[Sca-cooks] The Humors, Ginger and Meats

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

Some beef recipes. I don't have Platina to hand, unfortunately, so I can't 
check what he says about either ginger or beef.

YIS,

Margaret FitzWilliam of Kent


Taillevent says beef is eaten with garlic sauce.

Menagier:

"And if you wish to make a piece of beef taste like venison of deer or 
bear, if you are in bear country, take numble or leg of beef, then parboil 
and lard it, spit and roast; and let it be eaten with (a sauce of) wild 
boar's tail. Let the beef be parboiled, then lard it along its length and 
cut into portions, and then put the hot boar's tail (sauce) in a dish over 
your beef which first is roasted or boiled in boiling water and taken out 
soon, for this is more tender than deer.

BEEF Like BEAR VENISON. A leg of beef. Do it in a black sauce of ginger, 
clove, long and grain pepper, etc. And put in each bowl, two pieces, and 
it will taste like bear."

"Sirloin of Beef. Cut strips of meat from the leg of beef, and wrap inside 
marrow and beef fat: spit, roast and eat with salt."

"BEEF PASTIES. Have good young beef and remove all the fat, and the less 
good parts are cut in pieces to be used for stock, and then it is carried 
to the pastry-cook to be chopped up: and the grease with beef marrow.

The meat of a leg of beef is sliced up and put in pastry; and when the 
pastry is cooked, it is appropriate to throw a wild duck sauce into it."

[wild duck sauce]
"SAUCE TO BOIL IN PIES OF YOUNG WILD DUCK, DUCKLING, YOUNG RABBIT OR WILD 
RABBIT. Take lots of good cinnamon, ginger, clove, grains, half a nutmeg 
and mace, galingale, and grind very well, and soak in half verjuice and 
half vinegar, and the sauce should be clear. And when the pie is just 
about done, throw this sauce inside it and return to the oven to boil 
once.

(Note that the young wild duck are those which cannot yet fly until they 
have felt the August rain.)

And note that in winter you put more ginger in so it will be stronger in 
spice, for in winter all sauces should be stronger than in summer."


On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Elise Fleming wrote:

> Greetings!  I have a question regarding humoral theory and the use of
> ginger (galentyne) with beef.  Pork or pike seems to be used with
> galentyne, but what about documented recipes using beef with ginger or
> galentyne (Tudor times or earlier, English).  Is there something in humoral
> theory that would make the medieval cook avoid using galentyne with beef?
> Or was it done?  I've done a quick internet check and see that there are
> many Oriental dishes with beef and ginger, but the quick look at
> "galentyne" seemed to only bring up pork and pike.
>
> Alys Katharine
>