[Sca-cooks] Honey Butter

[Stefan li Rous]

Eduardo asked:

<<< On plate 4 of Scappi- Dairy Products, there is a gentleman at a  
churn and
the description under it says "Latte mele si fa" (To make honey milk).
Does anyone know if there are descriptions, either in the menus or the
recipes for sweetened milk products or honey butter? >>>

There is a question about what that description really says. Here is  
one of several messages from the past about that/those illustrations.

--------
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 08:10:06 -0700
From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Honey Butter

hi all from Anne-Marie

Arglwydd tells us:
At 03:10 PM 5/19/99 -0500, you wrote:
 >I was reading Anne Willan's "Great Cooks and Their Recipes from  
Taillevent
 >to Escoffier" and I came across a reference to honey butter in late  
period.
 >On page 42 while discussing Bartolomeo Scappi's "Opera" (1570) she
 >captions a drawing "Scappi advises a cool place with high windows as a
 >dairy.  A kitchen boy twirls a whisk between both hands while  
another at
 >right stirs honey butter."  The drawing itself has captions which  
may support
 >her translation.
 >
 >Does anyone know what "Luochi freschi doue fá lauoreri de latte"  
translates
 >as?  Or "Si fa lauoreri di latte"? Or "neueue si fa"? Or "latte  
mele si fa"
 >
 >I also wonder, is the boy with the whisk whipping cream?

This particular picture is the source of much discussion in the Madrone
Culinary Guild. We have a couple bodies who specialize in Italian food
history, and I believe the general take was that The kitchen boy  
twirling
the whisk is indeed making whipped cream ("he makes snow" I believe  
is the
caption). The other boy, at the butter churn is cited as "he makes sweet
milk". There is some debate as to whether or not this is really making
honey butter (will butter churn with honey added? or is he just  
taking soft
butter and using the churn to mix it? seems wasteful... though somone  
gets
to lick the paddle :)), or whether he’s making sweet butter, ie not  
salted...

- --Anne-Marie
--------

Although I guess now that the new translation of Scappi is available,  
this can get revisited.

This message was in the butter-msg file in the FOOD section of the  
Florilegium. However, late last night/early this morning I spun off  
most of the messages on honey/herbed butter to this new file in the  
FOOD-CONDIMENTS section:
flavord-butrs-msg (28K)  4/ 5/09    Period and SCA, flavored butters.

At this time the old version of the butter-msg file is on the site,  
and this one isn't. However, that will change sometime in the next  
few days.

For more information on the "snow", see this file in the FOOD-SWEETS  
section:
snow-msg          (10K)  5/18/06    "Snow", a white, creamy  
confection often
                                        served with wafers.

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 ****