[Sca-cooks] FW: Elizabethans using Platina and proper cookware

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> I also bought my turnips and I'm keeping them in our cellar as an experiment
> because the season is almost over.  I want to see if I can keep them until
> March
> when I would cook the dish.  I have to see if I would have been able to even
> cook
> this dish in March using turnips without them getting rotten.

A quick response: turnips will keep in an appropriately constructed root 
cellar through March, or much longer. In a regular house cellar you may 
not get as long a survival rate. Pack your turnips in straw or other 
packing material, and keep them cold and dry.

> Emile Henry makes a nice earthenware oval brazier with a lid and handles, so
> I'm wondering if that would be appropriate?  I also have some Pfaltzgraf
> oval and round baking dishes without lids.  Armoured turnips is really like
> a modern potatoes au gratin, which I wouldn't normally cook with a lid, and
> I always cook it in porcelain.  Advice???

Generally, it seems that earthenware (ceramic) was used much more often
than other materials because it was cheap, easy to make and easy to
replace. I've tried this on the coals with a covered iron pot twice, and
it worked fine; I've also done it in earthenware in a regular oven and
got similar but less uneven results. Someone skilled in fire cookery, I
think would get even results on the coals.

Armored turnips is the first 'period' recipe I ever tried cooking, and I 
did it at an outdoor primitive camping event... it's one of my 
favorites. :)

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it screams
'Why don't you ever listen to me?' and lets fly with a club."