there, too, but
> apparently the manuscript excerpts are in the opposite order (I think
> -- this is very confusing when you're trying to kick caffeine again).

I don't have access to that.  If anyone could post snippets of the  
relevant section, that would be most helpful.

- Doc (doing his best to build a dance floor on the head of a pin)


-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"English wine is more fit to be sieved rather than drunk."
   - Peter of Blois, 12th c.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-





More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list