[Sca-cooks] cheese bread

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2010, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Goddess and Queen Pixel said:
> <<<Currently I'm working on the "pipes" recipe from the "Wel ende edelike
> spijse" manuscript*. I bought a new mortar and pestle (one of those huge
> Thai granite ones) and now a cheesemaking friend of mine has made me a
> Gouda for use once I get the recipe to where I want it. One trial down,
> some unknown number to go...
>
> *1.21. Dough to make "pipes".
> Take cheese from Gouda and eggs. Grind together with white flour. Lay it
> on dry flour  and make small biscuits of it. >>>
>
> Is this the entire recipe?

That is, indeed, the entire recipe.

>
> 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?

The instruction to lay the dough on dry flour suggests baking, although it 
could be a basic sort of breading. Again, that's the entire recipe. Other 
recipes in the manuscript are much more detailed.

>
> This sounds like it could be an interesting dish, especially for 
> something like a revel. Although they might be a cook and immediately 
> serve sort of thing. I'd like to get your redaction when you have it to 
> a point you are satisfied. I've tried some of the period fried cheese 
> recipes and mostly I just got a big mess. :-(
>
> <<< I'm teaching a class at our summer camping event on how to cook from
> medieval recipes, and the sheepshearing feast A&S entry will be making
> another appearance at that event as well >>>
>
> Huh? Sheepshearing feast? Is the premise that this is a feast that a 
> bunch of sheepshearers would eat after a day of shearing sheep? Or all 
> the A&S entries have to do with sheepshearing or sheep?  Or is this an 
> event where the non-Peers pay exorbitant entry fees but Peers get in 
> free? or...
>
> Stefan

If you do a search on the list archives for "sheepshearing" you'll pull up 
my two posts (one in December, one in January) that mention it. It was 
expected and customary that the landowner would provide a feast for the 
shearers after the shearing was done (in addition to a meal earlier in the 
day). My A&S entry is a posited picnic feast that Elizabethan nobility 
might take with them as they were out in the countryside playing at being 
shepherds.

You can find photos of the entry and the documentation on my medieval 
project blog here: http://margaretfitzwilliam.blogspot.com/

/Margaret