[Sca-cooks] serving fresh fruit

[Johnna Holloway]

Actually there are mentions of course.

Skip the term fresh and look for evidence of eating raw fruits or  
uncooked fruits. The search gets involved as you must search fruit by  
fruit, vegetable by vegetable but the advice appears.

A text like Henry Butts' Dyets dry dinner consisting of eight seuerall  
courses: 1. Fruites from 1599 might be worth examining Stefan as it  
provides advice like "Hurt. Annoy weake stomacks, and diseased  
sinowes: especially eaten raw, or many" for apples for instance.

(I'm afraid that I agree with Ken Albala in that if they had obeyed  
the dietary advice not to eat raw fruits, then those passages would  
have ceased appearing in the texts. What we find though is time and  
again readers are warned against eating raw fruits because they make  
the belly swell, etc.)

In the later 17th century, the advice appears as:

For your diet.
Yong Mutton, Veale, Kid, Capors, Hennes, Chickens, Rabbets, Partridge,  
Fesant, Quaile, Plouers, small birdes of the fields, Pigeons, swéete  
butter, potched egges with vinegar, but not in hot complexions.

Water-fowles are not good, neither is Porke, or olde powdred Béefe.

But Fishes from fresh riuers is very good eaten with vinegar, and good  
sauce, they coole the bloud well.

Let your drinke bée small béere, and well brued, and sometimes a cup  
of white wine mixed with water for hot complexions, with Borrage, and  
Buglosse, but es|chew all hot and swéet wines.

Herbes that be good to bée vsed, Sorrel, Endiue, Succorie, Borage,  
Buglosse, Parsely, Marigoldes, Time, Marierom, Betonie, Scabious,  
Isope, Mints, Purslane, Pimpernell, Rue, Angelica, Cardus Benedictus,  
Lettuce.

Make your sauce with Cytrin, Limons, Oreng, Sorrell, Vinegar, Maces,  
Saffron, Barberies, and such like.

Raw, & yong fruit is hurtful, so is Garlick, Onions, Léekes, Radish,  
Rocket, Mustarde, Pepper, and hot spices, and al hot wines, and all  
these are hurtfull, & so are al swéet meates: let your diet be cooling  
& drying. page 29

Thayre, Thomas. A treatise of the pestilence vvherein is shewed all  
the causes thereof, with most assured preseruatiues against all  
infection: and lastly is taught the true and perfect cure of the  
pestilence, by most excellent and approued medicines. 1603

But later in the 1693 The compleat gard'ner, or, Directions for  
cultivating and right ordering of fruit-gardens and kitchen-gardens by  
La Quintinie, Jean de, 1626-1688., Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.

Pears
And, besides all the Advantages above-mentioned, it has likewise this,  
which appears to me a very great one, that is, when all other Pears  
are past, this still remains to Honour our Tables till the new Fruits  
of the Spring; and, by consequence, protracts even so far as that  
time, the pleasure of those that love raw Fruit. All which summ'd up  
together, excites in me so much Consideration for the Good Christian  
or Boncretien-pear, that I think I should do a kind of Injustice if I  
should refuse it the Place of a First Dwarf-pear-tree. page 80

Apples
Among the Apples that are good to Eat Raw, or Baked, or otherwise  
prepared, (for  I meddle not here with Cyder-Apples,) I count Seven  
principal sorts, that is to say, the Gray-Pippin, the White, or Frank- 
Pippin, the Autumn Calvill, the Fennellet, or Fennell-Apple, the Cour- 
pendu, or short-hung, or short-stalk'd-Apple, the Api, and the Violet- 
Apple. There are some others which I prize not so much, tho' they are  
no bad Fruit, as the Rambour, the Summer-Calvill, the Cousinotte, the  
Orgeran, the Jerusalem, the Thick Pairmain, the Ice-Apple, the  
Francatu, the Hiute-Bontée, or High-goodness, the Royalty, the  
Rouvezeau, the Chesnut-Apple, the Pigconnet, or Pigcon-Apple, the Pass- 
pomme, or Passing-Apple, the Petit-bon, or Small-good, the Fig-Apple,  
&c.
page 124

Plums
I see good Qualities, bad Qualities, and indifferent Qualities; and I  
observe some Plums that are good both Raw, and Baked, or Preserved,  
and some again that are good only to Bake, or Preserve. The good  
Qualities of Plums, are to have a fine, tender, and very melting pulp,  
a very sweet and sugred Juice, and a rich and exquisite Tast, which in  
some is perfumed: A good Plum is the only Fruit almost that is to be  
Eaten Raw, and has no need of Sugar, such are upon Wall-Trees, the  
Violet and White Perdrigons, the St. Catharines, the Apricock-plums,  
the Roche-Courbons, the Empresses, or Latter perdrigons; such also  
upon Wall-Trees, are the Queen Claudias, the Imperials, the Royals,  
the Violet, Red and White Damasks, and even the White Mirabells. page  
142

All Plums that are good raw, are likewise commonly very good baked or  
preserved, whe|ther * it be to make dry Prunes, or Compotes, or wet  
Sweet-meats, as the Perdrigons, &c. page 143

Johnnae

On Sep 2, 2010, at 3:50 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Find evidence for serving fresh, raw fruits and vegetables at  
> medieval foods has been rather difficult to document for various  
> reasons.