[Sca-cooks] Pretzels

[James Prescott]

It would depend what counted as a pretzel.  "Syringe fritters" or 
equivalent (e.g. beignet) appear in late period cookbooks.  They are 
dough that is squeezed through an opening, usually into hot fat.

The principal similarity is that they can be in a knotted shape, or 
almost any other twisty shape the cook chooses.  The principal 
difference is that they are deep fried or shallow fried, not baked.

Here's a hybrid sample recipe (most of #14 and a bit of #15) from 
Ouverture 1604 (my translation):

<begin quote>

14.  To make dough for beignet or fritter.

Take a chopine of cream, and boil it in a frying pan with a bit of 
butter, then take white flour, and make the dough in the frying pan on 
the fire: mix it well with a wooden ladle.  Then break four eggs in, and 
beat it well with the ladle, so that the eggs are well mixed into the 
dough, then take four more eggs and beat them once more until the dough 
is soft like a thick batter, add as many eggs as necessary so that the 
dough is soft enough.

Then take butter well boiled so that the salt is out, then put the 
butter on the fire so that it is a bit hot. [end quote from #14]

[begin quote from #15] Have a speriche or syringe with a small iron 
inside, having two or three holes, or a single hole if you wish; squeeze 
the dough through; and cook them in butter like the others.

<end quote>

The batter is very like pâte a choux, squeezed through a syringe into 
the hot butter.  For the syringe part, compare the modern Spanish "churro".


Thorvald


On 2016-02-22, 18:03, Lijsbet de Keukere wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>
> I have been doing some research on period pretzels. It seems as though many
> of the recipes provided in period texts are sweeter than we are used to now
> - more like a cookie or biscuit than a savory snack.
>
> Ideally, I would like to make a savory pretzel for an upcoming event, but I
> have a conundrum on my hands because I also want it to be period-correct.
> Has anyone been able to find such a recipe?
>
> For the record, I read through all of the Florilegium articles on pretzels,
> and many of the articles I could find with a Google search do not provide
> sufficient documentation for me to trust it. I'm wondering if I'm not using
> the correct search phrases.
>
> Thank you!!
>