[Sca-cooks] Beef stock

Johnna Holloway johnnae at mac.com
Sun Jan 11 08:04:32 PST 2009


Roo as in Roe as in according to OED:
"A small species of deer (/Capreolus capræa/, formerly /Cervus 
capreolus/) inhabiting various parts of Europe and Asia; a deer 
belonging to this species.
*1575* Turberv. /Venerie/ 241 The tayle of Harte, Bucke, Rowe, or any 
other Deare, is to be called the Syngle."

While I have OED open let's see:
"Broth to prepare by boiling, make a decoction: see brew it says." A 
quotation dated around 1000 AD is the earliest.

*"C. 1400* Maundev. xxiii. 250 Non other potages but the brothe of the 
flesche."

Interesting-- Also "Loosely applied to various boiled, brewed, or 
decocted liquors"

[The Middle English Dictionary can of course be searched by anyone these 
days, so everyone can look up
the MED entries themselves and see all the quotations that deal with 
cookery.]

Oh I agree about matching term to recipe in the Concordance. That's why 
it's a project for another day. Take the Concordance and the sources
and go through them all and see what they say. Someplace between the 
13th and 15th centuries there might be something.
It could well be that with the boiling rooms going full blast in the 
palace kitchens
the need for instructions or recipes for broth or stock were never 
needed. Brears
does a good section on this in All the King's Cooks.

Johnnae
>>
>>> I checked the Concordance of English Recipes
>>> and there are a page and a half
>>> of recipes that have either a title indicating broth or something to
>>> do with broth as in "for henne in brothe" or "roo broth."
>>> Something to go through when I have a spare moment.
>>>
>>> Johnnae
>> On Jan 11, 2009, at 9:25 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
>> "Roo broth?"  Roux, perhaps?  I don't have time to chase it at the 
>> moment, but that does look interesting.
>
> Roe, as in roebuck, I believe.
> The trouble is that the broths Johnnae mentions are mostly finished 
> soups -- in the non-English sources these would have names translated 
> into English, often by people like Scully, as brewets, to distinguish 
> them from what we think of as broths.
> "Potion" gets such an undeservedly bad rap these days ;-)
>
> Adamantius




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