[Sca-cooks] scallops

[Johnna Holloway]

I took a quick look for English recipes.
Most references in EEBO-TCP were to armoury and badges of office or to 
the badges of St. James of Compostella pilgrims.
Ashmole notes that the French Knights of the Order of St. Michael wore
them as in "having its Cape embroidered with Gold, and the border of the 
Robe interwoven with Scallops of Gold..."
Also scallops of lace are mentioned.
(Several mentions of scallops being listed among the shellfish to be
found in North America.)

Checked Florio's A vvorlde of wordes, 1598
where it reads:

    * Cappe, clokes, spanish clokes, or capes, all manner of shell-fish,
      as oysters, cockles, muscles, or scallops.
    * Cappelong•e, a kinde of long skallops or cockles.

      Testacéi animali,
    * all manner of hard shell fishes as oysters and scallops.

Randle Holme in The academy of armory includes them under heraldry but
also lists them under Bills of Fare
where they appear in a second course.
Other Bills of Fare for every Season in the Year, also how to set forth
Meat in Order accordingly.

12. Sturgeon, Collar of Beef, Turbut, Pickled Puffins, Scallops,
Cockles, Muscles, Sprawns, Shrimps, Crabs, Tortoise, Crawfish, Snails.
He also includes this mention for balts--

Balts, those to fry are compounded ,..... old Cheese, Sugar Currans,
made into paste: .... little Pasties, Toasts, Scallops and such like,
are made for Garnishing: see Ransoles.
Those are later defined as:
Ransoles, are kind of small Balls rolled up in fine Past made of these
compositions, Beet leaves beaten, Sweetbreads minced, Marrow, Herbs,
Raisins, Dates, Naple Bisket grated and made in a paste.

MED lists them under *scalop but the quotations listed are for the
device or design and not as food.*

OED list quotes as early as 14th century.

    * *C. 1440* /Promp. Parv./ 442/2 Scalop, fysche [/Winch. MS/. Scalap].
    * *1530* Palsgr. 265/2 Scaloppe a fysshe.
    * *1601* Holland /Pliny/ xi. li. I. 353 The great Scallops make a
      certaine noise as they shoot out of the water.

Ok here is a quote from a cookery book--
*1661* Rabisha /Cookery Dissected/ 125 First boyl your Scollups, then
take them out of the shells and wash them.

So there should be recipes in Rabisha.I looked but Rabish is not indexed
so it's not a quick look. (My edition is not the same as the one used by 
OED either.)
On the whole I suspect that they were included in recipes under the 
general term of shellfish and the like. The French with more access
to the famous scallops of Normandy might have developed more recipes.
One source I came across asserted that "France is by far the largest 
European outlet for scallops with over 100,000t consumed per year..."
so they remain as a major source there.


**Hope this helps

Johnnae





edoard at medievalcookery.com wrote:
> It's hard to tell if it's a case of a change in preferences, or if they
> lumped scallops in with other shellfish, or if they just didn't have
> many ways of preparing scallops.
> The cookbook search yields 3 period "recipes" for scallops out of 25
> cookbooks.  Not much.  Interestingly enough, they're all French. SNIPPED
> Scallops in gravy or cooked in water, with pepper and ginger.
> [Enseignements]
> SCALLOPS. [Le Menagier de Paris]
> Scallops. [Le Viandier de Taillevent]
> - Doc
>
>
>   
>