[Sca-cooks] Two questions

[Johnna Holloway]

On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:29 PM, Lynn wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> Oh clever and studied ones....I have two questions ...
> (1) In the Florilegium there is a discussion about period shortbread  
> from John Partidge's The Widowes Treasure, 1585. I do not have the  
> book (would like to know where to get it).

Numerous editions (1582-1655) of the Widowes Treasure have been  
microfilmed and are available in that format.
The author is John Partridge. Note spelling!

Those with academic access or university connections may be able to  
view a copy through Early English Books Online.
Check with your nearest college or academic library for instructions  
and availability. (The service is very very expensive
and many libraries cannot afford to provide access. In that case, ask  
if the library has Early English Books I on microfilm.
You can always go drop quarters and print off a copy from the  
microfilm. Expensive in time, but a copy is a copy.)

Partridge has never been that popular an author and facsimiles and  
reprints of his works are almost non-existent. Another of his works A  
Treasury of Hidden Secrets: A 17th-century Housewives' Handbook of  
Cookery and Medicine was released by Rhwymbooks in 2002. It's already  
OP and out of stock.

We can buy Plat and Markham. We can't easily buy Partridge. Sorry.


> I am a little confused about the recipe being discussed and do not  
> know if it is an actual shortbread recipe, or if it is like the fine  
> cakes recipe with mace and saffron. So, the questions is.... what is  
> the recipe from Partidge?

The recipe is of course reproduced in the file. As with all  
florilegium files, you need to scan down and read all the postings.
Or you can always use the search function and locate the item in that  
fashion.

 From The Widowes Treasure, John Partridge, 1585

To make fine Cakes

Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an earthen pot.   
Stop it
close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as you would a Pasty of
Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of clods.  Then searce  
your
flower through a fine sercer.  Then take clouted Creame or sweet  
butter, but
Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace, saffron and yolks of  
eggs, so
much as wil seeme to season your flower.  Then  put these things into  
the
Creame, temper all together.  Then put thereto your flower.  So make  
your
cakes.  The paste will be very short; therefore make them very  
little.  Lay
paper under them.

  Another version of this recipe appears in The Good Huswifes  
Handmaide for the Kitchen, published in 1594. It's by anonymous. As I  
wrote in my article

the recipe "To Make Short Cakes... includes the flour, butter, and  
sugar of the classic modern versions with the addition of eggs or egg  
yolks, cloves, mace, and saffron. This may seem strange but even  
modern shortbread recipes often contain other ingredients such as eggs  
or cream and spices.

To make short Cakes.

Take wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it in an  
earthern pot, and stop it close, and set it in an Ouen and bake it,  
and when it is baken, it will be full of clods, and therefore ye must  
searse it through a search: the flower will haue as long baking as a  
pastie of Uenison. When you haue done this, take clowted Creame, or  
els sweet Butter, but Creame is better, then take Sugar, Cloues, Mace,  
and Saffron, and the yolke of an Egge for one doozen of Cakes one  
yolke is ynough: then put all these foresaid things together into the  
cream, & temper them al together, then put them to your flower and so  
make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore yee must make  
your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your cakes, yee must bake them  
vpon papers, after the drawing of a batch of bread."

"We recognize it as a short bread or cake because the recipe ends with  
the helpful admonishment:  "and so make your Cakes, your paste wil be  
very short, therefore yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee  
bake your cakes, yee must bake them vpon papers, after the drawing of  
a batch of bread." (Short means friable or brittle with a crumbling  
texture.) Another recipe that created a "short" product was that of  
the Shrewsbury Cakes."



We discussed shortbreads again on the list not too long ago

so you might want to read the archives of the list at



  http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org



> (2) I have seen a recipe for parsnips in dark ale (which I have a  
> copy of). I thought I saw also a recipe for roasted root vegetables  
> in ale but I do not know where and cannot seem to find it again.  
> Does anyone have an idea on a recipe like that?

This turns up thousands of matches. Can you narrow the search by  
country, era, or what sort of vegetables would have been called for in  
the version that you saw? Was it a true medieval recipe with original  
source recipe given or a modern recipe?

Hope this helps

Johnnae
>