[Sca-cooks] period crab recipes

[Stefan li Rous]

Caointairn asked:about crab recipes:
<<< Hello!  I have two questions to throw to the group:
1) I'll be running an all day kitchen in a couple weeks.  Asking for
donations, I got 2 big cans of crab meat.  It's about 2 lbs.of crab,  
so I
figure an appetizer type something, but what?   My menu theme is  
centered
around the Medetearranean, Each course that I'm setting out every couple
hours focused on a specific area/culture {Moorish, Spainish, Middle  
eastern,
etc} within our time period. >>>

There may not be that many recipes for crab. Perhaps because they  
were thought of as lower-class food as tripe and such are often  
considered these days?
Check this Florilegium file for several recipes and redactions:
seafood-msg       (90K) 10/15/04    Medieval non-fish seafood. Recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MEATS/seafood-msg.html

Most of these appear to be either boiled crab, which probably  
wouldn't work with canned crabmeat or they are a mix of crab and  
salmon. See the commentary from Adamantius and one of the recipes  
below from this file. Adding the salmon though would have the  
advantage of stretching the crab to let the dish serve more.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****

================
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 10:43:44 -0500
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for Crab recipes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Also sprach DeeWolff at aol.com:
 > So, Am I right in discovering that there a few crab recipes available
 > in period (2 that I know of)??
 >
 > Have we no crab cakes or in a coffin, or with rice?? I was hoping  
to do
 > something other than the familiar...
 >
 > Andrea

There don't seem to be too many of them. You've got the Harleian MS
recipe (which basically says to boil them and serve with vinegar),
and one or two others, essentially identical. Then you've got the
dressed crab in the Proper Neue (or is it Neue Proper?) Boke of
Cokery, which involves picking the meat out of the shell, seasoning
it with vinegar, and maybe some butter (I forget, offhand), and
packing it back into the shell.

Chiquart has a stuffed crayfish tail which calls for the chopped,
cooked meat to be seasoned (vinegar?) and chopped parsley added,
stuffed back into two of the tail shells, like a sandwich, and fried
in oil. I'd be a little concerned about the lack of any binder to the
stuffing. Maybe you have to tie the shells together.

You said you were looking for something to bulk out the crab. I
think, if I were you, I'd do a blomanger of fish and just use
crabmeat, maybe garnishing with a smaller percentage of crab shells
so people know what they're getting into (Hint:
PRE...COOK..THE...RICE...!!!).

Are you thinking of doing blue crabs on the hoof, as it were, or just
getting hold of processed crabmeat?

Adamantius


Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:21:02 -0500
From: Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for Crab recipes
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Monday, January 12, 2004, at 10:08  AM, Olwen the Odd wrote:
 >> How about this one?
 >>
 >> "Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books",  HARLEIAN MS. 279 (ab. 1430),
 >> & HARL. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450)
 >>
 >> Vyaunde de cyprys in lente. Take gode thikke Mylke of Almaundys,  
& do
 >> it on a potte; & nyme the Fleysshe of gode Crabbys, & gode Samoun, &
 >> bray it smal, & tempere yt vppe with the forsayd mylke; boyle it, an
 >> lye it with floure of Rys or Amyndoun, an make it chargeaunt;  
when it
 >> ys y-boylid, do ther-to whyte Sugre, a gode quantyte of whyte  
Vernage
 >> Pime with the wyne, Pome-garnade. Whan it is y-dressyd, straw a-boue
 >> the grayne of Pome-garnade.
 >
 > This sounds good!  I am unclear about what the word "chargeaunt"
 > means.  Anyone know?

"Chargeaunt" means thick, as compared to "Stonding" which shows up in
similar context and which I interpret to mean "like mostly set plaster".

- Doc
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