Faux Fruit for the Queen

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=stilllife+with+lemons+organs+and+a+pomegranate&ia=images&iax=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fobrazarna.cz%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fpictures%2F3AA2723.JPG

By

Honorable Lady Sosha Lyon’s O’Rourke

Contents

History of Subtleties………………………………………….. Pg. 3

Ingredients ……………………………………………………….. Pg. 5-6

Creating a display ……………………………………………… Pg. 7-8

Subtleties: The Making of Food Art………………….….. Pg. 9-12

Recipes ……………………………………………………………… Pg. 13-15

Food Coloring ……………………………………………………. Pg. 16-17

Conclusion ………………………………………………………… Pg. 18

Works Cited………………………………………………………. Pg. 19-20

Subtlety – A short overview of food as Art:

What is a Subtlety?  For me, this is creating a period dish or set of dishes to resemble something else. In this instance, I am showing fruit as a subtlety playing on the rarity of Lemons and while regaling the senses with rare spices and the conspicuous consumption of sugar.

A subtlety should be, per Hunter, an intermission within a meal between courses that entertains while heavily disguising the origins of the main ingredients.  Fooling, or tricking the eye into seeing the unusual and mythical, while using every day food items in unique ways, that promoted thought and goodwill towards the host.  Per Martins:

Hunter notes the coinciding of the change of venue for the banquet course (to another room) to promote conversation in the fifteenth century with the publication in the vernacular of Platos Symposium (defined as a meeting to exchange ideas after a meal… The qualities of wit and wisdom associated with the literary…appear to metamorphose sotil into the more modern sense of subtle through association with the sweetmeat course (Hunter 1986:38,39). Witty conversation was to work with the sweetmeats or confectionery subtleties to help the diner digest physically and mentally. Once the effects of wonder wear off, the need for quick wit, humor and subtle sayings represent the transfer of ingenuity from the chef to the guests. The subtlety is creative and prompts creativity; if the chef can make it, the guest should be able to comment on it. Unlike with many other performance genres, the subtlety relies on ingenuity from both the audience and the director in order to be successful. It also depends on a unique form of ingenuity: playing with nature. (Martins)

There were early notations of subtleties occurring, from the book Satyricon, by Petronius, who wrote that at a Roman feast dinner included a rabbit that had been made to look like the mythological winged horse Pegasus. Another earlier example, written by an Egyptian caliph in the eleventh century describes from one Islamic feast day a hundred and fifty-seven figures and seven table sized palaces made of sugar. (Martins). 

Another example: Philip the Fair, at the Feast of the Pheasant, showcased a giant Saracen entering the feasting hall leading an elephant (there is a question about the edibility of said pachyderm), with a knight (Oliver de La Marche) playing the role of the captive Eastern church. (Wheaton, pg. 8/Martins).  Another example: Henry VIII.  George Cavendish wrote about a feast sponsored by the great Tudor king in such waxing enthusiasm for the feast “…I do both lack wit in my gross old head and cunning in my bowels to declare the wondrous and curious imaginations in the same invented and devised.” (Henisch, pp. 236/Martins) The feasting was a display to move men and women into wondrous thoughts, glossing over the harsh reality of court life or a grand and compelling gesture.

“Such subtle creations could be comprised of just the edible, or as the more elaborate a set up became, a combination of paper mache and lumber to support a larger and even grander display.  These decorative subtleties were for powerful displays and less about eating, with the production being undertaken by carpenters, metals smiths and painters and very little with chefs.” (www.reference.com/browse/subtlety)

A subtlety could be simple items.  A redressed peacock on proud display or stuffed fowl riding roast piglets; or as elaborate as a full pastry castle with trees containing candied fruit, glazed and stuffed mythical beasts, and musicians.  Allegorical scenes were not uncommon, with themes like “Castle of Love” or “Lady of the Unicorn”. 

These second types of decorative subtleties where there was little to be eaten but a display of wealth was shown in excess.  “Such subtle creations could be comprised of just the edible, or as the more elaborate a set up became, a combination of paper mache and lumber to support a larger and even grander display.  These decorative subtleties were for powerful displays and less about eating, with the production being undertaken by carpenters, metals smiths and painters and very little with chefs.” (www.reference.com/browse/subtlety

Ingredients:

Almond meal – Blanched ground almonds.  Almonds originated in southwestern Asia as an edible seed and pressed into oil, eaten raw or ground into a flour type consistency.  This versatile seed is used as a drink, a flour base for desserts or sugar coated. The almond is grown in Asia, US, Marcona, Spain and Greece. (https://www.britannica.com/plant/almond)

Cardamom – Comes in two varieties.  Green, E. caramomum or the dried black ripe seeds. One of the world’s most expensive spices after saffron and vanilla.  Used for foods and pharmaceuticals worldwide. (Preedy, Pp 295-301)

Cinnamon – Indigenous to the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and successfully replanted to grow in Northern India, East Java and the Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles.  The word Cinnamon started from the Greek word for spices with the prefix Chinese.  This spice traveled over various routes passing through the hands of Phoenicians and Arabs on its lengthy journey to become a dominant spice in the spice trade wars. (Czarra, pp. 10-12)

Cloves – Native to Moluccas in Indonesia, while successfully growing in Madagascar, Zanzibar and Pemba.  Harvested by hand when the clover flower buds turn pink at their base.  (Czarra, Pp 12-13)

Dates – Originating in the Near East and North Africa, a short distance from Rome, making them easily transported.  Aristotle compared the dates to daktylos (fingers) giving them their name.  High and sugar, eaten fresh or dried, sometimes ground into a meal or made into a syrup. (Toussant-Sumat, pp. 675-676)

Ginger – Zingiber Officnale, a meter tall tropical plant with large leaves with spikes studded with yellow and red rimmed flowers.  The rhizome is used for food, flavoring and medicinal.  The rhizome can be used fresh, dried, grated, ground, preserved in syrup/vinegar and crystalized. (Toussant-Samat, p. 496)

Nutmeg – Native to the Banda Islands of Indonesia, nutmeg is the actual kernel of the fruit.  Nutmeg can be stored for a long time in airtight containers.  The outer fruit/lace of the nutmeg fruit is called mace.  (Czarre, pp. 16)

Black Pepper – Piper Nigun.  A tropical vine that can grow up to 18 feet with large thick leaves and small white flowers grown on spikes.  Pepper has been known as Peperi Greek, piper Latin, pep, Italian, Pfeffer German, poivre French.  Originally exported from the Indian subcontinent. Toussant-Samat, pp. 490-491)

Powdered sugar – Finely ground Sugar.

Rosewater – Scappi mentions rose water as a matter of course for dishes.  (Scappi, pp. 42) I have made rosewater before, and it was the most astringent tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth.  Lovely color but useless for food in my opinion.  I went with store-bought for edibility.

Sugar – I used organic sugar.  Compared to the normal cane sugar, the difference is pretty startling.  Organic sugar has just enough molasses to make the sugar seem tinged with gold.  Compared to actual dark brown sugar, with heavy molasses it seems almost pure white. 

Saccharum officinarum “…considered a spice even rarer and more expensive than any other…pharmaceutical use…gives its species name of officinarum.”   Considered very expensive till the late 1500.  Loaf sugar given the name due to the conical shape derived from refining into a hard and very white refined form. Caffetin or Couffin (English equivalent of “coffer” or “coffin”) named for the form, packed in plaited leaves palm and from the city shipped from called Caffa in the Crimea.    Casson a very fragile sugar also considered the ancestor to Castor sugar.  Muscarrat considered the best of all sugars, reported to be made in Egypt for the Sultan of Babylon. The Italian name mucchera denotes that it had been refined twice. (Toussaint-Samat, pg. 553-555)

Creating a display:

Creating a display seemed to rely heavily on allegorical content from myth, fantasy or biblical content, such as the Pegasus from myth at the Roman table (Scully, pp. 107) or Lady of the Unicorn. The thought process that goes behind making a display was how each animal was viewed in allegorical terms.

“…the horns of an antelope might get caught in a bush in the same way humans might get caught in a life of sin. The nightingale represented love, the elephant implied chastity, the ape, lewdness and lust and the peacock, the purity of someone who never turns to sin.” (Martins).

The main display item, according to these views should play upon the strength of the subjects or as humorous jokes on the subject matter presented.

I chose citrus as a way to display a scarcity rescourse, imported by the rich for display’s of wealth.

There are several potraits of the rich with subtel depictions of their wealth with the inclusion of citrus in paintings. The picture below, while not Tudorian, is from 1434 showing a wealthy couple’s marriage and a the subtle inclusion of citrus.   

https://www.academia.edu/83658318/Appealing_Unpeeled_The_layers_of_meaning_of_lemons_as_portrayed_in_Dutch_Golden_Age_Paintings

This is the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife.  Here we see oranges in the windowsill and on the side table. 

Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devaon, is reported to have given a rare and expensive gift of oranges to Henry VIII, secured from an exporter in Exeter who shipped from Iberia. (https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/medievalstudies/2020/01/05/new-years-gifts/) Per Hampton Court, records for dining included citrus and almonds from the Mediterranean areas with imports from Cyprus (sugar) and spices from the Indies.  (https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/tudor-food-and-eating/#gs.4c4dud). 

We also show:

“…new fruits from southern Europe were introduced into the gardens of the wealthy.  These included quinces, apricots, raspberries, red and black currents, melon and even pomegranates, oranges and lemons.  The last…citrus fruits continued to be imported from Portugal, the bitter Seville type of orange now being imported by improved sweet oranges carried from Ceylon into Europe by the Portugues.” (https://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2010/04/question-from-jacob-oranges-in-tudor.html?m=1)

With the understanding that lemons and organs were considered a delicacy, along with sugar, almonds, dates and spices.  We move onto the making of a Subtlety.

Subtleties: The Making of Food Art

The pictures below are the steps taken to make the final outcome of my entry. 

Almonds from Jordan, coated in sugar from Cyprus and flavored with spices from the Indies, to form sugared almonds. We start with coating almonds with a sweet 1:1 ratio of sugar and water.  Then bring gently to boil.  After every boil.  We turn off the stove and allow the mixture and almonds to cool.

After a few, many heating and cooling episodes, the sugar crystalizes onto the almonds forming an amazing flavor.

In period, the almonds would have been added to a large cylendrical and suspended pot, to which a teaspoon of the sugar water mixture would be added.  This would form a slight coating over each almond at a time. Taste of History by Max Miller did an amazing job of showing how this was technically done.  He also pointed out that it was several hours of hard work to get just a few nuts covered and several batches destroyed from burning.  We are attemtping flavor not looks for the enterior of this subtelty.

Once the almonds have been candied, take a medjool date and remove the seed and cap.  Stuff two or three almonds inside.

Next we make period ginger bread with imported expensive spices from the spice islands and the Middle East.

Period ginger bread has a variety of recipes, much like everyone’s favorite Italian grandmother’s one true lasagna recipe.  There can be more than one.  Here I take spices, add them to plain bread crumbs.  The bread crumbs would be saved from all the bread sliced on the cutting board for just such a dish and tossed into simmering honey. Nothing is wasted.

The almond stuffed dates are then wrapped in the still hot spiced bread crumb mixture to form the shape of the faux fruit to be.

Please note the second mistake for today’s recipe, the very white marzipan.  Marzipan is supposed to be made with powdered sugar, ground almonds (almond flour), one egg white and a touch of rose water.  Here in this picture, marzipan is made without ground almond flour.  It has amazing stiffness but is incredibly fragile to work with and hardens in seconds.  The taste is like an overly sweet rose sugar.  I did not like the taste after the first round of wrapping was completed.  Instead of breaking the sugar shells open to rescue the gingerbread inside, I made a second batch so everyone would be able to taste why no almond flour to marzipan is a really bad idea.

Almond flour gives the sugar an elasticity and subtle flavor that is needed.  Drying time is a little slower however this outweighs with better flavor and elasticity needed to cover gingerbread and to make really cute leaves that aren’t going to break if you breathe on them.

The marzipan forms are then painted with coloring that reflects the represented citrus.  Now I could have used period ingredients for the paints.  Saffron, cochineal and spinach water.  2 out of 3 of these ingredients were NOT cost effective (saffron and cochineal), and two I wouldn’t put on a sweet (cochineal and spinach).  One, I just won’t eat because I can’t guarantee that the cochineal is food grade or food safe.  Cochineal is the ground up shells of a beetle imported from Mexico that make a really lovely red dye.  If I won’t eat this, then I won’t ask others to eat it either.  I used modern day food dyes with vodka to help the cohesion and watering down of said food dyes. 

The mistakes made for this subtlety: Marzipan without almond flour and I forgot to stuff the candied almonds into the luxury item of dates.  While the just sugar marzipan was tasty, it was hard to work with and hardened in minutes instead of hours. 

Candied almonds not placed inside of a date, when wrapped with the gingerbread, felt more like marbles rolling around while forming the gingerbread instead of a solid item that was being gently wrapped in gingerbread then marzipan.  It was very disconcerting to feel!

Recipes:

Marzipan:

Original Recipe:

And if you will make any images of any other thing in sugar that is cat in molds make them in the same maner that the plate is and pour it into the molds in the same manner that the plate is poured, but let your mold be anointed before with a little almond oil. (Heiatt, pp. 142)

Ingredients:

1 C ground almonds     2 C powdered sugar     1 egg white

2 tsp Rosewater                 

Redaction:

Marzipan is an almond thick paste that can be formed into flowers, trees, birds etc.  In period the marzipan would be colored with saffron, cinnamon etc. to produce colors that would sometimes over ride the flavor of the candy.

I will note that my original ground almonds could have been ground more finely, and my powdered sugar was bought instead of taking regular table sugar and grinding finer in a mortar and pestle.  I have since upgraded to peeled ground almond meal and the powdered sugar is still bought.  I don’t use vanilla as the modern recipes will suggest but I do use the period rosewater instead.

Gingerbread

Original Recipe:

First Recipe:

Take a quart of honey & seethe it, skim it clean; take saffron, powdered pepper, * throw thereon; take grated bread, make it so stiff that it will be cut; then take powdered cinnamon, & strew thereon enough; then make it square, like as thou would cut it; take when thou cut it, and caste box leaves above, stuck thereon, and cloves.  And if thou will have it red color it with sandalwood enough. (Renfrow, pp. 230)

Second Recipe:

Take a quart of honey clarified, and seethe it till it be brown, and if it be thick put to it a sih of water: then take fine crumbs of white bread grated, and put to it, and stir it well, and when it is almost cold, put to it the powder of ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and a little liquorice and aniseeds; then knead it, and put it into moulds and print it: some use to put to it also a little pepper, but that is according unto taste and pleasure. (Markahm, pp. 120)

Ingredients:

1 C honey        2 C breadcrumbs (white bread preferred)

1/8 tsp ground black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves

whole cloves and cinnamon powder for display

Redaction:

I actually played around with the flavor a little bit and added a few more spices.  1/8 cinnamon, cardamon, ginger and nutmeg. (I’m a spicy type of cook you know!)

If you will notice the breadcrumbs are from a whole wheat bread I had.  In period if this dish were to be served to nobility or royalty, the probability that the bread was made from good white flour without a lot of whole wheat is much higher than a whole wheat or grain-based bread.  I would suggest a good bread made from white flour, water, either ale or water, and yeast can actually be the must from the bottom of the ale barrel or ale yeast if you wanted a more purist type of bread.  (That will be in another post later.)

Place the honey in a pot and boil.  Skim the foam as it appears, add the pepper and the saffron and stir in the breadcrumbs. After the breadcrumbs were added…in went the spices. Continue stirring until the mixture starts to stiffen up. Place mixture in a mold or use your hands to form the desired shape.

Dragee and Spices in Confit – Candied Fruit

Original Recipe:

This recipe has been condensed by the authors as being extremely long and convoluted.  Here is their shortened version.

To clarifie suger, and to mak anneys in counfite, which directs us to make caraway, coriander, fennel and ginger into confit the same way…

1 cup sugar                   ½ cup water                 6 oz anise seeds

Combine sugar and water in a heavy pan for 5 minutes, add seeds and stir until the syrup begins to look white; set aside for 10 minutes.  Then put back over low heat, preferably over a protective mat or heat diffuser, and stir until the sugar coating softens enough to be poured.  Pour onto a cookie sheet or a piece of clean screening over a cake rack. Spread the seeds out with a paring knife separate them as much as possible as they harden…

(Hieatt, 135)

Ingredients:

1 C sugar         ½ C water        2 C almonds

Redaction:

I did this with almonds so as to stuff dates for the center of a marzipan/gingerbread subtlety.

Food Coloring – Period but not always edible:

Cinnamon – Produces a lovely red coloring, though this does imparts a strong cinnamon flavor to the marzipan.

Cochineal – Spanish Conquistadors conquering Mexico discovered that the Mesoamericans had found the perfect red dye coloring. Dye comes from of a small bug found on cacti.  50,000 to 70,000 bugs are needed per pound of dye.  The dye is produced when pouring boiling water over the dead bugs.  (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bug-had-world-seeing-red-180961590/) This produces a strong red coloring.  In other words, bug juice.  I draw the line at knowingly eating this.  Because I won’t eat this, I won’t put this in my edible artwork.  Replaced with edible paint and cinnamon.

Lapis Lazuli – A mineral used as an expensive pigment in period paintings such as Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian.  Considered expensive and used only by accomplished painters with rich patrons. (https://geology.com/gemstones/lapis-lazuli/)   Produces lovely blue coloring. Not food grade.  Because I could not verify if this was cut with something toxic I replaced the dye with blue edible paint. 

Lead – Lead White used for paintings along with gypsum and chalk.(http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/artist-paints/renaissance-colour-palette.htm) Seen in “Miracle of the Slave”, 1548 by Tintoretto.  Produces a fine white coloring. Toxic to poisonous.  Replaced with white edible paint.

Malachite – A green mineral, found as early as 618 AD for paintings.  (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/8/5/201/htm).  Seen in “Garden of Earthly Delights”, 1504 by Hieronymus Bosch.  Produces an amazing green coloration.  Not food grade.  Because I could not verify if this was cut with something toxic I replaced the dye with spinach juice.

Parsley –  Native to the mediterranean from the Apiaceaa family.  Attempted use as a green coloring agent.  Failure on dying sugar art green but makes a lovely, if interesting, sugar art display.  (https://www.britannica.com/plant/parsley)

Pearl – Natural formed when a grain of sand (or other irritant) invades an oyster soft interior.  The oyster coats the irritant with fluid called nacre.  Many coats are used to smooth out the rough edges. (https://pearls.com/pages/how-pearls-are-formed) Used as early as Roman times for heart disease by grinding pearls.  For black bile, ground pearls were mixed with musk. (King, pp. 314).  Produces lovely pearlescent shimmer.  Attempted to hand grind pearls in my pestle.  This did not go well.  Could not get a consistent sand like quality.  Rough and gritty.  Replaced with edible paint to replace gritty chunks.

Saffron – The usable part of the saffron plant are the three stamen.  The saffron is part of the Iridaceae family, growing wild from Italy to Kurdistan.  Produces a lovely red color and very expensive due to the quantity needed for dying.  (ToussaInt-Samat, pp. 518) 

Snapdragons – A flowering plant native to the Mediterranean and North America from the Pantaginacea family.  Attempted use as a red dye for sugar art.  A failure for coloring.   (https://www.britannica.com/plant/snapdragon)

Spinach Juice – Spinach is chopped then boiled.  The water reserved for coloring of sugar and painting onto pastry crust.

Note on Subtlety:

A subtlety could be made of just the edible, such as a re-skinned peacock, or as a combination of paper mâché and lumber to accent the food in the display.  These decorative subtleties were for powerful displays and less about eating, with the production being done by carpenters, metal smiths and painters and very little with chefs. Horace Warpole describes a banquet given in honor of the birth of Duke of Burgundy, where the centerpiece was of wax figures moved by clock work at the end of the feast to represent the labor of the Dauphiness and the happy birth of the heir to the monarchy. (Martins/Craig, pp. 17)

Paint brushes:

            Per Cennini, paint brushes should be made from the middle hairs of cooked vair tails, trimmed then tied with thread or waxed silk thread before tucking them into a feather shaft.  After this is complete find a twig/wooden handle to fit into the other end of the feather shaft.  His preference for feather shafts was vulture, goose, chicken hen or dove. (https://www.medievalists.net/2016/08/how-to-make-medieval-artists-tools/)  I went with store bought brushes as I am fresh out of vair tails, cat hairs, squirrel hairs and the dog hair available is to curly.

Conclusion:

I love making candied almonds.  Fun, sweet and amazing to the tongue.  Gingerbread in the period style is ok.  It is a pain in the butt to work with when it is still warm, but if you don’t’ work the gingerbread while warm, the mixture will freeze in the pan. 

The marzipan was a dream to work with, but there were issues with the coloring of the fruit and leaves.

The marzipan was painted with food grade coloring.  I wanted to attempt to paint the “fruit” and “leaves” however there were a few issues with using period paints.  Some weren’t food grade, and some aren’t something I’d willingly put in my mouth.  Spinach, that was grown in my garden, died. 

After working with the paints, I concluded that I should have used finely grated lemon peel and just a drop of yellow food coloring mixed in with the “Lemon” marzipans instead of painting.  The “orange” marzipan should have been mixed with grated orange peels and maybe a hint of cinnamon. 

References:

Craig, E., (1953). English Royal Cookbook, Favorite Court Recipes. Hippocrene books.

Czarra, Fred. Spices, A Global History. (2009). Reaktion Books Ltd.

David, Elizabeth. English Bread and Yeast Cookery. (1977). Grub Street Cookery

Hansen, Marianne.  And Thus You Have  a Lordly Dish: Fancy and Showpiece Cookery in an Augsberg Patrician Kitchen. Medieval Food and Drink.  (1995). St. University of NY Press.

Henisch, Bridget Ann. Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society. (1976). Pennsylvania State University Press.

Hunter, Lynette. Sweet Secrets from Occasional Receipts to Specialized:  The Growth of a Genre; as cited in Banquetting Stuffe. (1986) Edited by C. Anne Wilson. Edinburgh University Press.

Hieatt, Constance, Hosington, Brenda, Butler, Sharon. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks. (1979) University of Toronto Press.

Martins, P. (1998). Subtleties, Power and Consumption: A Study of French and English cuisine from 1300-1500). Nyu.edu

Renfrow, C., (1998). Take a Thousand Eggs, A collection of 15th century recipes. 2nd edition.

Rodinson, Maxime., Arberry, A.J. Medieval Arab Cookery. (2001) Prospect Books.

Scappi, Bartolomeo. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. (1570).  (2008). Translated by Scully, Terence.  University of Toronto Press.

Scully, Terrence. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages. (1995). The Boydell Press, Woodbridge.

Tirel, Guillaume. The Viandier of Taillevent: and edition of all extant manuscripts. (1988). Translated by

Scully, Terence.  University of Ottawa Press.

Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. A History of Food. (2009). Blackwell Publishing, LTD.

Wheaton, Barbara. Savoring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789. (1996).  Simon & Schuster Inc.

Portraits

Image 1:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=stilllife+with+lemons+organs+and+a+pomegranate&ia=images&iax=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fobrazarna.cz%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fpictures%2F3AA2723.JPG

https://www.academia.edu/83658318/Appealing_Unpeeled_The_layers_of_meaning_of_lemons_as_portrayed_in_Dutch_Golden_Age_Paintings

https://ag.umass.edu/sites/ag.umass.edu/files/fact-sheets/pdf/currants.pdf

https://www.americanbuttercupclub.org/about-the-breed.html

https://www.britannica.com/plant/almond

https://geology.com/gemstones/lapis-lazuli

http://www.godecookery.com/

https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/history-and-stories/tudor-food-and-eating/#gs.4fjl4e

https://blog.kathrynmcgowan.com/tag/hampton-court-palace-tudor-kitchens

https://queryblog.tudorhistory.org/2010/04/question-from-jacob-oranges-in-tudor.html?m=1

http://www.medievalcookery.com/

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wedd/hd_wedd.htm

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/8/5/201/htm

https://pearls.com/pages/how-pearls-are-formed

http://www.reference.com/browse/subtlety/Patrick Martins/nyu

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bug-had-world-seeing-red-180961590

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/artist-paints/renaissance-colour-palette.htm

 Anwar, Farooq; Abbas, Ali; Alkharfy, Khalid M. and Gilani, Anwar-ul-Hassan (2015). “Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum Maton) Oils”. In Victor R. Preedy, (Ed.) Essential Oils in Food Preservation, Flavor and Safety Archived 30 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine. Amsterdam: Academic Press. Chapter 33. pp. 295–301

https://www.tastinghistory.com/episodes

Personal pictures for steps in making subtleties

Carob Fruit in Period

Carob Fruit in Period

I found references to Carob in the book “A King’s Confectioner in the Orient”. I found this a little odd as I know chocolate comes from South America and had always made the assumption so did Carob. I was wrong. While chocolate is period, it’s period as a drink not a solid. However Carob was used in various recipes, especially for Middle Eastern sweets.

Referencing: https://sites.redlands.edu/trees/species-accounts/carob-tree/ website, I found pictures of the actual dried Carob pods ready for harvesting. Much like olives the fruit tree is hit with a stick, hard enough to cause the ripe pods to fall but not hard enough for the tree to be damaged. Like coffee beans, also found in the Middle East, the Carob seeds need to be dried before being processed into a powder and/or block form.

Various names include: Keras (Greek), Siliqua (Latin), Kharuv (Hebrew), Kharroub (Arabic), Caroubier (French). https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/12/18/3303

“A King’s Confectioner in the Orient”, talks of a sweets made of Carob/Chocolate. I believe that this is a mis-translation into English from Kharroub to Chocolate, as many English speakers think the two flavors are inter changeable. However at this time, chocolate was available as an import from South America as the Spanish and Portuguese were importing Coco beans, vanilla and tomatoes while forming banana plantations in the new world. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/history-of-chocolate so chocolate from the Americas could actually be.

A Soup for the Qan

A Soup for the Qan

I’ve been lusting for this book for over a decade. I finally found a good print at a great price! The book is everything I’d hope for on historic Chinese recipes. If you can, get this book to try out ALL the recipes. This is not a beginners book. This is for the period cook who knows how to interpret a redaction of a translation and go from there.

The translator(s) did not feel the need to edit in their opinion on how to cook, merely writing down the original translation and the measurements tables. Excellent! This allows the re-enactor to translate and work on their leveling up cooking skills for this amazing new set of recipes.

Authenticity of recipes and the ability to follow: A

Cooking Renaissance Italian Food, 51 Redacted Recipes from 1549 Banchetti by Christoforo Messisbugo

Cooking Renaissance Italian Food, 51 Redacted Recipes from 1549 Banchetti by Christoforo Messisbugo

This book proves to be an invaluable resource for individuals venturing into period cooking, presenting original recipes in both their original language and translated forms. However, a notable observation is that the author’s redactions tend to incorporate a more contemporary approach, departing from a strict adherence to period cooking methods. An illustrative example is the recommendation to use foil as a lid instead of advocating for a historically accurate practice, such as sealing the chosen modern cooking vessel with a simple flour and water dough. While the redactions align effectively with the translations, there exists an opportunity for the author to explore and suggest more authentic period cooking techniques.

Over all Period recipes: B+ for use of various recipes.

Ease for Those new to Period cooking: A+. Helpful with suggested measurements and cooking tips.

To Prepare a Pupkin-and-Onion Tourte

To Prepare a Pupkin-and-Onion Tourte

Translation:

Get the same amount of each and parboil them in water (pumpkin and onion); take them out and squeeze the water out of them so that they end up quite dry.  Beat them on a table that is not of walnut and sauté them in butter or lard.  When they have cooled, for every two pounds of fried pumpkin and onion, get a pound of fresh provantura, a pound of creamy cheese ground up with the provatura, half a pound of grated parmesan cheese, ten fresh eggs, a beaker or milk, a pound of sugar, three-quarters of an ounce of pepper, an ounce of cinnamon and a little saffron.  With that mixture make up a torte with a lower and upper shell and the flaky-pastry twist around it.  Bake it in an oven or braise it.  A tourte like that always needs to be served hot.  In the filling you can put a handful of beaten herbs – that will depend on the taste of the person it is intended for. (Scappi p. 484/Book VR. 107)

Ingredients:

4 C. of pumpkin skinned and sliced

½ C. butter

4 C. Ricotta

2 C. Parmesan

5 eggs

2 C. Whole milk

2 C. Sugar

½ tsp. ground pepper

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Pinch of saffron

Pie crust:

1 C. Butter

1 tsp. salt

2 ½ C. flour

1 C. cold water

Mix together the butter, salt and flour.  Add the water a Tbs. at a time until a soft smooth ball forms.

Redaction:

First thing, I had to find a “period” type of pumpkin.  I went with Cinderella pumpkin as the most period I could find. 

It helps that this was done during fall, right before Halloween.  Get a small one.  The small one will make 6 pies.

Next, I cut the pumpkin into large chunks, taking out the seeds, and took off the rind.  The inner pumpkin cut into smaller pieces. 

You don’t need a lot.  I used 1/6 of the pumpkin to get the necessary amount of 4 cups.  Boil these in water until tender.  Drain then smoosh until smooth.

Add in your ingredients, blend until smooth.

Roll out your dough.  Make the bottom thicker than the top.  This is a wet tourte.  As you can see, I did press designs into the dough. 

My decorating skills need a bit of work.  I should have measured the top lid before using the wooden dough stamp.  Next time!

I chose not to use herbs because I wanted just the basic taste before getting fancy. 

Put the lid on the tourte on and bake for about an hour (ish) until the crust is a nice golden brown.

The taste was very pumpkin, onion, eggy.  I upped the cheese for next time, and I might add a cream cheese instead of just straight ricotta as this was a very damp tourte. 

Tasty but not something I’m going to make again.

Basaliyya By al-Mu’tamid: Cheek Meat with Onions and Pumpkin

Basaliyya By al-Mu’tamid: Cheek Meat with Onions and Pumpkin

Translation:

Take chunks of meat from ribs and thighs and slice them into finger-like strips.  Soak the meat in cold water, as this will drain the blood and remove the dirt.  Hot water, on the other hand, will lock them in.

Take the meat out of the cold water and put it in a pot with a fresh batch of water along with a lot of pounded tallow.  You may add galangal and cassia.

Chop onion, the amount needed is to be equal to one third of the meat used. If gourd is in season, then go ahead and use it.  However, cut it like you did with the meat.  When the pot comes to a boil and the onion and gourd.

The amount of water you added first should not be much

Continue cooking the pot until the pot is dry.  Add murri (Liquid fermented sauce) and dry spices like black pepper, cassia, coriander, and cumin.  Add as well on ladleful of vinegar and a small amount of rue. (Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchen pp. 317)

Ingredients:

1 lb. meat

3 C. Pumpkin

½ lg onion

1 tsp galangal, black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, coriander

½ vinegar

Redaction:

Cut your beef into small pieces.  Rinse the beef in cold water, put into a pot with ground galangal and cinnamon.

I used half a large onion cut thin(ish).  I used a Cinderella pumpkin for the gourd, cutting the peeled chunks into small pieces. 

I cut smaller than finger length as I don’t want to chew large bits of pumpkin.  Add

When the pot boils add pumpkin and onions.  When the meat is cooked to tenderize add the cumin, coriander, and vinegar. Originally, I forgot this part and ate the thick stew/porridge without. 

It’s amazing!  Next pass through the kitchen I added the missing, cumin, coriander, and vinegar.  Even better! 

On its own, it’s very good.  I had it over riced for a touch more filling dish. 

The cheek meat is either very tender or a touch chewy from the marbling on the inside.

To Prepare a Tourte of Domestic Pumpkin

To Prepare a Tourte of Domestic Pumpkin

Ingredients:

Scrape the domestic pumpkin, which should be tender and sweet. If it is big take out its seeds; if small, there is no need to.  Cook it in good fat broth.  When it is done, take it out and squeeze the broth out of it.  Then beat it with knives on a table that is not of walnut.  For every pound of beaten pumpkin put in six ounces of a grated creamy cheese, four ounces of fresh ricotta, three ounces of a soft creamy cheese, eight eggs, six ounces of sugar and an ounce of pepper and cinnamon together.  Mix everything together and with that filling make a tourte with a rather thick lower shell and an upper one made like shutter louvres.  Bake it in an oven or braise it.  When it is almost done, give it a glazing with sugar and rosewater.  When it is done serve it hot… You could do any sort of pumpkin in the same way.  And you can put a little milk into the filling mixture. (Scappi, pp. 484./Book V R. 106.)

Ingredients:

4 C. pumpkin

2 C. broth

½ C. Goat cheese crumbled

1/3 C. ricotta

8 eggs

½ C. Sugar

½ tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground cinnamon and mace

2 Tbs sugar

1 tbs rosewater

Pie Crust:

1 C. butter

1 tsp salt

2 ½ C. flour

1 C. water

Mix butter, salt and flour together, until a crumbling texture.  Slowly add water, 1 Tbs. at a time, until a smooth ball forms. You may not need all the water, use just enough to form the dough.

Redaction:

First thing, I had to find a “period” type of pumpkin.  I went with Cinderella pumpkin as the most period I could find.  It helps that this was done during fall, right before Halloween.  Get a small one.  The small one will make 6 pies.

Next, I cut the pumpkin into large chunks, taking out the seeds, and took off the rind.  The inner pumpkin cut into smaller pieces. 

You don’t need a lot.  I used 1/6 of the pumpkin to get the necessary amount of 4 cups. 

Boil these in water in broth of your choice until tender.  Drain then smoosh until smooth.

Except for the 2 Tbs of sugar and 1 Tbs of rosewater (those come later), add in all your other ingredients until the entire mixture is smooth. 

If you will notice, I added a bit of mace to the pie.  I like mace and I cut down the pepper.  Last time I added as much pepper as the recipe called for, I blew out the roof of my mouth.  Fresh pepper is easier to find today then in period so be stingy with your pepper.  Seriously.  These tweaks are personal preferences.  Try the recipe as called for, then modify with what you like that is in period.

Roll out your dough.  Make a thicker bottom then top.  Here you can see I made thin strips of crust lattice style with a climbing vine patter from a wooden dough press. 

Same for the leaves.  I couldn’t do a full “shutter” so I did a nice bit of lattice work with leaves to make it pretty.

Before pulling the pie from the oven, brush with a rosewater and sugar mixture to glaze the top.

Tannuriyya: Chicken Pot Pie

Tannuriyya: Chicken Pot Pie

Translation:

Boil one chicken, pullets (2 young fowl) in salt and water. Take a frying pan and pour tallow and oil into it.  Spread bread dough in it to line bottom and sides.  Now, take the (boiled) chicken, pullets or the two plump fowls and remove the cavity (wall).  Spread the birds flat on the dough in the pan.  Mix finely chopped cilantro and onion with spikenard, cloves, cassia and black pepper.  Pour on them wine vinegar and murri (liquid fermented sauce).  If you prefer, use juice of…raisins…and pomegranate seeds, instead.  Add ½ C. clarified butter or sweet olive oil and 5 eggs. Mix thoroughly all these ingredients and pour them all over the chicken.  Roll out another piece of dough into a disc (for a crust), cover the chicken with it, (and seal together the edges of the dough). Lower the pan into the (heated) tannur until it is cooked, God willing. (Ibn Sayyar Al-Warraq, pp. 372-373)

Ingredients:

1 boiled chicken, de-boned and shredded

2 rolled out rounds of circular dough

5 eggs

½ C. Murri

¼ C. wine vinegar

½ finely chopped large onion or one small onion

1 bunch cilantro (if fresh is not available use 1 tsp dried)

1 tsp spikenard, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves

½ C. melted butter.

Redaction:

Instead of doing one full bird, I used 4 chicken thighs, well boiled in salt water.  The meat and skin were left over from making chicken stock and no one in period would throw out good meat. 

Quick side note:  Period chickens were not the size of the chickens we find in the grocery store today.  They were a lot smaller.  For an idea of true chicken size, look up the chicken type called The Sultan.  Small chickens, incredibly cute! but not a lot of meat.  Another period Middle Eastern chicken would have been the Orloff.  A little bigger than the sultan in period and breed over time to be a much bigger bird by the Russian noble Orloff.  (He liked the birds so brought a bunch home to Russia…hence the name Russian Orloff even though the birds technically started in the Middle East.)  I wrote a research paper that can be found on Roxalana’s redactions under Research paper if you want to know waaaay more than anyone really wants to know about chickens in period.

You will notice a spice called Spikenard.  Is modernly grown as an ornamental these days instead of as a common spice, found in the ginseng family.  (https://www.britannica.com/plant/spikenard-plant-Nardostachys-genus / Dalby, Andrew, “Spikenard” in Alan DavidsonThe Oxford Companion to Food, 2nd ed. by Tom Jaine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-280681-5)

I just went without.  I also used dried cilantro instead of fresh.  It’s what I had on hand.

Remember the Murri recipe awhile back?  It’s here again.  When you make Murri, make several cups worth.  This will show up again and again in Middle Eastern recipes.  If you don’t have Murri on hand, use pomegranate juice and ground up raisins.  Pomegranate juice can be bought at some stores, lots of Middle Eastern and Oriental stores carry this, or it can be ordered online.  For raisin juice.  Soak them a little bit, then grind them well (use a Cuisinart if you have one or a pestle and mortar) and strain through a fine sieve or cloth covered sieve. 

I used a simple butter crust.  1 stick of butter, mixed with 2.5 C. of flour, 1 tsp salt and 1 C. of water added a Tbs. at a time until everything comes together.  Some days your kitchen is going to be so humid you won’t need all the water, but some days you will, hence the Tbs. at a time.

Roll out the dough and cover your pan.

Here you can use a Tagine if you have one, a cast iron skillet or a small pan that’s in your cabinet you use every day.  (If you’re entering this dish into an A&S please note on your documentation why or why not you used the pan you did while noting what would have been used in period).  Your judges will want to know if you actually know what was used in period, including what a Tannur is (https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=AOaemvKOvUqMXtldMBzHAQNcMib1l3cUWQ:1632072312805&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=tannur&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwig086Tx4vzAhXSqpUCHbfeAnQQjJkEegQIBRAC&biw=1725&bih=1000&dpr=0.8) (basically a nice sized to mucking huge in ground oven you stick dough to the sides in or lower dishes into, made with various types of mud/tiles/clay etc….that’s another paper for another time).

Lay out your shredded chicken. Cover with the onion, spice, murri and egg mixture.

Cover with the second layer of dough and seal it up.  I used a simple squish the dough together then use fingers to form a semi nice looking edge found on apple pies.  You can use a fork, a spoon or even a dough crimper, as long as the edges are sealed together.

DO NOT forget to add small pricks to the dough so that pockets of hot air can escape and not rip your dough apart while drying to do so.

Bake until done.

I found this more like a chicken quiche then a chicken pot pie.  The flavors were a bit odd yet still enjoyable!

Sweetbread Pie of a Suckling Calf

Sweetbread Pie of a Suckling Calf

Translation:

Get the best part of the sweetbreads, cleaned as in the above recipe.  Give them a brief boiling in salted water, and beat them but not too much, with knives, adding in small chunks of marrow and a little prosciutto, fat and diced.  Mix in nutmeg, cloves, pepper, cinnamon and a little sugar and saffron, with that.  In spring (add) gooseberries, in summer, verjuice grapes, in winter raisins.  Have a pie casing ready of dough made of fine flour, egg yolks, a little rendered fat and salt… (Scappi p. 440. R. 10 Book V.)

Ingredients:

Package of sweet bread 1 – 1.5 lbs.

1 tsp salt

Pot with water

Prosciutto

Bone marrow

1 tsp. ground nutmeg, cloves, pepper, cinnamon

2 Tbs. Sugar

1 pinch saffron

2 C. Raisons

Redaction:

Gather your ingredients.

I found the smell to be my first warning this was going to be an interesting dish.  Sweetbread has a very distinctive odor. 

I added the sweetbread to salted water, giving it a quick 3-5 minute boiling bath.  Just enough to scum up. 

The sweet breads were then removed. 

Scappi says beat them with knives.  I can see why after trying to cut them. The sweetbreads are very…spongy.  It takes determination to get through the suckers.  I ended up cutting the sweetbreads into small bite sized pieces.

I didn’t have prosciutto on hand, or bone marrow.  I had to substitute bacon and butter.  Scappi wanted both mixed in with the sweetbread.  What I did was for presentations.  I added bacon to the sides of the pastry with butter on the bottom.  What I should have done (besides get prosciutto) was diced the 6-10 slices into chunks along with bone marrow (butter). 

I mixed the raisons, spices and sugar, then added the sweetbreads.

Everything went into the tart pan.  A lid was added.

Please note the small decorations at the top. 

They’re pretty but the function is to keep the eyes from noting the holes cut into the pastry so that it can vent the moist hot air slightly without ripping apart the crust.

Yeah… This one is a nope from me. I’m sure it was a delicacy. I’m sure it was someone’s favorite Scappi dish at one time. I just can’t. The texture is chewy. I can handle that. The spices and bacon made this a sweet and savory dish. It’s just the smell of sweetbreads, raw, cooking, cooked and biting into I can’t handle. I have done a dish with sweetbreads and eaten said dish. I am now good on ever doing sweetbreads again.

Tourte with Various Ingredients: Pizza – A Nut and Dried Fruit Pizza

Tourte with Various Ingredients: Pizza – a Nut and Dried Fruit Pizza

Translations:

Get six ounces of shelled Milanese almonds, four ounces of shelled, soaked pinenuts, three ounces of fresh pitted dates, three ounces of dried figs and three ounces of seeded muscatel raisins; grind all that up in a mortar.  Into it add eight fresh raw egg yolks, six ounces of sugar, an ounce of ground cinnamon, an ounce and a half of crumbled musk-flavored Neapolitan mostaccioli and four ounces of rosewater.  When everything is mixed together, get a tourte pan that is greased and lined with a sheet of royal pastry dough; into it put the filling, mixed with four ounces of fresh butter, letting it come up to no more than a finger of depth, like.  Into that pizza you can put anything that is seasoned.  (Scappi p. 488, R. 121)

Ingredients:

1 C. Almonds

¾ C. pine nuts

½ C. dried figs, dates and golden raisins.

8 egg yolks

1 C. sugar

1 Tbs. cinnamon

1/8 tsp musk

2 Tbs. plain breadcrumbs (or musk flavored mostaccioli pastry)

¾ C. Rose water

¼ C. melted butter

1 tsp butter

1 sheet royal dough

Redaction:

I gathered up all the ingredients. 

I did substitute pistachios for pine nuts.  They aren’t in the same flavor wheelhouse, but they taste amazing with figs and dates. Plus, I’d used the last of my pine nuts on pest and forgot that when I started cooking this.  Feel free to add pistachios (or walnuts) if you don’t have pine nuts on hand.  Try this with pine nuts, if at all possible, once, then do as you please.

The musk is affordable if you use the plant based.  I did not include the mostaccioli.  For this recipe, it would be musk cooked into a flaky pastry/crust.  I didn’t make any as I didn’t have musk on hand, even though I’ve included it into the recipe ingredients.  Grind up the musk mostaccioli like breadcrumbs.

Grind everything up.  I used a small hand grinder.  You can use a mortar and pestle.  If you go this route, get a large mortar and pestle or you’ll be pounding all night long.

Add in your sugar, egg yolks, cinnamon, breadcrumbs, rose water.

Here is where I talk about how rosewater can overpower even the most flavor full dish.  That is true, however; ½ to ¾ C. in this instance blends incredibly well.  As for the Tbs. of cinnamon, that was NOT a mistype.  1 ounce is actually a bit more, then 1 Tbs.  Start with 1 Tbs. and see if you want to add more.  I used the really good Saigon cinnamon and felt 1 Tbs. was more than enough to balance with the other flavors present.

Grease your pan.

Then roll out your dough and put it into your greased pan. 

As you can see, I didn’t use the recommended tourte pan.  I used a springform pan for visuals on the website.  Even with the springform pan, the “dough” did not exceed a finger length in depth, per Scappi’s instructions.

I tucked in the extra that ran over the mixture. I had a few scrapes of dough left over and added a small dough rose.  Just for looks.

Fresh out of the oven. Now for the slicing.

This is amazing. Great taste and rich. A small piece is all you need. Lovely, sweet, smelling of roses and spice.

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