[Sca-cooks] Period Flour Query

[Carole Smith]

If you look in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the section on kitchen implements, there is a line drawing of a tamis or drum sieve.  According to my 90-year-old mom that is what she used as a young woman when learning to cook.  Today's drum sieve - with metal mesh - can sometimes be found in Oriental markets.
   
  Apparently in the SCA period the tamis had a fabric bottom, most likely linen but could be silk.

  Cordelia Toser
  
Terry Decker <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
  Bolting or boulting is done by sieving meal through progressively finer 
weaves of cloth which regulate the fineness of the flour, as you suggest. 
Bolting clothes were commonly linen, but canvas and silk have also been used 
and they weren't standardized. Today we use wire mesh in the sieving 
process.

Whether the cloths were stretched on frames or not, I don't know. From a 
little experimentation, I don't think they would have been stretched taut as 
meal would have been bouncing over the sides.

While there was no regulation on flour, IIRC, the highest quality bread, and 
therefore the most expensive, was required to be made from thrice bolted 
flour. Since I am unsure in my memory, check the assize of bread if you 
plan to quote me.

Bear


> We have talked before some about milling, but not that much about
> boulting. I like to hear more about this sometime. Was this done
> with particular weaves of cloth stretched between frames? Using
> similar cloth in sacks? Was the size of the weave, and hence the
> fineness of the flour regulated? in the assizes of grain, perhaps?
>
> Stefan

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