[Sca-cooks] "blue" blackberry sauce?

[Johnna Holloway]

This may well vary according to the type of berry chosen and that might
account for the color.

The new translation of this Martino recipe by Jeremy Parzen (The Art of 
Cooking)
calls for "Take some wild mulberries that grow in thickets..."

Gillian Riley in the new Octavo CD-ROM version titled Maestro Martino 
Libro de Arte Coquinaria translates the recipe as:

A sky blue relish for summer*
Take the wild berries that grow on brambles and
mix them with some pounded blanched almonds
and a little ginger. Thin with verjuice and pass
through a sieve.

The note for the recipe reads:
*Platina’s recipe has been translated as “A Heavenly relish in Summer”;
caelestinum can mislead, for although this relish might well be heavenly,
it is azure or sky blue.

Millham in her Platina translation calls for "mix pounded 
blackberries..." or "Moro ex rubo
tunsa tritis amygdalis admiscebis."

So as the recipe was recopied and published and moved into Northern 
Europe in other cookery
books in the 16th century, the question arises as those "wild berries 
that grow on brambles" might have been.

Johnnae

Karin Burgess wrote:
> I was lookiing around and came across this:
>   Take some of the wild blackberries that grow in hedgerows and some thoroughly pounded almonds, with a little ginger. And moisten these things with verjuice and strain through a sieve. 
>
>   So I had some frozen blackberries around and tried this.  No blue, only a dark purple/red. Has anyone tried this particular sauce?  Would using fresh yield different results? I did leave out the verjus, could that have altered the chemical balance?
>    
>   It is from here: http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/4histrecept.htm   
>   the author of the site also didn't get the blue.
>    
>  snipped   I neglected to add the title :
>   Sapor celeste de estate (Heavenly blue sauce for the summer.)