[Sca-cooks] menu suggestions

[David Friedman]

>http://elisandecooks.blogspot.com/2010/09/frankish-stew.html
>
>it is insanely aromatic but I don't know if you can get the necessray
>ingerdients in time ;)
>
>do substitute the spikenard without a second thought and just take a dash
>more mint if you have no pennyroyal
>Love and light
>ELisande

Unless I'm missing it, you mention the source but don't give the 
original recipe on the web page, which makes it hard for the reader 
to figure out how closely you are or are not following it.

I presume it's the one on page 51 of Grant's translation. That recipe 
is unusually detailed for a period recipe, giving quantities for many 
but not all the ingredients, but your quantities don't seem to fit 
the original. You are using 50 peppercorns, which is what he uses. 
But you have 2-3 cups of vinegar where the original has half a cup, 
2-3 cups of honey where the original has half as much honey as 
vinegar, which would be 1/4 cup (although it does say "or as much 
honey as you wish for sweetness.")

The proportions of cloves, costmary and spikenard don't seem to fit 
the original either. And your sequence of steps doesn't map all that 
closely to his--you appear to be missing an hour of simmering between 
adding the vinegar and adding the honey.

Am I missing something? Is this a different recipe than the one I found?
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com