[Sca-cooks] true medieval bread recipes

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

I do. But it's a definition for something that was a staple for a major  
part of the population for centuries, that was regulated to an unusual degree  
and that is what is most referenced in period images and accounts. How did 
they  make those little round loaves we see in imagery? When a peasant has 
cheese,  bread and beer, how did one make that bread? When cities set the 
prices for a  white bread, a brown bread, an inbetween-bread, what did these 
have in common  (they varied mainly by the extraction rate)?

This is bread made with  flour, water and sourdough and, only sometimes, 
salt. No eggs, milk, butter,  oil, fruit, etc. Maybe a few herbs in some 
households. But that wonderful  alchemy of three or four simple ingredients which 
could be combined in  innumerable ways, baked slowly, quickly, in ovens or 
under bells, or under the  coals, that very simple product which today has 
given rise to innumerable  artisanal bakeries making bread in various shapes 
- that is what we have no  recipes for. Yet that too was central to the life 
of our period.
 
Jim  Chevallier
_www.chezjim.com_ (http://www.chezjim.com/) 

FRENCH BREAD HISTORY:  Seventeenth century bread
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2016/02/
french-food-history-seventeenth-century.html









In a message dated 9/22/2016 3:40:24 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
stefanlirous at gmail.com writes:

That is  why I said early in this discussion, multiple threads, that I had 
a dozen  period bread recipes in the Florilegium, but that might vary 
depending upon  your definition of “bread”. You give a pretty tight description 
for  “bread”.