Bacon & Cheese snack

Lacking time to replenish the stores I looked into dishes that could be made with what I had in the larder. This forced me to yet again look into some of the simpler dishes. In the 15^th century cookbook “Ein buch von guter spiese” a dish called a good pastry seem to indicate a dish that very well could have been served even at a common tavern. However, the line that stats that it should be served immediately suggests that it was rather something that was done at feasts with kitchen personell.

 

“Ein buch von guter spiese, 1354”

 

Ein gut gebackenz ( A good pastry)

Rib kese. menge den mit eyern und scharbe gesoten spec dar zu. mache ein schoenen derben teyc . und fülle den kese und die eyer dor in. und mache krepfelin. und backe sie in butern oder in smaltze. noch der zit. und gib sie warm hin.
Grate cheese. Mix it with eggs and boiled small pieces of fatty bacon thereto. Make a fine dough and fill therein with the cheese and the eggs. And make small cakes and bake them in butter or in fat, near to the time (they are to be served), and give them out warm.

(http://cs-people.bu.edu/akatlas/Buch/recipes.html)

 

Though seemingly simple there are some points that require some extra thought in this dish. First is the mixture of eggs, bacon and cheese mixed into the dough or is it folded in. Secondly, what exactly is meant with a fine dough?

 

While the suggestion to bake the dough into a cake would suggest that it should be all mixed up and shaped like a cake, another possible suggestion would be to bake it more or less like a dumpling. Several Dutch recipes from the early 16^th century suggests that one should fold the dough over a filling, very much like a modern small filled pastry. As I today had the fortune to have some assistance from two of the visitors I was able to experiment with three different ways of cooking this dish.

 

In order to try out how the dish appeared in the different guises we made three batches, one in which the bacon & cheese mixture was mixed out with a dough of wheat flour and water in order to make a small rounded cake.

 

In the second batch we just made some small dumplings in a water and wheat dough. Here I let the interpretation of a fine dough just refer to the use wheat flour.

 

A third way to interpret the dish was to make the dough fine and elastic with the use of some fat.

 

For the filling I used the cheese I had available, a traditional Swedish cheese, and a cold-smoked bacon that I gotten from my local deli. Though the bacon presumably could reflect what I could expect to find in the period, I am not entirely sure about the cheese. It is possible that I should have used a drier somewhat sharper cheese. Anyway, the mixture was made the same for all three varieties. The bacon was boiled and then chopped up in small pieces, and mixed up with an egg and a handful of cheese. [The repeated instructions to pre-boil the bacon, could indicate that it was a fair bit saltier than the ones we use today, that said a traditional bacon that is left to hang for a while will get dry and hard to cut up, why the pre-boiling could just be a way of making it easier to work with]

 

The three batches where then fried in butter, starting with the cakelike batch. This allowed for most of the milkproteins to be absorbed in the cakes, making the next few batches easier to deepfry.

 

While all three produced nice little pastries they turned out somewhat differently.

 

The cakebatch, appeared saltier and a bit heavier than the rest, giving it a feel of being more or less a beersnack. The first dumpling batch was far more balanced to the palate, if a bit undercooked and heavy in the dough. In the final batch we were able to make the dough somewhat thinner, which made the filling more cooked and the overall balance between dough and filling the most pleasant.

 

 

My assistants mentioned this cooking experience in the blog belonging to one of them

 

The pictures taken during that day by Caroline Ekberg will be put up on this entry once I reach my home computer.

Cabbage from the Teutonic knights.

While most of the cookbooks I have used from the period that is reflected in this project are from southern Germany or the Netherlands, there is actually a cookbook that fits closely in time and even geographically. The cookbook in question is an east Prussian cookbook from the 15^th century that comes from the archives of the Teutonic knights. However the very special context and the lack of a proper translation made it difficult to use most of the recipes within the projects. The heavy use of gingerbread as a seasoning put up another obstacle as I would have had to make it myself before hand.

 

However a few of the recipes seemed easy enough to recreate, and I settled for a dish which was called pickled cabbage.

 

“[[31]] Wilthu machenn eynngemacht Crautt:

so seudt weysse Heuptt und ein zweythell Sennffs und das dritthell

Hoengs und die selbing mach undereinander mitt Wein und thu darein

<<124>>

Koemel und einfl des genug und leg dan des gesotten Kraut darein

und [[nnd_Ed.]] gibe es kalt. also magst auch priesen die Seudt mitt W¸rczenn

und gyb sy hin.

 

If you want to make pickled cabbage

Boil white cabbage heads, take two parts mustard and one part honey, mix them with wine and add caraway. /einfl/ (?) it enough, put the boiled cabbage into it and serve it cold. You can also season the broth and serve it.”

(http://www.florilegium.org/?http%3A//www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MANUSCRIPTS/Konigsberg-art.html)

 

Though rather simple the recipe is interesting in as it mentions white cabbage heads which may be considered a late medieval development. [I must admit though that I haven't found any conclusive articles on the development of kale and cabbage.]

 

Another point of interest is that it can be considered a more common food than most other dishes included in the same manuscript. Although it required honey, which is a somewhat expensive produce, the place of origin may have made it more available. During the renaissance honey, mead and wax were imported to Sweden from Poland, which in many ways included lands that previously belonged to the Teutonic order.

 

This was indeed one of the easier dishes to make, and it was indeed cooked alongside another dish. The cabbage head was quartered and thrown into water that I boiled in the large copper kettle. When the cabbage was boiled and soft enough I cut it up further, removing the stem and tried to pour off any excess water.

 

For mustard seeds I chose to use brown mustard seeds, which presumably has been used in Scandinavia already during the Iron Age. These were ground up using my mortar while the cabbage was boiling.

 

The cut up cabbage leaves were mixed with a generous amount of honey, twice the amount of mustards seeds, and a nice portion of caraway. To this I also added some white wine, unfortunately all I could get hold of in short notice was low alcoholic “cooking wine”.

 

The cabbages were left to cool, before being samples. It all ended up being a rather nice side dish with a nice balance of sweet and hot. It seems like it could have been a good side dish together with some beef or fatty pork.

 

However, I would have liked it to be a bit more acidic, but that may be blamed the choice of wine. A more obvious mistake though was that I due to some stress missed to properly drain the cabbages of water, which made the cabbages feel a bit to watery. It would perhaps have been a good idea to press out the water between two cutting boards.

As one head of cabbage produces quite a lot of food, I brought some home and had it a few days later, at which time it was still good.

Heathen peas

Due to lack of time and resources I decided that the dish of day should be a simple dish, why I settled for the sweet called heathen peas in “Ein Buch von guter spise”.

 

 

Heidenische erweiz Heathen peas

Wilt du machen behemmische erweiz. so nim mandel kern und stoz die gar cleine. und mengez mit dritteil als vil honiges. und mit guten würtzen wol gemenget. so ers aller beste hat. die koste git man kalt oder warm.
How you want to make heathen peas. So take almond kernels and pound them very small. And mix it with a third as much honey. And with good spices well mixed. So it has the very best. One hands this out greedily, cold or warm.

Though fairly simple, and only using a few ingredients there are still some questions to the actual preparation of them. Should only cold ingredients be mixed, should it be heated in some way or even caramelized? What spices ought to be used.

In the recipe we can find a few hints as to the preparation. The first is in the name Heathen Peas would probably suggest a middle east inspiration, though I must admit that while I enjoy middle east food, I have not familiar enough with cooking it. So here I am up for some suggestions as to possible sweets to be inspired from.

The second hint in the recipe is that it is handed out hot or cold. This would probably mean that even if the recipe do not say so the dish should be heated in some way. A possible interpretation of this could be the simple fact that in almost all medieval recipes you are assumed to have clearified your honey, that is boiling it and skimming of the proteins. This would give you a warm liquid honey to work with and would be enough to for some kind of sweets with the crushed almonds. However, the heating may also have referred to a caramelized dish.

I started by dividing my almonds into two batches, one that I would roast beforehand and one that I let be as it was. (This is merely based on my personal taste, as I prefer roasted nuts to raw ones) Since there was no mentioning of and I could not really se a reason to- I did not blanch and peel the almonds for this dish. Usually this is mentioned specifically in most dishes using almonds. All the almonds were then pounded thoroughly in a mortar, this is one of the parts in this recipe that is explicitly mentioned even though the rest of the recipe may be a bit brief.

In this dish the sprices are only mentioned as god spices, why the selection may be a bit difficult to make. To this one I chose to use the classical duo of ginger and cinnamon with and addition of long pepper. The longpepper has a nice aromatic taste that I find goes very well with honey, why I thought that it might have been a good addition to the sweet.

The spices were mixed with the pounded nuts and to this mixture I added about a third honey. The batch of unroasted nuts where then divided in two parts. In order to be able to mix the honey properly with the nuts, and to reflect a possibly clearified honey I heated the mixture in a pan. The second half of the unroasted nuts were instead heated for a bit longer until the honey was caramelizing.

The resulting mixture were then all rolled into small balls, even though the recipe do not state so, the name of the dish suggest that they should be made into small spheres. Though all were possible to shape it was the caramelized mixture that were most easily rolled – once it had cooled of a bit.

Also when it came to the taste I would say that the caramelized balls were the most delicious. In all cases the combination of sweet and hot blended together rather nice. After the initial experience of something sweet and nutty the rather aromatic heat of long pepper and ginger sneaked up on my tastebuds. I was quite generous with both long pepper and ginger though hinting of the heat of medieval gingerbread in this sweet.

While I found no actual difference between the roasted and the unroasted almonds, the caramelized mixture were the most pleasing from both a visual and culinary point of view, making it easier to both eat and serve. The nice sweet taste must have stood out during the 14^th century, even though this cookbook uses a bit of sugar, so it is understandable that it was eaten greedily.

Wafers/waffles

Though we know of quite a few full meals of the medieval and renaissance era, our understanding on how to compose an entire meal properly are limited at best. While the dishes can be reproduced fairly well, we only have tidsbits of information suggesting when in a meal they should be served.

However, in quite a few places we do find suggestions on what to end a meal with, both with the purpose to aid digestion and general wellbeing. A common suggestion would be to eat pears and cheese, which in other words is a tradition with a rather old origin. Another tradtion that we have more or less lost by now was to end a meal with wafers and spiced wine.

As the manor did have an ancient (or probably 18^th century) wafer iron, I decided that I should have a go at making wafers. Making wafers at least dates back to the 14^th century, as is evident in this image from 1340. (Note the bowl of batter next to the wafermaking king)

The recipes I used for this trial was a French recipe from the late 14^th century and a dutch recipe from the mid 16^th century. It seems that the proper definition of wafers and waffles is a bit vague why the recipes chosen use the term waffles instead of wafers.

Le ménagier de Paris (1393)

Waffles are made in four ways. In the first, beat eggs in a bowl, then salt and wine, and add flour, and moisten the one with the other, and then put in two irons little by little, each time using as much batter as a slice of cheese is wide, and clap between two irons, and cook one side and then the other; and if the iron does not easily release the batter, anoint with a little cloth soaked in oil or fat. – The second way is like the first, but add cheese, that is, spread the batter as though making a tart or pie, then put slices of cheese in the middle, and cover the edges (with batter: JH); thus the cheese stays within the batter and thus you put it between two irons. – The third method, is for dropped waffles, called dropped only because the batter is thinner like clear soup, made as above; and throw in with it fine cheese grated; and mix it all together. – The fourth method is with flour mixed with water, salt and wine, without eggs or cheese.

Nyuewen Coock Boek (1560)

To bake good wafers.
Take grated white bread. Take with that the yolk of an egg and a spoonful of pot sugar or powdered sugar. Take with that half water and half wine, and ginger and cinnamon.

For the first recipe I chose to use the simpler of the two recipes, that of a 16^th century dutch origin. The first part of making the dish was fairly straight forward, mixed the ingredients until I got a a nice thick batter. However using a “cooking wine” instead of a proper wine was not really a wise choice as it did not add anything to the flavour – but there was no chance to get myself some wine from the winestore.

The waferiron was then heated over embers and greased with butter. At first parts of the the wafers got stuck onto the iron. But with a somewhat higher temperature the wafers both got a nicer colour and loosened easier from the iron. I felt that the addition of spices were a bit to sparingly for my taste – but that could be changed once I redo the dish. Actually the fact that it was usually served at the end of a meal in order to help digestion would make it likely that it was both more spicy and sweet.

The next dish was based on the third variety of wafers/waffles found in the French cookbook, a dish called dropped wafers bases on the texture of the dough. As this dish included grated cheese I predicted that it would stick to the iron even worse than the first recipe. I made a mixture that was not so sticky and thick as the first recipe. Apart from the cheese and the texture of the batter it was made more or less like the above version, with the same problem of a wine that was almost tasteless. Much as I predicted the batter would stick even at a higher temperature. To solve this I added a bit flour with a much better result, even though I am not sure if the batter coud be said to be dropping (still it was more liquid than the batter for the first dish)

This time the wafers turned out fine with a quite nice taste of the cheese. Though the taste was nice in both cases (though a bit underspiced), the main result was to see how well they both turned out visually.

The main practical problem in making the wafers alone, apart from risking that the wafers got stuck, was the problem in handling the hot wafer iron when removing the wafers, which required something of an advanced balancing act.

Images will be forthcoming as soon as I  am on my other  computer.

A food of beans

When looking into early cuisines one easily ends up with dishes that reflect a prominent cuisine, most cookboks come from a context of the nobility or wealthy burgher. Dishes that comes from a more ordinary setting are mainly found by reading between the lines in other sources, or can be deduced from some of the simpler dishes found in the cookbooks. As the cookbooks seem to include more of the upper class households there we also receive a larger sample of non-festive dishes.

The recipe used was based on a dish found in “Ein Buch von guter spise” from the late 14^th century

31. Ein spise von bonen

Siude grüene bonen, biz daz sie weich werden. so nim denne schoen brot und ein wenic pfeffers. dristunt als vil kümels mit ezzige und mit biere. mal daz zu sammene und tu dar zu saffran. und seige abe daz sode. und giuz dar uf daz gemalne. und saltz ez zu mazzen. und laz ez erwallen in dem condiment und gibz hin.
Boil green beans until they become soft. So take then fine bread and a little pepper. (Take) three times as much caraway with vinegar and with beer. Grind that together and add saffron thereto. And strain the broth and pour the color thereon and salt it to mass and let it boil in the condiment and give out.

While this dish would not have been a common meal it could have been a part of a less exclusive diet if one excluded the saffron. As I had not brought any saffron with me to the manor that day I decided to interpret this as simpler dish.

Though fairly simple at the surface the recipe did raise a few questions which I will try to answer as I go through the recipe. For this dish I used fresh fava beans, though dried would have worked only that it would have taken forever to boil them. The choice of fava beans, or broad beans (vicia faba), as they would have been the only beans available.

Boil green beans until the become soft. Are they to be boiled in meat broth or in water, in some dishes beans and peas are boiled together with meat or in a meatstock, here nothing seem to indicate that so I chose to use just water. Though the translation said to boil the beans I was more or less seething them rather than boiling them – and I might be wrong here but I believed that the German word siude, is similar to sjuda in swedish meaning to seethe rather than boil. Considering that I was using a three-footed pottery pan, seething the beans made more sense.

The texture of the boiled beans was also somewhat of a point of consideration for my part. In many of the recipes containing beans, the beans are boiled and then ground to a mush. This recipe did not call for that so I decided to try it as dish with whole beans.

While the beans were cooking I prepared the condiment with which the beans were to be served. So take then fine bread and a little pepper. (Take) three times as much caraway with vinegar and with beer. Though pepper could have been considered somewhat expensive, some may have been used in the middle class home. For simplicity I chose to use black pepper. For vinegar I chose maltvinegar. Though the recipe probably had wine vinegar in mind, as it originated in southern Germany, I went with a more Scandinavian choice – maltvinegar. Being based on malt or beer it would have been the most available vinegar here up until the 18^th century. A bit more difficult was the choice of beer. Today most beers are rather heavy in hops, and though I am fond of hoppy beers, the bitterness of a heated hoppy beer is overpowering and lacking in flavour. For this reason I chose the beer I could get hold of with the least hop – content, a Swedish porter. While I am quite aware that it is stouts and porters were products of the 18^th century, flavourwise I thought it was more fitting than some other beers that were available.

[ Though Germany proud itself of their ancient beerlaws, I am uncertain of the amount of hops used at the time. Would there have been a different names given to beers with or without hops?]

Anyway after mixing the condiment together I added them to the drained beans, and let them boil together. I might still have used a bread that was not white enough, or it may have been a bit to large pieces, as it did not really thicken the beanstew. At other times I would have let the breadcrumbs rest a while in the vinegar/beer mixture to be almost dissolved, but I was lacking in time.

The final result was a nice if somewhat to dark dish. The whole beans actually made it a rather good looking dish, with a very interesting and complex taste with the acidity of the vinegar and the sweetness from the beer and the beans themselves.

Pear pie

In my continued explorations of the oven I wanted to make one of the many fruit pies present in the cookbook of Sabina Welserin. The recipe I used for the dish:

“131 To make a pear tart

Take the pears and peel them, then fry them in fat, put them into a mortar and pound them well, put rose sugar and rose water in it, put ginger, cloves, cinnamon and sugar therein. Taste it, make a pastry shell as for other tarts, make no cover for the top and bake until crisp.”

The recipe was rather straight forward, with only a few steps . For the pie crust I used the recipe for a short paeste that I tried earlier though I made two batches which both were a bit to soft – possibly because I used a bit to much water in them. (I will never be an accomplished pastry chef).

For the filling I fried the pear pieces in butter using the three legged pan. The resulting soft pears wear beaten to a pulp using my brass mortar, though a widerimmed stone mortar would probably have been used for this purpose. To this I added the ground cloves, cinnamon, ginger and a dash of rosewater. The resulting mush was poured into the pieshells and put into the oven. Though I started the ovens early I was uncertain if I had reached the right temperatur, the lack of proper fire wood and perhaps my conservative use of wood made the fire in the oven burn rather slowly, though in effect it could just have been a case of not having enough time to heat the rather massive oven. The pies were baked for about an hour which was not enough as they were still a bit soft and moist when taken out of the oven. The taste was nice and a bit spicier than what one would expect in a modern pear pie – even if I did miss some raisins in it ( which are used in several other pear pies from the same book) The main lack in my interpretation – apart from the oven temperature- was that I was to conservative on the rose water, as it was almost undistinguishable.

Apart from a nice combination of tastes in the pie the main feature was the rather aromatic scent from the cloves. It is likely that the rosewater was added for the same reason – to create an olfactory sensation from the pie. Just as colours and appearance has been of importance in historical (and modern food) we ought perhaps also think about how some food may have been made with an olfactory experience in mind, using scents that does not entirely reflect the most immediate tastes.

Puffed apples

The three samples of "puffed apples" in the midst of my kitchen chaos

Today, the part of Sweden in which Glimmingehus is situated is wellknown in Sweden for its orchards, and though the types of apples may have changed and other fruits or plants may have dominated the landscape of the time, it is safe to assume that that if they wanted the people of the manor would be able to get hold of some apples if desired. As an homage to the present day apple growers and a bit curious about a dish that I have mainly seen in German renaissance cookbooks and Danish baroque cookbooks, I wanted to make a dish called puffed apples.

In the cookbook of Sabina Welserin I could find two different recipes for the same dish and the Danish cookbook from 1616 provided the third slightly different recipe.

The recipes used were the following

From the cookbook of Sabina Welserin (1553)

101 To make apple puffs

Then put flour in a bowl and put some fresh spring water therein. It should not be too thin. And beat the batter very carefully, thin it after that with eggs, and when you put the thin apple strips in the pan of butter, then shake the pan well, then they rise up.

166 To bake puffed apples

Take milk with a little water in it and heat it well, until you can still just stand to dip a finger into it. Make a firm batter with flour, beat it until it bubbles, lay eggs in warm water and thin the batter with them. Cut the apples in circles and as thin as possible, draw them through the batter and coat them with it. Shake the pan, then they will rise. And the fat should be very hot, then they will be good and rise nicely.

From “Kogebog” (1616)

LXVII. Eble i Smør at bage.

Skal dem/oc skær huer i to eller fire stycker/lige som de ere store til/tag det huide aff Eg oc sla ræt vel/giff der vdi lidet Salt/giff Eblene der vdi/oc giff dem siden vdi Huedemeel/saa at de ere gantske tørre/leg dem siden vdi siudeheed Smør/bag dem at de bliffue smuck møre/giff dem siden op oc bestrø met Sucker.

(loosely translated)

“LXVII Apples baked in butter

Peel them, and cut in two or four pieces/according to size/ take the white from eggs and beat it well/mix some salt to it/ put the apples therein/ and then put them in wheat flour/ so they are rather dry/put them then into hot butter/bake them till they are nicely soft/ serve and sprinkle sugar on top.”

Although the recipes differ some all can be said to be a sort of side dish made of pieces of apple, though the Danish ones are sweeter, I do not think that it necessarily reflects what we would call a dessert but rather the increasing sweet tooth in Europe at the time.

The first two dishes were rather similar as it required the apples to be put in a batter, that more or less reminded me of a pancake batter. In the first recipe I used butter and in the second one lard to fry in.

Perhaps I made the batter a bit to thick as the apples were not really puffing up as much as I would have expected. Though the question if I a) managed to get the pan hot enough and b) if by puffed up apples we are supposed to be expecting a fritter like we can get today.

The third batch was a bit different as it used no real batter and thus were not expected to puff up.

All three samples were rather taste with the Danish perhaps a bit closer to what we would expect today as it was slightly sweetened. As I used slightly sour apples for this dish it would have fitted well as a side dish. The choice of slightly sour apples,was deliberate as it was possibly a bit closer the apples that could have been found at the time. However In the process of being fried some of the acidity is lost.

Of the three samples the apple circles baked in lard was the most appealing to the eye, and surprisingly the one most prefered by my co-workers.

 

Pies & piecrusts

In order to get myself a bit more familiarised with the kitchen I started of lightly with a few investigations that were not completely dependent on getting the heatng, embers and fire wood completely right.

Both in the medieval and the renaissance cuisine pies and pastries seem to have played an important role, and the role of the pastry chef was quite important. Pastries seem to range from mere vessels containing meat or fruits to elaborate subtleties depicting castles and the like. In “Book of caruynge” the reader is given instruction on how to cut a pie according to how it was shaped and what it contained. The main question is however, were the actual pie crust intended to be eaten or was it just used as a vessel? Did they use some kind of pie shell or were they standing by them selves? Though I have mainly favoured the latter interpretation, some more work with early pie-recipes may give some insights.

Though the earlier pie recipes rarely give any further clues to the actual pie dough, some recipes from the mid 16^th century gives us some further clues. For this experiment I have used two recipes from the cookbook by Sabina Welserin and an English recipe from about the same time.

Sabina Welserin, 1555

61 To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies

Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. Afterwards shape the dough as I have pointed out to you. Also reserve dough for the cover and roll it out into a cover and take water and spread it over the top of the cover and the top of the formed pastry shell and join it together well with the fingers. Leave a small hole. And see that it is pressed together well, so that it does not come open. Blow in the small hole which you have left, then the cover will lift itself up. Then quickly press the hole closed. Afterwards put it in the oven. Sprinkle flour in the dish beforehand. Take care that the oven is properly heated, then it will be a pretty pastry. The dough for all shaped pastries is made in this manner.

65 The dough for the pastry

Take rye flour, according to how large the fish is, take it, and put water, about three pints, in a pan and a good quarter pound of fat into it, and let it cook together, put the flour on the table and put the solids from the melted fat-water on top, until it makes a good firm dough. You must knead it well so that it becomes good and sticky. Afterwards make two parts out of it. First the bottom, roll it out as large as the fish is. After that lay the fish on the bottom crust and roll out the top crust just as wide and put it over the fish and shape it like the fish. Make fins on it and take a small knife and make dough scales, also eyes and everything which a fish has. And put it in the oven and spread it with an egg. Then you have a fish pastry.

A Propre new booke of Cokery , 1545

To make shorte paest for tart.

Take fine floure and a curtesy of faire water and a disshe of swete butter and a litle saffron and the yolkes of two egges and make it thin and tender as ye maie.

As it was only a trial to see how I could make the dough stand without any aid of a pie shell, they were made without any filling and just to see how I managed to shape them. One of the recipes – the rye dough was meant to be shaped like a fish and not as a regular pie, so that one I just made into an empty fish shaped pastry.

The recipes were followed rather closely, though the amounts were headed only superficially. To a pair handful of flour I mixed an egg, after which I added a mixture of lard dissolved in water. The resulting dough was rather rubbery dough that at first seemed to have had some problems in getting the sides to stand. After I twisted the sides into the classical s-shape of pies the sides kept standing.

The butter based dough in the third recipe was perhaps slightly softer, but should not have proven any problem. With my modern preferences I would have used the third dough for a sweeter dish and the first one for a more savoury pie, as the use of lard gave the pie a distinct association to bacon.

However, the main observation was that all the doughs that were meant to hold a mixture or even a liquid content seemed to be able to keep their walls up and hence not losing any of their contents. It should therefore be possible to bake pies without the use of any pieshells or the like.

While it is likely that these ashen bottomed piecrusts were merely used as vessels for cooking and serving, I would find it likely that these remains of the pies wandered down the hierarchy and were used as a handouts.
Although I would conclude that most pies were baked and served in their dough, there are some mentions of a pie-shell in the mid 16^th century recipes, so it is possible that both existed. The rather common occurance of pies in 16th and 17th century recipes will certainly have me revisit them.

Dish IV & grinding

As part of the investigations about grinding with the handquern, I wished to investigate how different sizes of grain could be used for different results. While flour would have had to be ground five to seven times before being possible to be baked the coarser qualities could also be used. Traditionally groats of either oats or other grains would have been crushed or coarsely ground which would facilitate making a porridge of them even if one could not soak them overnight.

Considering the sizes of the grains ground in an earlier stage of my experiments I found the grains that had passed through the quern twice to be of an optimal size for making porridges.

In order to try my theory I planned to cook another variety of the savoury porridges I had made before. Using the same inspiration as in one of the earlier dishes, I took my starting point in one of the groats that can be found in the recipe collection called “Liber cure cocorum” I started by boiling a few cans of water with some larger pieces of bacon. The bacon were then removed and cut up finely. In the water/baconbroth I poured the ground grains. This was allowed to cook for about an hour after which the grains were soft enough to be served. To the barley I added a sour apple, a few juniper berries, some of the local leek, butter and the bacon I cooked before. The sour apple was not really soured enough, as I would have preferred to use either a crab apple or a bramley apple

This dish actually turned out quite well, the texture of the cooked barley were quite nice and the dish as a whole turned out to be rather wellbalanced and tasty.