[Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at att.net
Wed Sep 9 14:35:13 PDT 2009
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
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