[Sca-cooks] raw egg yolks

[Rikke D. Giles]

This is interesting.  The 'fresh cheese' recipe from Markham's English Housewife is in chap II 'Of Cookery', recipe 161 'To make a fresh cheese'.  It's not in the dairy section (Chap VI) at all.  I would think this 'cheese' is to be eaten immediately, probably as a dessert/sweet (consider the context:  Recipe 160 is a leach Lombard,  162 is a coarse ginger bread).

In the dairy chapter, where pressed and aged cheeses are discussed, Markham never says to put an egg yolk into the cheese or curds.  He does say egg yolks can be added when seasoning rennet curds (and perhaps, whether he knows it or not, that's for color).  But that's it.  

As for color, I myself think that period eggs/yolks were usually far more brightly colored than modern.  Why?  Well, I keep chickens, as well as milk goats.  And I let my chickens eat whatever the heck they want (except for my garden, stay out of my garden!).  They are truly free range, as in , they will greet you at your car door when you drive into the farm.  Their eggs' yolks are a rich and deep orangey-yellow.  Store bought egg yolks are very pale, almost non-colored, in comparison; even the 'free range' 'non-caged' organic ones.  Our chickens eat grass, plants, any bug they can catch... Their diet is incredibly varied.  I think that contributes to the color of the yolks.  When our flock has to be kept locked up in the run, for whatever reason, the egg yolks turn pale yellow, like store-bought eggs.

Anyway, using a bright orange-yellow yolk would add some amazing color to the fresh cheese.  

There is another recipe for a diary product with egg yolks that I have found.  This is in Thomas Dawson, 'The Good Housewife's Jewel'.  Here he as a recipe for buttered eggs (a sugared butter made with egg yolks).  The point seems to be the color, for he tells one to use the egg whites to make a white butter.  So one has yellow and white sugared butters. 

I've just recently been refreshing my learning on period cheese recipes, as I reworked my translation of Bifron's letter on cheese, added a lot of annotation, and presented it at our Baronial A&S competition last week.  I'll get my rewrite to Stefan for the Florilegium soon, the old translation is in the Florilegium already.

Aelianora de Wyntringham
mka Rikke Giles




On 02/15/2017 02:51:50 PM, The Eloquent Page wrote:
> I have made some basic cheeses, so the milk is ok.  It's the egg yolk
> that was worrying me.  I can't see anything which would make the egg
> yolk safe.  It's certainly not a cheese you could keep, wit the raw
> egg yolk in it.  I was just wondering if someone had come across a
> similar recipe.  Sometimes there is an important bit missing.
> 
> Katherine
> 
>   
> Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2017
> From: Donna Green  <donnaegeren at yahoo.com>
> To:sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org 
> <http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org>
> 
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] raw egg yolks
> Katherine,
> I don't know if you've done any cheese making. If you have, you'll
> know this already, but if not ... raw milk will clot into curds all on
> its own if you give it time. Pasteurized milk will need calcium
> chloride added along with the rennet to get curds. Raw milk is,
> obviously, the period choice, but the availability varies widely from
> state to state. If you can get it I recommend you use that for this
> experiment if you want to try for as close to period as possible.
> As for your egg yolks, find a farmer (farmer's market, CSA, etc.) you
> trust, and just use the eggs. I've never had a problem using raw egg
> yolks. Just warn any tasters of what they're getting so they can make
> their own choices.
> Juana Isabella
> 
> Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 16:12:28 -0500
> From: The Eloquent Page <books at TheEloquentPage.com 
> <http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org>>
> To:sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org 
> <http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] raw egg yolks
> 
> I have found the missing recipe.  (My husband helpfully put away all
> my
> reference books last week, and I have been searching for the recipe
> ever
> since.)
> 
> Gervase Markham The English Hous-wife
> 
> To make an excellent fresh cheese, take
> To make fresh a pottle of milk as it comes from the Cow ,
> Cheese. an d a pj n t of cream : then take a spoonful
> of runnet or earning, and put it unto it, and let it stand
> two houres : then stir it up, and put it into a fine cloath,
> and let the Whey drain from it : then put it into a bowl,
> and take the yolk of an Egg, a spoonfull of Rosewater,
> and bray them together with a very little Salt, with
> Sugar and Nutmegs, and when all these are brayed
> together, and searst, mix it with the curd, and then put
> it in the Cheese-fat with a very fine cloth.
> 
> It is added after  the cooking stage, so I don't see what would make
> it
> safe to eat.  Opinions and suggestions greatly appreciated!
> 
> Katherine
> 
> O
> 
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