[Sca-cooks] Char Siu recipe OOP but back OT

[Ian Kusz]

Well, I'm not sure about putting it on bread, but you could try it.  I
haven't tried any of these:

Sir Kenelm Digby's Closet (1663) includes a dish called "Potage de Sante",
it's potted meat (veal and chicken) with endive, sorrel, borage, bugloss
(??) lettuce, purslane, chervil, beet leaves, cloved onion (optional), thyme
(optional) & "other hot savoury herbs,"  beef brisket boiled for 6
hours(optional), non-potted mutton, salt, pepper, more onions quartered
(optional), orange juice (optional), green peas (optional), cucumbers (also
optional), roots (?? optional), optional cabbage, optional poix chiches
(??), vermicelli (optional), and optional egg yolks.

This was supposedly poured, with the broth and all, over a "slice dried
bread"; so while it's just after period, it's pretty darn close....

You can see how this one recipe is really about 10,000 recipes, if you
switch in and out various optional ingredients....

John Gerard's Herball (1597) includes some decent portable recipes; he also
produced the world's first scientific description of the potato produced in
the Old World.

He also splits up herbs a bit, between beer-and-wine herbs, meat-flavoring
herbs, purely medicinal herbs, syrup and candy herbs, pickling herbs, salad
herbs and pot herbs and a few others; so you can make a salad of a bunch of
different salad herbs, and switching which ones will make for a great deal
of variety, there; and anything he calls a "pot herb" is, I presume,
something to be used in a stew; making any stew with slightly less water and
putting it on bread should make for a nice sort of burrito thingy....and by
switching out "pot herbs," you have a ton of variety on what you can make

pot herbs include Avens/Herbe Bennet (Caryophyllata)
Bastard Parsley (Caucalis)
Blites (Blitum)
Borage (also used as a salad herb)
Bugloss
Chervil
Chrysanthemum
Cowslips of jerusalem (pulmonaria)
and so on, and so on....

salad herbs include:
Hipposelinum (Alexander's Parsley or Great Parsley)
Asparagus (or, at least, in lieu of salad)
Barberry leaves
Sorrel
Pickled Bastard Parsley (Caucalis)
Beet Greens (?)
Bell-flowers
Borage
Water-Cress
Brook-lime/Water Pimpernel
Broom Flowers

and so on...


dishes from John Gerard's Herball:

 fish with horseradish

jerusalem artichoke with marrow, dates, ginger, raisins, and sack baked in a
pie (he thought this dish caused stomachache and gas)

boiled parsley and fish (he says "alexander's or Great Parsley)

artichokes boiled in broth from "fat flesh" (pork or fatty beef?) with
pepper and salt "good to procure bodily lust"

asparagus boiled in broth, then seasoned with oil, vinegar, salt and
pepper...

burdock boiled in broth of "fat meat" with "the kernell of the Pine Apple"

boiled meat and carrots

some kind of bread made from ground-up chestnuts....

fried eggs and clary

a bunch more; I'm not even putting in a decent percentage, here.

Kenelm Digby's Closet includes a bunch more recipes, though, they are 63
years after the end of period, there's a bunch of them, and he provides lots
of specifics, which earlier writers often don't.  So, I don't know whether
you'd like those, but some are really quite portable (or can be made
on-site)

he has things like:
pease porridge with coriander, onion, mint, parsley, savory, marjoram,
butter, pepper, salt, additional pottage herbs (optional);

broth (of mutton, veal and chicken) with salt, cloves, pepper
optional ingredients including beef, peas, quartered cucumbers, green
grapes,  and either:
sorrel, lettuce, purslane, borage, bugloss,
or: carrots, turnips, pennyroyal, thyme
to be poured on bread.

and a bunch other....don't know why he likes so much meat, but *shrug*  I
like them one at a time.  and at least Digby includes putting stuff on
bread, so it's pretty darn close to period to put stuff on sliced bread (can
be proven as far back as 1663).  Though it's hard to tell if Digby just
wants to use the broth on bread, and eat the dish separately, but at least
he's serving food with sliced bread.

anyway, I don't have any actual experience (since cooking isn't an option,
right now), but I thought I'd bring up a few thoughts, and maybe some
references to food served on sliced bread, anyway....



On 1/22/07, Nick Sasso <grizly at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> Anyone out there with more idea of favorite historical meats that could
> fit
> this bill are welcome to chime in.  I am making a list of these to use as
> sort of picnic foods for home and for afternoons at events.  I know
> slapping
> the meat on bread isn't exactly widely documented, but it is available to
> us
> today, and terribly convenient for quick meals.  Rules are that the meat
> is
> very flavorful, can be prepared ahead-cooled-served either warm or cold on
> bread of some sort. Bonus points for integral sauce and fruits/veg as part
> of the dish that can be added to the sandwich.  Points deducted for simply
> rubbing a roast with a couple seasonings and baking it . . . too boring.
>
>
> pacem et bonum,
> niccolo difrancesco
>