[Sca-cooks] Period Shrimp sauce

Ian Kusz sprucebranch at gmail.com
Thu Feb 1 16:50:52 PST 2007


Yes, I apologize; all I know is that it's supposedly medieval, but no
provenance.

How about this from another apocryphal source?  It's from the site Gode
Cookery (godecookery.com)....and the source author didn't provide any
documentation, either....the source author being the guy who wrote the book
they got the recipe from....



[image: Kakavia]
*This is a fresh fish soup, which is improved by having as many different
varieties of fish as possible. You can make it with salt or fresh water
fish, but you will need at least 3 or 4 varieties for the best results.*

   - *1 cup scallions or leeks, sliced*
   - *1/2 cup olive oil*
   - *1/2 stalk fennel, sliced*
   - *3 sprigs of parsley*
   - *1 bay leaf*
   - *1 tsp thyme*
   - *2 cup dry white wine*
   - *4 cups water*
   - *4 pounds of fish (3 or 4 different types)*
   - *1 pound shrimp*
   - *1 pound mussels or scallops in the shell (well scrubbed)*
   - *thick slices of home made bread*

*Saute onions in oil until soft. Add fennel, herbs, wine and water and bring
to a boil. Season with salt and simmer for 45 minutes. Pour stock through a
sieve and squeeze out the juice from the vegetables and discard the fibers.
Return to the pot and bring to a boil. (For a richer stock, ask the
fishseller for the heads and bones from your fish and add them to the water
for the initial boiling. Remove when you strain out the vegetables. Or you
could add a bottle of clam juice instead of some of the water). Lightly salt
the fish and let stand for 10 minutes, then rinse and lower into the boiling
liquid. Lower heat and simmer 10 minutes. Add shrimp and scallops or mussels
and simmer an additional 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Toast
the bread slices and place them in large soup plates or bowls. Place a
variety of fish and some of the broth in each dish. You may also serve
the Avgolemono
Sauce <http://www.godecookery.com/byznrec/byznrec.htm#Avgo> with this.*

I did find a recipe, sort of, from What's-his-name....Kenelm Digby (1663),
but he just says wash off the shrimp several times in water and milk, and
serve with butter....not interesting.

Harlein Manuscript 4016 has them served with vinegar...

but if it helps, here's a website for someone who HAS found some decent
sources on shrimp....

http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~kmerkley/shrimps.html

she mentions that le menagier mentions "shellfish," but the translation I
saw translated them as "mussels," but, just in case, here's the recipe:


(shellfish -- mussels?) are cooked quickly on a high fire, in very little
water and wine without salt, and eaten with vinegar. Item, when they are
cooked in old verjuice and parsley, then fresh butter added, it makes a good
soup.

I shouldn't read Apicius, now I'm hungry.  He has some stuff for "any kind
of fish"

Use any kind of fish. Prepare clean, salt, turn in flour,
salt*3*<http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/10*.html#432note3>and
fry it. Crush pepper, cumin, coriander seed, laser root, origany, and
rue, all crushed fine, moistened with vinegar, date wine, honey, reduced
must, oil, and broth. Pour in a sauce pan, place on fire, when simmering
pour over the fried fish, sprinkle with pepper and serve.

and something else for "shellfish"

fried lightly, crush pepper, lovage, caraway, cumin, figdates, honey,
vinegar, wine, broth, oil, reduced must; while boiling add mustard.

that's probably scallops, but wtheck.


Sorry about taking a source's word for the periodness of the original
recipe; I really should have looked it up.

On 2/1/07, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 1, 2007, at 3:54 PM, Pat Griffin wrote:
>
> > Documentation, please?
> >
> > Lady Anne du Bosc
> >
> > Known as Mordonna The Cook
>
> Okay, here ya go:
>
> http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1645,156171-224207,00.html
>
> Are you enlightened yet? ;-)
>
> The scary thing is that technically, a lot of our documentation isn't
> much better than this. "This is true because somebody said so."
>
> I don't think the original poster of the medieval shrimp with
> buttercups is personally vouching for its medievalness. Or am I
> mistaken?
>
> Adamantius
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
> > [mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Ian Kusz
> > Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 2:38 PM
> > To: Cooks within the SCA
> > Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Shrimp sauce
> >
> > On 1/22/07, Georgia Foster <jo_foster81 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> OK ... so I have aquired several pounds of 15 count shrimp.  I sez to
> >> myself
> >> "self ...  I wonder what we can do with five pounds of shrimp that
> >> would
> >> go
> >> with the MEAT feast this next weekend".
> >
> >
> >
> > Found this online; would it do?
> >
> >   MEDIEVAL SHRIMP WITH BUTTERCUPS
> >
>



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