[Sca-cooks] period cream puffs?

Fri Apr 11 01:35:19 PDT 2008

I am sorry to hear that you get your "information" from foodtimeline.org.  It is a very unreliable
source as it makes claims and does not document any of them.  It would be better for you to get a
better source like the "Oxford Companion to Food" or its paperback version "Penguin Companion to
Food".  

In a section called "Culinary mythology", there is a section called, "Catherine de' Medici
transformed French cookery", which reads:

'Catherine de' Medici arrived in France from Italy in 1533, as the 14-year-old fiancee of the
future Henri II of France.  She was accompanied by a train of servants including cooks.  The myth
consists in the idea that she and her retinue between them transformed what had been a rather
primitive cuisine of the French court into something much more elegant and sophisticated, on
Italian lines.

'Barbara Ketcham Wheaton is not alone in demolishing this myth -- far from it, since it has become
an almost routine activity for food historians.  However, she has mustered more evidence and more
detail on this matter than most of her colleagues.  She shows that French court cuisine was not
transformed (in any direction) in the 1530s and 1540s, and that in any case the interchange of
ideas of people between France and Italy had begun before Catherine was born and continued after
her death.  Italian culinary practice could exert such influence as it may have had on the French
by means of the steady traffic, and also through books (e.g. Platina); but the French in the 16th
century had a conservative outlook which in any case immunized them against sudden and foreign
influences.  Where Catherine did eventually have an effect, it was less on the cooking, and more
on the attitudes and expectations of the diners, for the wonderful festivals or masquerades which
she planned and executed (this was after the death of her husband Henri II) developed into an
institution of great visual and dramatic significance.'

If you wish to read Wheaton's book, Savoring the Past, here is the information:

Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. 
  Savoring the past : the French kitchen and table from 1300 to 1789 / Barbara Ketcham Wheaton. 
Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. 
  xxi, 341 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. 
ISBN: 0812278658,  0812211464 (pbk.) 

As for choux pastry, while there is evidence that plain, unfilled choux pastries were period,
there is no evidence that they were filled with whipped cream or creme anglaise.  However,
according to Cotgrave in his 1611 French-English dictionary, there was a 16th street cry of
"Choux, petits choux, tout chauds".  Apparently the term 'tichous" was translated as "little cakes
made of egges and flower [sic], with a little butter (and sometimes cheese among) eaten ordinarily
with sugar and Rosewater".  The author of the "Thresor de sante" [written in 1607] regarded
cheese, and cheese of a certain kind not just any cheese, as obligatory rather than optional.
It wasn't until 1690 when references to something closer to the modern petits choux started to be
described.

Mistress Huette
Caid

--- Maria Buchanan <scarlettmb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> They are quite good for a sideboard.  
> 
> Most of my information came from a web site called
> foodtimeline.org
> I love the site.  It comes up with a timeline on the
> front page of all the foods around the world and when
> they were first eaten.  Cream puffs as they are today
> were first made in the 17oo's, but if you look cream
> puffs up, the site tells you that the Choux pastry
> (called that because they look like little cabbages
> when they are baked) was first invented by Popelini,
> Catherine de'Medici's chef.  They go on to say that
> the pastries were filled with a "variety of sweet and
> savory fillings".  The Choux pastry recipe hasn't
> changed in several hundred years.  It's a very simple
> recipe.  The hardest part of them is to figure out
> your oven temps.  The recipe I got said 400 and they
> burned.  I ended up pushing it all the way down to
> 325.  They turn out perfect in my oven.  If you've
> ever been to a Bjornsborg event and seen my Period
> Creme Puffs, that's the choux pastry.  Unfortunately,
> they don't hold up in the humidity and tend to get a
> little soggy.
> 
> Maria
> --- Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> > Lady Elizabeta Maria dei Medici mentioned:
> > <<< 2.  Catherine's pastry chef was an Italian,
> > Popelini.
> > He created the Choux pastry recipe.>>>
> > 
> > What is Choux pastry? or maybe more important, what
> > makes a pastry a  
> > Choux pastry?
> > 
> > <<<  Cream puffs are
> > period if you use some sort of sweet or savory
> > filling
> > that would be period.  (I've used Ricotta mixed with
> > Honey or cinnamon and sugar or lemon curd.  All are
> > really good.) >>>
> > 
> > Oh? I don't remember anything like this being
> > discussed here before.  
> > Stuffed bread, yes. But not stuffed pastry. What are
> > you basing this  
> > on? Do you have a period recipe? Can you please post
> > your redaction 
> > (s)? These sound like they might make a good item
> > for a sideboard or  
> > breakfast.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> >    Stefan
> > --------
> > THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad   
> > Kingdom of Ansteorra
> >     Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
> > 
> > StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> > **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: 
> > http://www.florilegium.org ****
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
> > 
> 
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My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;   King Henry VI, part I: I, v 
http://www.twoheartsentwinedpottery.com/

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