[Sca-cooks] Extra dried fruits

[David Friedman]

Thanks.

It tells us that the recipe as given is conjectural. Three 
ingredients are in the original: Chestnuts, apples, and vinegar. The 
rest are a guess at "sweets" and "other ingredients." I have no idea 
what "dissolved in vinegar" meant--the guess in the recipe you gave 
doesn't seem to fit very well, but I don't think I have a better one. 
I wonder if "dissolved" is a mistranslation.

You asked about chestnuts. They are nuts that grow on chestnut trees 
but, unlike most other nuts, are eaten cooked--usually roasted but 
can be boiled. The original doesn't say to cook them, but that seems 
a plausible guess.

One sometimes has to use conjectural recipes if nothing better is 
available, but it's worth being clear about the distinction, since 
otherwise people are likely to interpret the conjectural parts as 
historical fact.

My favorite horrible example is a recipe in a published secondary 
source, based, I think, on _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_. It 
had oranges and lemons in it--not likely ingredients for that time 
and place. The original recipe said "fruits."

In this case, I'm a little suspicious of the dates and almonds--they 
seem like things llikely to be mentioned specifically. But it's 
certainly possible that they were included in "other ingredients." 
And the authors may have other sources of information that they are 
using to guess at the missing ingredients.

>Cariadoc asked:  Do they say what the basis for the recipe is--where in the
>range between an actual period recipe and a conjecture?
>The book quotes a source that says "In 1601 the Mexican converso [he had
>emigrated to Mexico] Diego Diaz Nieto reported to inquisitors that during
>the time he lived in Ferrara, Italy, at Passover the Portuguese Jews who
>lived there made "balls of sweets, apples, ground chestnuts, and other
>ingredients, which they ate dissolved in vinegar."
>The quote is referenced to a book by Eva Alexandra Uchmany, La vida entre el
>judaismo y el cristianismo en la Nueva Espana 1580-1606.  Mexico City:
>Archivo General de la Nacion/Fondo de la cultura Econonica, 1992.
>
>Does that help?
>
>Shoshanna
>
>On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 9:34 AM, David Friedman 
><ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>wrote:
>
>>  Here it is:
>>>
>>>  Diego Diaz Nieto's Haroset Balls*
>>>
>>
>>  ...
>>
>>   *This recipe comes from *A Drizzle of Honey* (The Lives and Recipes of
>>>  Spain's Secret Jews) by David M. Gitlitz & Linda Kay Davidson.
>>>
>>
>>  Do they say what the basis for the recipe is--where in the range between an
>>  actual period recipe and a conjecture?
>>  --
>>  David/Cariadoc
>>  www.daviddfriedman.com
>>
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-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/