[Sca-cooks] Biersuppen

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 30, 2007, at 11:42 AM, Nick Sasso wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
>> I believe your classic technique is pretty spot on . . . but I am
>> thinking
>> it less likely that it would have been done just so in Rumpolt's
>> time, from
>> what I've read.  The progression seems okay, but the use of a whip
>> would
>> seem more a modern convenience than period tool.
>
> I agree. Although there are period recipes that call for wooden
> sticks to be split four ways from one end, as I recall, and Rumpolt
> is pretty late in the chronology. If he didn't use a whip  of some
> sort, regularly, I'm fairly sure he wouldn't be shocked at the sight
> of one.   > > > > > >
>
>
> Well taken.  I jumped the gun a bit again.  I really should know  
> better by
> now when you're talking.

What, I can't talk nonsense like everybody else now and then???

>   I think I'm just jonesing from so little period
> cookery these last several months.  I have "making things harder"  
> on the
> brain.

It's funny how this can crop up. I had occasion yesterday (don't ask)  
to create a pretty substantial argument as written by a moron who  
also can't spell. I kept lapsing into Middle English, and every so  
often I'd come out with something and say, "Hey, waitaminnit, that  
makes perfect sense! We can't have any of _that_!!!" And then I'd  
have to go back and do it over again.

But in practical terms, it's a perfectly good approach to just take a  
recipe and try as much as possible to follow the instructions. I  
often just sort of do it in my head, then try it in my little  
apartment kitchen, and usually what I'm going for is what the dish  
should be like, then figure out how to make it the best  
schmoozamajiggy it can be, while staying within the basic  
instructions and specified ingredients. In this case I may have taken  
the concept of "beer soup with egg yolks and butter" in an  
unnecessary direction, but not one, I suspect, that would be too far  
from Rumplt's soup in finished form.

> Having just spewed all that about spoons and stuff, I'm going to  
> pop open a
> brown ale tonight and see how it goes.  It'll either be a rarebit  
> sort of
> thing or a soup.  Gotta see how the thickening works WITH A BALLOON  
> WISK.
> Then, if it is good enough for the wife, then I'll try it with the  
> charcoal
> and a "stick".

Hmmm. All out of homebrew. IPA, Weihenstephaner Hefeweiss (alleged to  
come from the world's oldest brewery), and Guinness are all I've got  
to work with today...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04