[Sca-cooks] Another Leeds Symposium review

Thu Apr 5 18:05:31 PDT 2007

This one rather more period:

'Banquetting Stuffe:' The fare and social background of the Tudor and 
Stuart banquet. edited by C. Anne Wilson. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh 
University Press, 1991)

This is, of course, papers from the first Leeds Symposium on Food 
History and Traditions. Knowing that the attendees got to consume a 
banquet in the Stuart style created by Peter Brears makes me 
retroactively jealous. But reading the book helps.

The Table of Contents:
<UL><LI>Introduction: the Origin of 'Banquetting Stuffe', C. Anne Wilson
<LI>The Evolution of the Banquet Course: Some medicinal, Culinary, and 
Social Aspects, C. Anne Wilson
<LI>'Sweet Secrets' from Occasional Receipt to Specialised Books: The 
Growth of a Genre, Lynette Hunter
<LI>Rare Conceites and Strange Delightes: The Practical Aspects of 
Culinary Sculpture, Peter Brears
<LI>Bowers of Bliss: The Banquet Setting, Jennifer Stead
</UL>

So, what, exactly, is 'banquetting stuffe'? Stuff to make a 
banquet. What's that? A banquet, according to the authors, has 2 
meanings, one of which is The special final course of [an opulent 
meal], comprising a wide variety of sweetmeats" (p.1-2) and often being 
moved to a separate venue, i.e. a 'banquetting house'. This appears to 
have developed from the spices, wafers and possibly fruits, eventually 
called a 'voidee,' provided at the end of 14th and 15th c. high-class 
meals. By 1600, banquets were served in a separate room from the main 
meal, to the higher ranking guests, and served a combined function of 
decorative subtlety and sweets course. Elements of the banquet included:
<UL><LI>Marzipan and Marchpane
<LI>Sugar Plate items (including, in some cases, dishware)
<LI>Spice comfits & Kissing Comfits
<LI>Fruits (fresh and dried)
<LI>Fruit conserves, including wet and dry suckets, marmelades, 
chardquince
<LI>Cookie-biscuits, such as prince-biscuit and wafers
<LI>Gingerbread
<LI>Doucettes and Daryols, and milk leaches & custards
<LI>Tarts with decorative covers
</UL>
Post-1600 additions seem to include:
<UL><LI>Creams and butters of fruit, milk, etc.
<LI>Ice cream
<LI>Syllabub
<LI>Distilled cordials & waters
</UL>
Wilson gives an excellent introduction to the topic, which is followed 
by Hunter's analysis of the development of cookbooks with 
banquetting-stuffe recipes, and the change from 'secrets' to general 
knowledge of candying and confectionery.
For cooks, the heart-- and the stomach-- of the book will be Brears' 
section, where he discusses the nature of the banquetting stuffes, gives 
examples and 16th and 17th century recipes of each type, with 
redactions, followed by dishing instructions for each. Who could resist 
his description:
<blockquote>The banquet course provided a unique opportunity for the 
display of culinary skills, artistic flair, theatrical effect, and sheer 
wealth. The combination of elaborate sculptural creations in sugar, with 
sweetmeats, fruit and nuts all highly finished either in naturalistic 
colours or gilded with gold leaf were the most magnificent assemblies of 
dishes ever to have been presented on English tables.</blockquote>

For those who like doing subtleties, the marchpanes are key:
"In 1562 Queen Elizabeth's 'Surveiour of the Workes' gave her a 
marchpane bearing a model of St. Paul's Cathedral; while from Robert 
Hickes, Yeoman of the Chamber, came a 'very faire marchpane made like a 
tower, with men and artillery in it', and from her Master Cook, George 
Webster, a 'faire marchpane being a chessboarde'. Brears gives 
instructions for marchpane collops of bacon, sugarplate eggs, sugarplate 
ribbons, white gingerbread, and other decorative works. Cast sugar and 
sugarplate could be made in molds for decorative purposes, or even used 
for 'Plates, Dishes and Cuppes'. Brears gives a number of recipes for 
butters and creams such as almond butter, orange butter, pippin-cream, 
and sack-cream, though most recipes are well post 1600. The Jelly and 
leach recipes he gives are post-1600 also but we do have recipes for 
such stuffs from sources before 1600. He notes that decorative tops for 
tarts might be baked separately, and used to replace the tops the tarts 
were baked with. Jumbels, cracknels, and bisket bread, wafers and 
gingerbread recipes are addressed. Preserved fruits of all kinds, dry 
and wet suckets, etc. segue into plums made of cold-fashioned marmalade, 
prunes in syrup, and even lemon-skins filled with colored layers of 
aspic. Though the sweetened, dried cherries recipe he gives is 
post-period, there are a number of sweetened dried fruit recipes before 
1600, and when else should they be served but in the banquet?

Also discussed here are the sucket-forkes and spoons (especially spoons 
with a sucket-fork on the end of the handle), the painted banquet plates 
(one ate off the plain back), the order of presentation. Which brings us 
to Stead's "Bowers of Bliss."

For those who are somewhat familiar with garden history, it's 
fascinating to find out that banqueting houses were probably used for 
these decorative dessert meals, and still more to realize that 
banqueting-rooms also appeared in towers and on roof-tops, especially in 
the 1600s. The bizarre case of the tree-house banqueting house at Cobham 
Hall, Kent, is spentioned as well as other garden locations. For Pennsic 
and other war venues, we could do worse than imitate this one:
<blockquote>"Temporary banqueting houses could be made wholly of green 
and living stuff. Queen Elizabeth in the summer of 1560 gave a 
tournament for the entertainment of the French Embassy. She had had 
erected in Greenwich Park a banqueting house 'made with fir poles and 
decked with birch branches, and all manner of flowers both of the field, 
and of the garden; as roses, july flowers [gillyflowers/carnations], 
lavender, marygolds [calendula], and all manner of strewing herbs and 
rushes' wherein she gave a supper followed by a masque, and then a 
magnificent banquet." p. 126</blockquote>
I suspect an experienced Sukkot-booth builder could be employed with 
advantage in this process, and it could be paired with the temporary 
garden described in Markham's English Husbandman. Apparently the 
more permanent banquet-houses might be used as part-time garden sheds, 
guest rooms, or assignation spots.

Stead also describes spice plates, spice trays, special spoons and 
forks, before moving onto the late night reresoper. and the 
sometimes outrageous behavior of the guests, including those at an 
entertainment in 1606 for the King of Denmark. This masque "ended with 
Victory slumped unconcious on the antechamber steps, while Peace 
cudgelled courtiers' heads with her olive branch..." The supposed 
aphrodisiac effects of the banquet ingredients are also detailed.

Reading about banquetting stuffe makes it plain that that enchanting 
depiction of a reresoper in Keat's "Eve of St. Agnes" is a type of 
banquet, so for anyone who's been entranced by
<blockquote>"While he from forth the closet brought a heap
      Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
      With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
      And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
      Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd
      From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
  From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon.
      These delicates he heap'd with glowing hand
      On golden dishes and in baskets bright
      Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand
      In the retired quiet of the night,
      Filling the chilly room with perfume light."</blockquote>
And would like to do something of the sort (like, oh, me) will be 
attracted to banquetting stuffe like a moth to a very sugary flame. In 
short, I am inspired to learn sugar-plate and marchpane and make up a 
banquet of my own.

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"I thought you might need rescuing . . . We have a bunch of professors 
wandering around who need students." -- Dan Guernsey