[Sca-cooks] Gervase Markham and "faux venison"

[Johnna Holloway]

And if it's venison from a deer here in Michigan, it's probably corn fed
anyway just like a steer.
I doubt modern venison tastes like 16th century venison anyway.

Johnnae


Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>
> On May 27, 2009, at 9:55 AM, Vandy J. Simpson wrote:
>
>> Greetings.
>> I'm working on a menu for a late-period feast. One of the books I'd 
>> been reading, Tudor Food and Cookery, mentions that "Gervase Markham 
>> suggested that by marinating beef or ram-mutton in vinegar, beer and 
>> turnsole (a bluish colourant) you could produce counterfeit venison 
>> for a pie!"-----
> It appears to me that what's happening here is that venison is being 
> marinated [hence "mere sauce"] overnight before being baked in a crust 
> in an otherwise pretty straightforward manner. Markham is presumably 
> advocating adding a little bluish coloring to the marinade to enhance 
> the purple-red shade of the meat and create the illusion of venison.
>
> I have no idea what that would do to the flavor, but with plenty of 
> pepper, wine, salt, vinegar, and a ton of butter, one never knows. 
> Texturally, my own experience is that  one long-baked red meat in a 
> pie and served cold, is very much like another, with a dense and 
> almost waxy mouth feel. Season any two alike, and there'll be some 
> similarities. Season any two and color one to resemble the other, and, 
> well, it'll resemble it to some extent.
>
> HTH,
>
> Adamantius