[Sca-cooks] Elizabethan chickeny goodness

[Johnna Holloway]

I don't know that we can definitively say whether, when or if they  
would have been sweet or sour
when found in an English market in the late 16th century.
Both types were both being grown, but what would have been available  
at what times in the
marketplace and at what price, ????

Gerard's The herball or Generall historie of plantes of 1633 says  
about the orange:

" the fruit is round like a ball, euery circumstance belonging to the  
forme is very well knowne to all; the taste is soure, sometimes sweet,  
and often of a taste betweene both: the seeds are like those of the  
Limon."

So here we have a report that the taste may be "soure, sometimes  
sweet" and often something in between.
-------

There are earlier versions of this recipe. See:
To stue a Capon in Lemmons. (this is the more lemon version)

  from A Book of Cookrye first published in 1584
(England, 1591)
Slice your Lemmons and put them in a platter, and put to them white  
Wine and Rosewater, and so boile them and Sugar til they be tender.  
Then take the best of the broth wherin your Capon is boyled, and put  
thereto whole Mace, whole pepper & red Corance, barberies, a little  
time, & good store of Marow. Let them boile well togither til the  
broth be almost boiled away that you have no more then will wette your  
Sops. Then poure your Lemmons upon your Capon, & season your broth  
with Vergious and Sugar, and put it upon your Capon also.

And from the same book

To boyle a Capon with Orenges or Lemmons.

Take your Capon and boyle him tender and take a little of the broth  
when it is boyled and put it into a pipkin with Mace and Sugar a good  
deale, and pare three Orenges and pil them and put them in your  
pipkin, and boile them a little among your broth, and thicken it with  
wine and yolkes of egges, and Sugar a good deale, and salt but a  
little, and set your broth no more on the fire for quailing, and serve  
it without sippets.

Another is just for the sauce:

To make sauce for a capon an other way.

Take Claret Wine, Rosewater, sliced Orenges, Sinamon and ginger, and  
lay it upon Sops, and lay your Capon upon it.

----- (BTW, All of these are indexed at medievalcookery.com)

I think what is more important with regard to these recipes would be  
the amount of meat found in a capon in proportion to the sauce. I  
suspect the recipes may well intend that there be more meat than sauce.

Johnnae

On May 19, 2010, at 10:48 PM, David Friedman wrote:

>> I skipped the sugar on the theory that the oranges in the original  
>> recipe were probably sour oranges (since the other option is lemons),
>
> Do we know at what point "oranges" in recipes shifted its default  
> meaning from sour to sweet? By Elizabethan times sweet oranges were  
> available, but I have no idea how commonly they were used.
> -- 
> David/Cariadoc
> www.daviddfriedman.com

This is from The Good Housewife's Jewell:

To boile a Capon with Orenges and Lemmons. Take Orenges or Lemmons  
pilled, and cutte them the long way, and if you can keepe your cloves  
whole and put them into your best broth of Mutton or Capon with prunes  
or currants and three or fowre dates, and when these have beene well  
sodden put whole pepper great mace, a good piece of suger, some rose  
water, and eyther white or claret Wine, and let al these seeth  
together a while, and so serve it upon soppes with your capon.