[Sca-cooks] Late Italian feast

[Stefan li Rous]

Vitha asked for comments on her proposed menu including:

<<< *1st*
Pie in a Pipkin (beef stew) >>>

Are you going to serve this in a pie shell? Or just the stew, as if  
it was taken from an (inedible) pie shell?

<<< Vegetable soup w/ barley - (still looking for a source) >>>

There are several possible recipes in this file, although they really  
seem to be barley soup with herbs, rather than what most folks will  
think of as vegetable soup.
soup-msg         (114K)  6/10/07    Medieval soups. Cooking soups at  
events.
                                        recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/soup-msg.html

<<< *Intermezzo*
Lemon Ice with Pizzelle Cookies >>>

Do you have a period recipe for this Lemon Ice?

<<< *2nd*
Italian Mushle (shell bread ? sweet) >>>

Shell bread? What is this?

<<< *3rd*
Chicken w/ lemon sauce (Neopoltian #56)  (1/2 chicken per table)

Catalan Style Chicken (Neapolitan #61) (1/2 chicken per table) >>>

I've often found carving a chicken at the table to be difficult.  
Crowded conditions, lack of appropriate cutting tools/cutting boards  
etc. Even harder, I suspect, when you are cutting each 1/2 chicken  
into 8 pieces each. How do you plan to serve this?

<<< Minestra di Tagliatelli (handmade noodles ? plain) >>>

Served plain? Is there broth or sauce from the chickens to eat with  
this? Or even butter or olive oil?

<<< *Finale*
Dried Fruit Pizza (To make a tart with various things, by the  
residents of
Naples called pizza.  Scappi, Chapter 121) >>>

Oh? Fruit pizza? More details, recipe? please. I have a bit of  
conjecture and comments on period pizza, but I wasn't aware of any  
actual recipes. But one article is on when "pizza", isn't "pizza", so  
maybe this is actually the latter.

In the FOOD-BREADS section:
pizza-msg         (20K)  9/ 2/06    Period pizza and similar items.
Is-it-Pizza-art   (27K)  4/27/04    "When is a Pizza not a Pizza?"
                                        by Helewyse de Birkestad

 From the soup-msg file. There are other messages, even on this one  
recipe, but one of these authors might be familiar to some on this  
list. :-)

====
Date: 3 Sep 1997 15:16:39 -0500
From: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com>
Subject: SC - Re:Soups with a grain in it

Ruadh asks for a soup with a grain in it.  Adamantius points out that  
Markham
has several.  I just happened (for a change) to have some sources at  
work for
research I am doing in the evening.

Here goes:

_Of Boiled Meats Ordinary_ (I am not going to quote the recipe, just the
ingredients)

Mutton or Beef, Water, Violet leaves, Endive, Succory, Strawberry  
leaves,
Spiach, Langdebeef (anyone have any idea), marigold flowers  
(calendula, not
French marigold), Scallions, Parsley, Oatmeal (half as much as there are
herbs),

_Pottage without the sight of herbs_

Same as above, but you chop the herbs and oatmeal and "with some of  
the warm
liquor in the pot strain it as hard as may be"

_Pottage without herbs_

Use the meat, beaten oatmeal, and onions

_Pottage with whole herbs_

Mutton, veal, or kid; Oatmeal; Lettuce; Spinach; Endive; Succory;  
Leaves of
Cauliflower (would this be instead of the white flower?); White  
cabbage --
insides; Onions; Salt; Verjuice

If you need more detail just let me know.

Derdiru


Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 22:26:15 +0000
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - soups with a grain in it

 From _An Ordinance of Pottage_ by Constance B. Hieatt, Prospect
Books, 1988

(This is from a 15th century English manuscript: Yale Beinecke MS 163)

Grewel enforsed

Take merybonys & fresch beef; make good gruell therof, than draw hem
throrow a streyner.  Take fayre porke, tendur sodyn; peke out the
bonys & the senowys & do awey the skyn.  Grynd hit smal yn a morter.
Temper hit up with the same gruell that ys drawyn; make hit smothe.
Let hit stond resonabely by the flesshe.  Sesyn hit up with salt &
saferyn, than sette hym by the fyre.  Lete hym boyle a lytyll, and
serve hym forthe.

Hieatt's redaction and comments are:

"Gruel" usually meant oatmeal, but it was sometimes made with barley,
an alternative which produces a pleasing variant of modern barley
broths.

In my adapted version, overleaf, I have included herbs as an optional
addition, since some other recipes suggest adding them.

Meat and Barley Soup

1 c. barley
1/2 lb. beef shin, 'cracked' by the butcher
2 c. cut-up cooked pork
generous pinch of saffron
1/2 tsp. salt

optional additions:
1 onion
2-3 TBS minced parsley
1/2 tsp. sage

Put the barley in a pan with the beef shin, onion (if used), saffron
and salt, cover with 6 cups of water and boil until the barley is very
soft (about an hour).  Drain the barley, reserving the broth and the
bone.  Cut any usable meat from the beef bone into pieces and put it
into a processor with the barley, pork chunks, and parsley and sage
(if used).  Add a little of the broth and process into a fairly
smooth, thick "porridge".  Stir this back into the rest of the broth.
  If necessary to achieve the right consistency, add a little more
water.  Check seasoning and serve hot.

Harper *** Robin Carroll-Mann
harper  at  idt.net
====

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 ****