[Sca-cooks] Elderberries was Theatre food in Elizabethan England

[Terry Decker]

> Seems like we need to go to the source to determine how they did the 
> botanical identifications.  Then perhaps deconstruct,  "CSI fashion" from 
> the evidence, what other ingredients were in those pies.  Determining the 
> ingredients list we can then attempt to reconstruct the pies.  I only hope 
> that they were not working with the long preserved end products of human 
> digestion.
>
> Brings to mind the old very lame paleontologist joke about the graduate 
> student who had misplaced his coprolites.  When show a box containing the 
> specimens he was asked "are these what you are looking for."  He replied 
> "Yes... my feces exactly."
>
> Daniel

Davidson in the Oford Companion to Food gives an interesting quote (American 
Botanist, 1905) about elderberry pie not appealing to many palates due to 
the rank eldery flavor.  A pie needs to be made from full ripe berries that 
have been picked and dried.  The period recipes I've encountered call for 
the flowers rather than the berries.

Bear