[Sca-cooks] sops

[tom.vincent at yahoo.com]

Wow!  Interesting stuff, huh?  Different recipes showing different definitions of a term!  
 
Great stuff, Margaret!
 
 
Duriel
 
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* 
Tom Vincent
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
US Marines: Murdering toddlers to protect us from Saudi terrorists. 


----- Original Message ----
From: Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, June 5, 2006 1:42:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] sops


--On Monday, June 05, 2006 10:11 AM -0700 tom.vincent at yahoo.com wrote:

> I don't disagree that 'sop' later became a verb and the tool rather than
> the liquid, but here are four period sop recipes.
> You could just have easily claimed that 'sop' is another word for 'onion'.
>
> You can now more clearly see that bread is what sop is served *on top of*
> and not what sop *is*.  The last, especially, makes that clear.


That interpretation is only possible if you are looking at these four 
recipes specifically. There are others sops recipes, and some that make it 
clear that sop = bread.  There are also other references in literature to 
sops that make the interpretation of "something that goes on bread" rather 
than "bread" a little less likely. Here's what I've found in a search of 
the Corpus of Middle English website (which includes the 2 15th C cookbooks)

Here's the Oyle Sops recipe from the Douce manuscript MS 55 (about 1450)
Oyle  Soppes  . Capitulum lxiiij.?Take and buille mylke, and take yolkes 
of eyren tryed fro the white, and draw hem; then cast to the milke and hete 
it, butt lete it nat buille, & [leaf 34b.] styrre it well till it be 
summe-whate thikke: then cast ther-to sugre and salte, and cutt feyre 
paynemayne in  soppes  , & cast the  soppes there-on, & serue it forth in 
maner of potage.

**Note that this explicitly states that the sops are cut from white bread 
and cast into the mess.


The Soppes pour Chamberleyne in the Harlein MS 4016 also makes an only 
slightly less explicit statement that "sops" is the bread.

Soppes pour Chamberleyne. ¶ Take wyne, Canell, powder ginger, sugur/ of 
eche a porcion¯; And cast all in a Streynour, And honge hit on¯ a pyn¯, And 
late hit ren¯ thorgh a streynour twies or thries, til hit ren¯ clere; And 
then¯ take paynmain, And kutte hit in a maner of Browes, And tost hit, And 
ley hit in a dissh, and caste blanche pouder there-on¯ ynogh; And then¯ 
cast the same licour vppon¯ þe Soppes  , and serue hit forthe fore a good 
potage.

and then there's Creme Boyled from the same manuscript that says to "cut 
then fair painmain sops"

Creme boiled. ¶ Take mylke, and boile hit; And þen¯ take yolkes of eyren¯, 
and try hem fro the white, and drawe hem thorgh a streynour, and cast hem 
into þe mylke; and then¯ sette hit on¯ þe fire, and hete hit hote, and lete 
not boyle; and stirre it wel til hit be som¯-what thik; And caste thereto 
sugur and salte; and kut þen¯ faire paynmain soppes  , and caste the 
soppes there-on¯, And serue it in maner of potage.

The Lamprey I-bake recipe from the same manuscript has an almost identical 
line: "And lete boyle ouer þe fire; And take paynmain, and kutte hit and 
wete hit yn¯, And ley þe soppes yn¯ the coffyn¯ of þe lamprey"

The recipe for Lyode Soppes (which appears right above the Soupes Dorroy 
Harlien MS 279, 1420) says pretty much the same thing:

Lyode  Soppes  .?Take Mylke an boyle it, an þanne take yolkys of eyroun 
y-tryid fro þe whyte, an draw hem þorwe A straynoure, an caste hem in-to þe 
mylke, an sette it on þe fyre an hete it, but let it nowt boyle; an stere 
it wyl tyl it be somwhat þikke; þenne caste þer-to Salt & Sugre, an kytte 
fayre paynemaynnys in round  soppys  , an caste þe  soppys  þer-on, an 
serue it forth for a potage.

There there are the two Chaucer references that make clear that a sop is 
something put into a broth:

In the prologue, about the Franklin is written "Wel louede be þe morwe a 
soppe in wyn"

and in the Clerks tale: "Thus labourith he tyl the day gan daweAnd thanne 
he takyth a soppe in fyn clarree" (He worked until the day was done, and 
then he ate a sop in fine claree wine)

The Boke of Curtasye instructs the young lad
"Of breed with þi teeþ no soppis þou make;"
(Don't make sops by biting the bread {yuck!})


GIven all this, I'll stand by my original statement.

toodles, margaret


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