[Sca-cooks] Extra dried fruits

[Susan Lin]

Good to know - thank you.  I have not dug further into any of the
bibliography of this cookbook.  It could be that "sweets" had a meaning we
do not know of.  Maybe when I have more time I"ll try to find some of the
sources the book mentions.
-S

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 12:08 PM, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>wrote:

> 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
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>  Sca-cooks mailing list
>>>  Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>>>  http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
>> Sca-cooks mailing list
>> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>>
>
>
> --
> David Friedman
> www.daviddfriedman.com
> daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>