[Sca-cooks] Venison, not necessarily deer meat?
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Thu May 19 16:34:57 PDT 2011
While tracking down those suggestions by Thorvald
for potential Cameline-type recipes in Lancelot
de Casteau, i came upon this recipe (note i am
reading the French and translating myself)
Original
Pour heuspot de venaison, soit de sanglier ou de
cerf, prennez pain bruslè, & faictes poiure
passer l'estamine, & mettez dedans noix muscade,
poiure, claussons & pouldre, succre, canelle, vin
rouge, deux ou trois oignons haschez menus,
fricassez en beurre, & faictes les bien bouillir
ensemble tant qu'il soit luysant.
My Poor Translation
"For hochepot of venison, either of boar or of
red deer, take toasted bread, & pass pepper
through a sieve [although i wonder if one isn't
supposed to sieve the toasted bread into crumbs],
& put in nutmeg, pepper, "claussons" [i am not
finding this... clausson is a small pastry,
unlikely; or clous = cloves] & powder [probably
poudre fine], sugar, cinnamon, red wine, 2 or 3
onions finely chopped, fry in butter, & boil them
well together so that it is glistening."
It seemed odd to me that venison was either boar
or red deer, since i think of venison as meat of
a not specified species of deer.
So i checked a French dictionary, which said that
"venaison" was (my translation) "flesh of large
"gibier", such as red deer, fallow deer, roe
deer, boar." Looking up "gibier" it said (my
translation) "edible wild animals that one takes
in the hunt", and "the meat coming from such
animals".
This made me curious...
Granted Casteau wrote his cookbook around 1585,
although it was not published until 1604, so it
is rather late. But i began to wonder: does
"venison" or spelling variations of it in
SCA-period English cookbooks merely mean some
sort of more or less generic "deer" meat, as i
think most Americans assume, or does it really
signify what the French does - meat from any of
several large game animals?
--
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita
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