[Sca-cooks] Amazing romand dish (Patina de cydoniis)

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

Quince really are good and fairly common in Roman cuisine. As I recall, I  
got mine in an Armenian grocery nearby.
 
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 3/6/2017 5:58:37 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
traumspindel at googlemail.com writes:

I am  writing this to let ya'll know of the WORTHTRYingness and quality of
this  dish we cooked two days ago at an event here in Drachenwald: it  is
from
Apicius "de re coquinaria " Book IV chapter II. 163 Patina de  cydoniis.

A dish of quinces is made as  follows:2
<http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/4*.html#163note2>
quinces
are  cooked with leeks, honey and broth, using hot oil, or they are stewed
in  honey.3
<http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/4*.html#163note3>

We  didn't have any quinces (though we will definitely try it again, when
they  are in season) so we followed the suggestion of the author of this
blog:  http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/4*.html and
used  an unsugared Quince "jam" (from el quijote which was 80% fruit) and
used  apples (unpeeled but cut into cubes) for texture.

We used about 20  leeks and a similar volume of apples (maybe a bit more)
with one of those  400g packages, cooked them in vegetable broth (it was the
vegetarian part  of the course) and added about 1,5 times the volume of the
marmelade in  honey. We used ample broth (and correctly so since, -of course
- court was  not finished in time ;) ) but even so some of it started to
reduce in to  the point of it no longer being a liquidy dish, so we added
some more  water. This didn't diminish the flavor, which was rich and
somewhat sweet  but not "just" sweet or even just very sweet.

It's the kind of dish  that is suitable as a vegetarian and GF dish and pair
well with meat but  also is tasty on its own.

ImE some people have no "concept" of the  flavor of quinces unless exposed
to the spanish cuisine so I felt compelled  to let ya'all know how great
this dish was.

We served meatballs from  book 11, Minces of the same "cookbook" by Apicius
with this dish. We also  had a wine sauce (though I am not completely sure
we did it justice) but  the juices of the "quince" dish were a perfect
combination, better than the  wine sauce, at least to our modern palates. It
was a group of around 60+  people so the sample should be big enough and got
back 1 small bowl after  that course (it was the first course meal so people
knew they had to pace  themselves but that bowl did not survive the night
either)

When I  will cook this dish again during quince season, I would take MANY
more  quinces than leeks to try to reproduce this flavor as the jam was
basically  a reduction of quince, probably much more focussed in flavor than
just the  original quinces (but then our modern palates are also used to
higher  sweetness).

It was divine, if I may say so myself. I highly recommend  to everybody to
try it. It would pair well with any kind of fowl/chicken,  the meatballs
mentioned, and I couls also see it work with Venison. I am  not much of a
fish cook, so I cannot truly assess its value  there.

YIS
Elisande
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