[Sca-cooks] Pie dough - the elusive footnote
Johnna Holloway
johnnae at mac.com
Sat Feb 13 09:44:29 PST 2010
I did some searching in my files this am and then
emailed this on to Master A.
We think this is the elusive post about the pastry.
It's in a footnote to Le Menagier.
As he is in the midst of his New Year's preparations, he asked that I
post it.
See below
Johnnae
> From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
> Date: February 17, 2004 8:35:37 AM EST
> To: Cooks within the SCA
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Standing crust
> Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA
>
> Also sprach Alex Clark:
>> At 11:34 PM 2/16/2004 -0500, Doc wrote:
>>> Cut the shortening into the flour, mix in water a bit at a time,
>>> roll out. . . .
>>
>> Does anyone know of any period documentation for cutting fat into
>> dry ingredients like this? The earliest pastry recipe that I know
>> of with cut fat is from Digby, and the fat is mixed into the dough,
>> not into the dry ingredients.
>
> There's a French pastry recipe in verse, I think from the late
> fourteenth century, here:
>
> http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/menagier/menagier11.html#English
>
> My own English translation of it is, at best, an alpha version, but
> it speaks of the dough being a bit rough ("Les croutes, un poi
> rudemont"), which might argue in favor of fat being broken or cut
> in. Elsewhere in the recipe there's a reference to diced fat bacon,
> but it's not absolutely clear to me whether this is an ingredient in
> the pastry of in the filling of the pastry.
>
> I believe there's a recipe in Markham, which, while late, is earlier
> than Digby, anyway, for making rough coffins (essentially preserving
> containers) for meats, out of rye. I'll see if I can find it.
>
> Adamantius
-----------------------------------------------
On Feb 13, 2010, at 9:26 AM, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
explained earlier--
> I think there's one 14th-century French description of a pie dough
> being
>> made with little bits of lard (probably unrendered). I remember
>> getting into
>> an... erm... animated, respectful discussion... here on this list
>> several
>> years ago on a point of translation, with someone whose French is a
>> lot
>> better than mine. However, I'm not aware of any specific
>> suggestions on what to do in Lent
>> when lard or other animal fat is out.
>>
>> Adamantius
>>
> and then later
> Maybe the whole discussion is in the Florilegium. As I say, I'm not
> 100% certain (as in, I cannot currently prove) that it actually took
> place, but my recollection, such as it is, is that somebody produced
> a piece of contemporary 14th or 15th C. verse that had in turn
> appeared in a footnote for somebody's later edition of Taillevent or
> le Menagier. As I recall the lard was in the dough. snipped
>
> Adamantius
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