[Sca-Cooks] Pasty in Mason & Brown and Prospect Books
Johnna Holloway
johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu
Fri Jul 27 17:32:30 PDT 2007
Laura Mason and Catherine Brown Traditional Foods in Britain
traces the Cornish Pasty back to the mid 19th century.
It was originally baked on a bakestone or iron plate and covered with
a iron bowl on which coals were heaped.
The Glossary at Prospect Books has this to say--
PAST: pastry; but it may also mean a paste. A variety of types of pastry
are called for, see the index. See also Coffins. (John Evelyn, Cook, C17)
PASTE (pastry). Most of the recipes are vague about what sort of pastry
to use and how to make it. Mrs Peasly, however, does provide recipes for
sweet paste, hot paste, puffpaste, and paste for meat pies or pasties.
(See Part II, pp. 127-8.) It is worth noting that she eschews egg as a
binder and does not use any rising agent. Mrs Peasly’s pastry recipes
are simpler and cheaper than those provided by aristocratic and court
cooks of the period. For interesting comparisons see Henry Howard’s
England’s Newest Way in all sorts of Cookery, Pastry, and all Pickles
that are fit to be Used (London, 1727), Robert Smith’s Court Cookery or,
The Compleat English Cook (London, 1723), and Patrick Lamb’s Royal
Cookery or, The Compleat Court-Cook (third edition, ‘with considerable
additions’, London, 1726). (Richard Bradley, 1736)
PASTE, PASTRY. Hannah Glasse gives recipes for, or refers to, several
sorts. Standing crust 73, and again ‘top and bottom’ 74, was the
standard pastry for dishes baked in crust. Karen Hess (1981, 81-2) has
written on its history and ways of reproducing it. In addressing the
Captains of Ships, Hannah Glasse gives advice on how to make a good,
thick crust of the same sort, suitable for both pork and apple pies,
123-4. The recipe for crackling crust, 76, follows that of John Nott
(1726) who echOED the instructions given earlier by Massialot (Nouvelle
Instruction pour les Confitures ...) for Pate croquante, to be used in
making the base for open tarts, and for decorations on top. The original
French suffered slightly in the translation. Those English authors who
adopted the recipe (including Mrs Eliza Johnston in The Accomplish’d
Servant-Maid, 1747, a very rare book) failed to make entirely clear, as
Massialot had done, that the same paste which is used for the bottom
crust is used for the decorations. They do not give the impression that
they had tried the recipe, or really understood it. The facts that the
title of the recipe is a straight translation from the French, and that
there is no recipe at all for crackling crust in a number of important
English cookery books of the period, also suggest that it may not have
represented any English practice. Puff-paste crust, 122, is another
whose history has been dealt with by Karen Hess (1981, 156-8). It would
appear that, mutatis mutandis, Hannah Glasse’s puffpastry was not so
different from more modern versions. Instructions for a paste for making
‘vermicella’ (vermicelli) are also given, 155.(Glasse, 1747)
http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/lane/kal69/shop/system/index.html
If one has Brears' book All the King's Cooks, the chapter
titled "From the Pastry Yard" is worth checking out for what it says
about pastries and pies in general.
Also MWBofC has Karen Hess' s comments too.
Johnnae
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