[Sca-cooks] 1400's german buckwheat

[Stefan li Rous]

This sounds very much like a peasant or lower class dish, so it might have not made it into the cookbooks.

I did a google search in the Florilegium for "buckwheat" and found some entries, although maybe you threw them out as not being close enough. Some entries do indicate buckwheat is late in period in Europe. Any one know where it came from? I'm thinking probably Russia or from the East.

From Jadwiga's article:
Medvl-Poland-art (26K) 11/11/08 "Introduction to Medieval Poland" by Metressa Jadwiga Zajaczkowa.

<<< ·   Porridge or Gruel made either from flour or groats, usually millet. Oats were considered lower class, buckwheat and barley were introduced in late period. Depending on the thickness, these porridges could resemble other period cereal side dishes, such as frumenty. Rice sometimes graced the tables of the rich, but the poor made do with the seeds of grain-like manna. Hemp and flax seeds were also sometimes made into porridge. >>>

Not close enough to polenta? It sounds like it could meet your "still mush" criteria.

What if it is stuffed into a casing? Is Bohemia, Germanish, enough? I think the following is from Rumpolt via Ranvaig.

From the horseradish-msg file:
<<< Schweinen 17. Blood sausage from a wild pig.
When a wild pig is not mortally wounded/ or when
one catches it living/ that one can stab it to
death/ like a domestic pig/ then take the blood
(It sounds pretty dangerous to bleed out a wild
pig!)/ and stir it well/ cut bacon into it/ take
a pair weck bread (two loaves)/ cut them/ or
grate them on the grater/ soften them in a milk/
pour with the other in the blood/ put pepper/
ginger/ and mace into it/ and see/ that you do
not over salt it/ then the sausages become soft
and good/ that are made with the milk and the
bread. Then take a clean rice/ that is nicely
parboiled and picked over. 

**** Thus the Bohemian
farmers make it with barley and buckwheat/ it is
good in various manners/ when one stuffs and
parboils them in a water/ then one lays them on a
clean straw/ and lets them lay over night/ then
one cook them after that/ as one will have them.
When they are cooked to the place (until done)
then one gives pounded horseradish with it/ made
with a good beef broth. The Bohemian farmers
love to eat it like this. **** >>> asterisks, mine for emphasis.

Not hot burning research? Well, take some of that horseradish and rub it on your hands and then rub your eyes . . . :-)

Stefan

On May 18, 2014, at 10:27 PM, Nick Sasso <grizly at mindspring.com> wrote:

> I found an off-hand reference in an article about žganci stating that it,
> or buckwheat, was 1st referenced in 1426 german town records.  I have run
> quickly through the german cookbook translations I have ... I plan more
> intensive studies when I get my others from storage.  I ask the amassed
> many here if anyone knows of a recipe from Germanish sources for a
> buckwheat dish that is more or less a stiff mush or firm polenta-like dish
> served with rendered pork and milk sauce.  It has become a Modern-era
> Slovenian national dish for a couple centuries maybe.
> 
> Not a hot burning research, but thought I would ask those currently
> immersed in German texts.  The florilegium didn't proffer anything in the
> search strings I used.
> 
> pacem et bonum,
> niccolo difrancesco

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****