[Sca-cooks] OOP: Frozen sauces

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 3, 2006, at 9:20 AM, Tom Vincent wrote:

> Now, in defense of it as a sauce, if the original category was diverse
> potages, we're not suggesting that people didn't dip things into their
> potages, are we? :)

Nope. I think the greatest source of confusion here is the fact that  
people didn't necessarily categorize foods in the same way we do,  
back in the 15th century. I believe I mentioned this in a discussion  
of soups a few weeks ago... this dish is a pottage, and we should  
probably resist the urge to rethink that assessment in modern terms  
and decide that all pottages are soups, except the ones that are  
puddings or sauces. Rather, we should probably stick pretty much with  
what we know, which is that a pottage is eaten from a bowl (by  
necessity) with a spoon.

>   I know, a rather weak argument...but some have
> interpreted Harleian 279 as a dessert, Curye on Inglysh has it as a
> sauce for meat, and the discredited Fabulous Feasts has it as a sauce
> for birds, correct?  Doesn't Pleyn Delit have it listed as a sauce as
> well?  (No, I know it's not valid to bolster one redaction with  
> another :) )

No, it's not. But based on what we know, we've seen some pottages  
that consist of cooked sauces to which chopped, roast meats are  
added, and served in a bowl, more or less like chili, say. Some  
contain no meat, and it might be interpreted that the concept of  
adding roast or boiled meat before service is implicit, while others  
probably aren't intended as anything other than what the recipe  
describes -- what you see is what you get.

My feeling is that if this dish is called a pottage (assuming the  
recipe we have is not recopied and recategorized by some secondary  
scribe, of which there's always a chance), and there are specific  
instructions on how to garnish it, I think we're probably looking at  
something other than a sauce here. I think this gets prepared, put in  
bowls suitable for holding a serving for one or, in some cases,  
possibly two people [a "cover"], garnished and served to diners who  
will eat it with spoons pretty much as presented.

Of course, there's nothing we can find that would prevent people from  
dunking stuff in it (although possibly there's something in a  
contemporary book on table manners that specifically forbids this; I  
dunno offhand), but that doesn't mean it should be categorized in the  
same way as, say, sauce vert or cameline.

Adamantius


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