[Sca-cooks] Which wine for mallard recipe

[David Friedman]

For purposes of comparison, our redaction from the Miscellany:

4 1/2 lb duckling,
or 3 lbs chicken
or 3 lb rabbit
1/4 t mace
1/4 t pepper
1 t cinnamon
lard for frying
6 slices bread
1/2 lb onions
2 T red wine vinegar
2 c chicken broth
1/4 t ginger
1 c wine
[1/2 t salt]
⅛ t cloves
1 T vinegar

Roast the duck, chicken or rabbit for about
an hour and a quarter. Bone the meat, or break
it into small pieces. Chop onions and fry them
in 2 t of the drippings for about five minutes,
until they turn yellow. Add dismembered
chicken (or …), broth, wine, cloves, mace,
pepper and cinnamon to the pot, bring to a
simmer, and cook twenty minutes.
Meanwhile, tear up the bread, spoon about
1 c of the liquid from the pot over the bread,
and let it soak for 3-4 minutes. Add 2 T
vinegar, force through a strainer or mash very
thoroughly, and add to the pot along with
ginger and another T of vinegar. Bring back to
a boil, stirring, and serve.


At Tue, 6 Mar 2012 09:20:01 -0500, Alexander Clark wrote:
>
>
>On 3/6/12, I <alexbclark at pennswoods.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 6 Mar 2012 06:52:47 -0500, Sharon Palmer
>> <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com> wrote:
>>> To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
>>>>I'm looking at serving wild mallard at a feast at the end of this
>>>>month. Here's a link to the recipe I'm currently planning on using:
>>>>
>>>>http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke80.html
>>>>
>>>>The recipe calls for dry wine and for wine vinegar. I'm not sure
>>>>whether I should use red or white wine, or whether it would  really
>>>>matter. Any suggestions?
>>>
>>> Take Conyng, Hen, or Mallard, and roste him al-moste ynowe; or elles
>>> choppe hem, and fry hem in fressh grece; and fry oynons myced, and
>>> cast al togidre into a potte, and caste there-to Canell; then stepe
>>> faire brede with the same broth, and drawe hit thorgh a streynour
>>> with vinegre. And when hit hath wel boiled, caste the licour thereto,
>>> and pouder ginger, and vinegre, and ceson hit vppe, and then thou
>>> shall serue hit forth.
>>>
>>> I don't see why the redaction has wine.  It's not mentioned in the
>>> original. (Neither are cloves and mace, except as "season it up").
>>> Unless they were looking at other versions of the recipe too.
>>
>> That recipe that doesn't mention wine, et al., is not really the
>> original. It's just someone's transcription of Austin's published
>> transcription. And it's missing a few words:
>>
>> ". . . caste there-to fressh broth and half wyne; . . . Cloues, Maces,
>> powder of Peper, . . ."
>>
>> So apparently the author of the modern interpretation was working
>> directly and carefully from Austin, while some large errors got into
>> the new transcription.
>
>P. S. That is to say, the interpretation was much more careful than
>the new transcription, but they still cheated a bit by substituting
>butter for grease for fryi ng, and by putting in the vinegar before the
>final seasoning. They also substituted oven-roasting for
>spit-roasting, and by their own admission intentionally skipped the
>part where you strain the soaked bread.
>
>-- 
>Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark
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David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com
daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/