[Sca-cooks] cheese bread

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2010, wheezul at canby.com wrote:

>>
>> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010, Stefan li Rous wrote:
>>
>>> Are these shaped like roundish biscuits? Or like "cheese straws"? ie:
>>> "pipes"?
>>
>> You've just read the recipe, you tell me. ;-)
>>
>>>
>>> Are you supposed to fry these? Or bake them?
>>
>
> I struggled with deciding on choosing the meaning of pipe/tube in a recipe
> recently.  The recipe for 'strauben' (funnel cakes) in Anna Wecker's
> cookbook uses the word 'rohren' (pipes/tubes) for the shape that flows
> from the funnel into the frying pan.  Rohren (or forms of it) are also the
> word used to distinguish the number of branches on a candlestick or ring.
> Ultimately I settled on 'pipes'.
>
> I'd guess that the recipe might imply to roll out the dough on dry flour
> (to keep it from sticking to the board) into pipe shapes and then cook it.
> I also wonder what sort of nuance is present in the word for biscuit - do
> you have the original untranslated version?  If it is gebacken or a
> version of it, they can be both fried or baked.
>
> Are the recipes preceeding this one available?  I'm finding that there can
> be a stream of consciousness about preparation method that runs through a
> series in Anna Wecker's cookbook, but I have never looked at this
> particular document (can you tell me more about it?)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Katherine

It's a 15th century Dutch manuscript.

http://www.coquinaria.nl/kooktekst/Edelikespijse0.htm

The reason I am working with this recipe specifically is because it is the 
recipe in the manuscript that is the most vague. There is a recipe for 
"Pasties on plates" farther along in the MS. that calls for the dough from 
1.21 as stuffing for meatball-filled fried turnover things but that's the 
only other time it's used, and there you're putting the cheese biscuits 
on the pasty dough along with the meatballs.

There is a recipe for "stuffing" at the beginning but it includes a list 
of suggestions as to how it could be used. The recipe for "pipes", as you 
will note, says nothing about how it is to be used.

The modern Dutch translation uses the word "koekjes" which, depending on 
which dictionary you use, can mean "small cake", "cookie", "biscuit", 
"bannock", or "cupcake", so it at least implies baking rather than 
frying. The plan is to experiment and see what I come up with.

Margaret