[Sca-cooks] Question remove vs. course.

[Johnna Holloway]

That's not the question. The question is why do people use this term in the SCA and why haven't we abandoned its use?

We've done the OED definitions before. I'm a librarian. I always start with OED. It's a click or two away.

Back in 2004 I ran the OED definitions and reported to the list--

For those wondering--

COURSE

from OED as pertaining to food--

Each of the successive parts or divisions of a meal, whether consisting
of a single dish, or of a set of dishes placed upon the table at once.

C. 1325 Coer de L. 3429 Fro kechene come the fyrste cours, With
    pypes, and trumpes, and tabours.

C. 1386 Chaucer Sqr.'s T. 58 It nedeth nat for to deuyse At every
    cours the ordre of hire servyse.

C. 1477 Caxton Jason 119 How many course and how many dishes at
    euery cours ther were seruid.

1599 Minsheu Dial. Sp. & Eng; (1623) 6 Bring us some Olives for
    the third course.

and in OCTOBER 2010, I reported:

OED online tonight says

REMOVE

b. Cookery. A dish that is served during a course in place of one that is removed. Formerly also: the action or an act of removing such a dish or dishes at a meal (obs.). Now chiefly hist.
 In later use, esp. in the contexts of French cookery.

The earliest quotation for this use--

1625 S. PURCHAS Pilgrimes IV. 345
The dishes so placed..that they did reach a yard high as we sate, and yet each dish fit to bee dealt upon without remoove.

That of course would have made it slip in under that once upon a time 1650 cut-off date. Did someone come across this phrase and use remove as to make our SCA feasts different

[This quotation is not mentioned in Countess Alys' article.]

Or maybe it came from Larousse

1961 N. FROUD et al. tr. P. Montagné Larousse Gastronomique 805/2

Remove. Relevé Dish which in French service relieves (in the sense that one sentry relieves another) the soup or the fish.
---
Course

30. A row, range, or layer.    a. A layer, stratum. Obs. exc. as in b, c.

c1430 Two Cookery-bks. 49 Ley e iiij. course of in Fleyssche..as brode as in cake.
1523 FITZHERB. Husb. §131 Set the nethermoste course vpon the endes, and the seconde course flat vppon the syde.
1553 BRENDE Q. Curtius Fviij, Over those a newe course of trees and stones agayne.

26. Each of the successive parts or divisions of a meal, whether consisting of a single dish, or of a set of dishes placed upon the table at once.

c1325 Coer de L. 3429 Fro kechene come the fyrste cours, With pypes, and trumpes, and tabours.
c1386 CHAUCER Sqr.'s T. 58 It nedeth nat for to deuyse At every cours the ordre of hire servyse.
c1477 CAXTON Jason 119 How many course and how many dishes at euery cours ther were seruid.
1599 MINSHEU Dial. Sp. & Eng. (1623) 6 Bring us some Olives for the third course.

Later during that same discussion I reported--

EEBO TCP has Holinshed in several editions (1570's) writing about Henry III saying

The cheefe iustice of the forrests on the right hand of the king remooued the dishes on the table..

A quick search tonight also turned up this passage that mentions courses and removing

from Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the diuell. Written by Tho. Nash, Gent.
[Nash, Thomas, 1567-1601.] published 1592.

Experto credo Roberto, there is no mast like a Marchants table. Bona fide, it is a great misture, that we haue not men swine as well as beasts, for then we should haue porke that hath no more bones than a pudding, and a site of bacon that you might lay vn|der your head in stead of a bolster.

It is not for nothing, that other Countries whom we vpbraide with Drunkennesse, call vs bursten-bellied Gluttons: for wee make our greedie haunches powdring tubs of beefe, and eat more meat at one meale  than the Spaniard or Italian in a moneth▪ Good thrifty mēn they draw out adinner with sallets, like a Swart|(?)utters sute, and make Madona Nature their best Caterer. We must haue our Tables furnisht like Poulters stalls, or as though we were to victual Noahs Arke again (wherin there was al sorts of liuing creatures that euer were) or els the good-wife will not  open her mouth to bid one welcome. A stranger that should come to one of our Magnificoes houses, when dinner were set on the boord, and he not yet set, would thinke the goodman of the house were a Haberdasher of Wilde-sowle, or a Merchant venturer of daintie meate, that sels commodities of good cheere by the great, and hath Factors in Arabia, Turkey, Egipt, and Barbarie, to pro|uide him of straunge Birdes, Chiua Mustard, and odde patterns to make Custards by.

Lord, what a coyle haue we with this Course and that course, remoouing this dish higher, setting another lower, and taking a|waye the third. A Generall might in lesse space remooue his Campe, than they stand disposing of their gluttonie. And where to tends all this gurmandise, but to giue sleepe grosse humors to feede on, to corrupt the braine, and make it vnapt and vnweldie for any thing.


Might be interesting to run the spelling remooved or remooued through some sources.

The OED quotation for remove from 1625 in full reads:

The Gouernour feasted them very royally at a dinner, with all sorts of wild fowle, Hennes, Goates, Mutton, Creame, Custards, diuers made dishes, and Confections, all serued in Vessels of Tinne (different from our Pewter) and made Goblet-fashion with feet, the dishes so placed the one vpon the other, that they did reach a yard high as we sate, and yet each dish fit to bee dealt vpon without remooue. The meate was all serued vp at once, and that before we sat down.
**********

My question is what are these SCA cooks referencing (if anything) when they use the word REMOVE and not COURSE when listing their dishes on their menus.

Johnnae



On Dec 30, 2012, at 6:40 PM, Gretchen R Beck wrote:

> The online edition of the OED has a quote from 1625: 1625   S. Purchas Pilgrimes IV. 345   The dishes so placed..that they did reach a yard high as we sate, and yet each dish fit to bee dealt upon without remoove.
> 
> toodles, margaret
> ________________________________________
> From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org [sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] on behalf of Joel Lord [jpl at ilk.org]
> Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 6:36 PM
> To: Cooks within the SCA
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Question remove vs. course.
> 
> Since the article is a touch vague on one detail - when the term
> "remove" really did start getting used in a culinary serving sense - I
> figured I'd answer that.
> 
> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 1971 dead tree edition, the
> word "remove", meaning "The act of taking away a dish or dishes at a
> meal in order to put others in their place; hence, a dish thus removed,
> or brought on in place of one removed," dates to 1755.  Interestingly,
> the original use cited is one 'Johnson (ed. 4)', which is the 4th
> edition of the first dictionary of the English language.  Odd that no
> earlier cite exists that was not itself a dictionary.
> 
> "Course", on the other hand, meaning "Each of the successive parts or
> divisions of a meal, whether consisting of a single dish, or of a set of
> dishes places upon the table at once," first appeared in writing in 1325
> in 'Cour de L.' [sic]: "Fro kechene come the fyrste
> cours, With pypes, and trumpes, and tabours."
> 
> Obviously, if anyone has access to a newer edition of the OED that
> changes these dates and cites, I'd be happy to know.
>