[Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede

[Terry Decker]

The recipe I have to hand (from Markham) says, "take fine crums of white 
bread grated."  Grating fresh bread is a real pain.  It is easier to tear it 
apart into fine pieces with the fingers.  I would expect bread to be grated 
to be 3 or more days old (which suggests that ginerbread may have been a 
good way to use staling manchet).  The actual size of grated crumbs depends 
on the hole size of the grater.  While it is not mentioned, sieving the 
bread crumbs will separate coarse and fine crumbs.

Rather than being the total dry bread crumbs we purchase at the store (or 
produce in the food processor to live in a container on the shelf), it is 
very possible that the bread for gingerbread still had some moisture making 
it softer than what we tend to use.  I would also point out that there is no 
mention of removing the crust, although that would likely make a difference 
in texture of the gingerbread.  As a techincal term for the interior of a 
loaf of bread, "crumb" dates to before 1430, meaning this could be an 
instruction to use the interior of the loaf, although I think the usage is 
for "bread crumbs" rather than "crumb of bread."

Bear

> This may be a silly question, but why is it usually assumed that the
> grated bread in the period sources equates to dried breadcrumbs?  Did
> one or more of the sources specify dried bread?
>
> - Doc