[Sca-cooks] Period recipe for Pea Soup?

[Guenievre de Monmarche]

It's in Le Menagier, and there are sort of two...
"When you have NEW PEAS, sometimes they are cooked on a meat day both
in meat stock and with ground parsley, to make green soup, and this is
on a meat day; and on a fish day, you cook them in milk, with ginger
and saffron in them; and sometimes "a la cretonnee" of which I shall
speak later."
"CRETONNEE of New Peas or new beans. Cook them almost to a puree, then
remove from the liquid, and take fresh cow's milk, and tell her who
sells it to you that she will be in trouble if she has added water to
it, for very often they extend their milk thus, and if it is not quite
fresh or has water in it, it will turn, And first boil this milk
before you put anything in it, for it still could turn: then first
grind ginger to give appetite, and saffron to yellow: it is said that
if you want to make a liaison with egg-yolks poured gently in from
above, these yolks will yellow it enough and also make the liaison,
but milk curdles quicker with egg-yolks than with a liaison of bread
and with saffron to color it, And for this purpose, if you use bread,
it should be white unleavened bread, and moisten it in a bowl with
milk or meat stock, then grind and put through a sieve; and when your
bread is sieved and your spices have not been sieved, put it all to
boil with your peas; and when it is all cooked, then add your milk and
saffron. You can make still another liaison, which is with the same
peas or beans ground then strained; use whichever you please. As for
liaison with egg-yolks, they must be beaten, strained through a sieve,
and poured slowly from above into the milk,after it has boiled well
and has been drawn to the back of the fire with the new peas or new
beans and spices, The surest way is to take a little of the milk, and
mix with the eggs in the bowl, and then a little more, and again,
until the yolks are well mixed with a spoon and plenty of milk, then
put into the pot which is away from the fire, and the soup will not
curdle. And if the soup is thick, thin with a little meat stock. This
done, you should have quartered chicks, veal, or small goose cooked
then fried, and in each bowl put two or three morsels and the soup
over them,"
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Menagier/Menagier.html#fn79


Guenièvre




On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Gretchen Beck <grm at andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> --On Wednesday, March 03, 2010 7:25 PM -0500 Kean Gryffyth
> <kad.dsl at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > Greetings all,
> >      We're looking for a period recipe for Pea Soup. The little data
> > we've been able to find indicates that while everybody seems to have had
> > one. but because it was low-end peasant food, no-one wrote the recipe
> > down. Any leads, clues or even recipes! would be greatly appreciated!
> >
> > -Kean
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
> I've got a couple that I've fixed with some success (unfortunately, I'm not
> sure I can find my reconstructions():
>
> Perre. (2 15th C Cookery Books)
> ¶ Take grene pesyn̄, and boile hem in a potte; And whan̄ they ben̄
> y-broke, drawe the brotℏ a good quantite þorgℏ a streynour into a
> potte, And sitte hit on̄ the fire; and take oynons and parcelly, and hewe
> hem smaƚƚ togidre, And caste hem thereto; And take pouder of Caneƚƚ and
> peper, and caste thereto, and lete boile; And take vynegur and pouder of
> ginger, and caste thereto; And then̄ take Saffron̄ and salte, a lituƚƚ
> quantite, and caste thereto; And take faire peces of paynmain, or elles of
> sucℏ tendur brede, and kutte hit yn fere mosselles, and caste there-to;
> And þen̄ serue hit so fortℏ.
>
> (This is, pretty much, the recipe on the back of the dried peas bag, I
> think, with vinegar, cinnamon, saffron, and ginger to taste, then serve
> over croutons or slices of bread). Here's what I did when I made it:
> 2 cups lb dried green peas
> 2 quarts water
> 3 small onion
> a handful parsley
> spices to taste (cinnamon, pepper, ginger, saffron, salt)
> 3 Tbsp cider vinegar
>
> Boil peas until they are "broken", then puree. Add finely chopped onions
> and parsley with cinnamon and pepper and boil awhile. Add vinegar, ginger,
> saffron and salt to taste and boil for a little longer. Sprinkle with
> croutons or diced bread and serve.  This is best made at least a day ahead
> and reheated before serving.
>
>
> There is a cream of fresh pea soup in one of the French cookery books (the
> Viander, perhaps?) I cooked it for an event, but seem to have lost the
> recipes for it in one of my various computer crashes.  It is a rich, yummy
> thing, though.
>
> toodles, margaret
>
>
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