[Sca-cooks] Extra dried fruits
David Friedman
ddfr at daviddfriedman.com
Sat Mar 28 11:08:18 PDT 2009
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/
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