[Sca-cooks] Buttered wortes
wyldrose
wyldrose at tds.net
Sun Feb 7 08:57:03 PST 2010
I suspect the oatmeal thing is cultural. Many older Native Americans put
oatmeal in all their soups as a thickening agent and just love it. (you
don't add a lot just a little and you don't really taste it.) When I
lived on the Rez I got over my bias and had lots of pot luck dishes that
had oatmeal hidden in them. The Native Americans began their love of
oatmeal in the 1600's when fur traders brought oatmeal along as a staple
food when trading. The oatmeal is fairly quick to cook and can be added
into the other foods (usually salt pork) for a quick high calorie meal.
For the fur traders the food was easy to transport on the long routes and
was taken every where the traders went.
Another thing to think about is that oats are a quick and easy crop and
can be harvested in multiple ways to get different taste and textures.
They usually grow faster than the weeds! A good farmer could easily get at
least 2 crops of oats a year,a great farmer could get 3 or 4 in the right
climate, and the grain when for human food and the straw as bedding or food
for the animals. Most wheat is more temperamental than oats for growing and
takes longer for maturity. In the British Islands I suspect the cooler
wetter weather was more suited to oats than to most of the wheat of the
time.
Again, you only add 'some' to the soups/stews not so much that it looks
like oatmeal.
Kay
----- Original Message -----
From: "Johnna Holloway" <johnnae at mac.com>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Buttered wortes
> THere are traditional recipes that do this.
>
> Try a search under oatmeal and leek soup or pottage. Shows up in Wales
> and Scotland.
>
> I suspect poverty and having something, anything, to eat in hard times
> made it more appealing.
>
> Johnna
>
> On Feb 6, 2010, at 5:56 AM, Claire Clarke wrote:
>
>>
>> Johnna wrote:
>> There are a number of these Wortes recipes. Have they looked at the
>> other versions and talked about those?-------
>>
>> Has anyone ever tried putting oatmeal in this recipe just to see what
>> dreadful consequences arise (well, probably it just tastes disgusting)?
>>
>> Angharad
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