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.

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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.

Summer chicken

As the summer is drawing to an end I felt that I had to try out one of the few dishes that were explicitly stated to be a summer dish. From a dutch cookbook from the late 15th century we find a recipe for a dish called “summer chicken”-

“Wel ende edlike spijse 1484”

.J. Poelgen metten rasspeyte inden somer
ziedse in eenen pot met sticken
ende alsij taluen ghezoden sijn doe
ter in wijns ghenouch ende lettel
waters daer toe druuen van rosinen
ende barghin smout ende dodere /
van eyers ghenouch

Young chickens with raisins (?) in the summer.
Broil them in a pot in pieces (?). When they are halfway done, add enough wine and some water, and add raisins, pig fat and enough egg yolks.

(Translation & source; http://www.coquinaria.nl/kooktekst/Edelikespijse1.htm)

Here the translator got a bit uncertain on the line “met sticken” which could have meant for the chicken to be in pieces, or to be done with pieces of something. Having just printed the translation of the recipe, I did not heed the original text to much though. As the translation stated that the chicken should be broiled in a pot I did however chose to follow the idea that it should be in pieces.
The interpretation that the chicken should be parted follows closely the instructions one could find several medieval English recipes where one are asked to “smyte him in pieces” – referring to the meat.

[An alternative interpretation  would have been to read the broil as a boil – in other parts of the translated manuscript ziedse is used for boiling rather than broiling. If one instead should read that the chicken where boiled the “sticken” could have meant sticks of cinnamon, which would fit in taste, and actually mirror some other medieval dishes.]

Following the interpretation where the chicken should be broiled, I cut it up in pieces , melted some lard in the pot I were going to use and poured in the bits of chicken when it was hot enough. Here it may have been a lack in understanding the language properly my self as broil would perhaps rather relate to something being grilled.

[The problem with frying in a three footed pot is that the rounded bottom does not really allow for  broiling or frying, unless the embers are built high around the pot – in hind sight I should probably have used the three footed pan instead.]

When the chicken got some colour I added water, wine and raisins. A rather good amount of lard was already in the pan from the frying, so I decided not to add any more of that. However the statement pig fat could possibly have referred to something salted and smoked, like bacon or perhaps italian lardo, instead of just rendered but unsalted lard.

After the chicken had boiled for a while I took out some of the liquid which I then mixed with three egg yolks in order to thicken the stew. This mixture was poured back into the pot and the whole stew where put to a boil.

The finished stew had a nice yellow look to it because of the eggyolks even though I could have been a bit better at mixing in the yolks so that they would not set – but I blame the darkness in my kitchen.

The taste was sweet and slightly acidic, but still it had a nice balance. For a modern palate, however the main thing lacking was just a slight touch of salt which would have carried the tastes a long way. In this interpretation the combination of sweetness from the raisins and the taste of the chicken meat, reminded me, although to a less extreme level, of the medieval dish blancmange. Though I considered the original dish almost unedible the combination grows on me. However after trying the dish as it was done I added some salt it, which really lifted it. The main question is whether this dish should be unsalted and thus bear a resemblance to the blancmanges of the period or if the pork fat should have been interpreted as being bacon, giving the dish a more foody taste.

The actual summer part of the dish is not directly apparent, but it could be that it is rather light in taste, that raisins and wine are considered summery or something else that I would have missed – to look into that further one ought to read what the medical books f the time considers food fit for summer.

Although the dish includes ingredients that could be considered somewhat expensive here – wine and raisins, they are not excessively expensive and could perhaps have been served as a festive meal by someone in the urban middle class, where such wares could be bought.

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.

Pancakes

Following the theme of the previous post I am now moving on to pancakes. Though pancakes today is considered a very simple dish that most people knows how to do, it would not be a common dsh until the metal pan is spread to a larger extent. The origin of pancakes can probably be traced back to ancient greece or even earlier of one were to include varieties of flat bread. However in a medieval/renaissance context the first appearance of pancakes seem to date back to about the early 15^th century.

For this part of my experiments I have again chosen to use two recipes, a French recipe from “Le ménagier de Paris” (1390) and a newer dutch recipe. Though am a bit cautious about enhancing modern images and food traditions when doing renaissance dishes – as things may change in 500 years – the Dutch cookbooks, and some of the baroque painters seem to give a pancakes an important role already during the 16^th century.

I started of with the French recipe;

Lé menagier de Paris (1390)

CREPES. Take flour and mix with eggs both yolks and whites, but throw out the germ, and moisten with water, and add salt and wine, and beat together for a long time: then put some oil on the fire in a small iron skillet, or half oil and half fresh butter, and make it sizzle; and then have a bowl pierced with a hole about the size of your little finger, and then put some of the batter in the bowl beginning in the middle, and let it run out all around the pan; then put on a plate, and sprinkle powdered sugar on it. And let the iron or brass skillet hold three chopines, and the sides be half a finger tall, and let it be as broad at the bottom as at the top, neither more nor less; and for a reason.

This recipe is more or less what we would recognise as a pancake today, though it is rather deepfried than fried. Again the lack of a proper wine frustrated me as it would influence the taste. My lack of bowls that could pierce made me try to drip out the bater in a spiral shape using the rim of the bowl and a spoon, with a mediocre result. The batter was made quite liquid through the addition of both eggs, wine and water. The batter fried alright though it spread a bit to wide to make a nice spiral shape. Though the addition of some sugar in the end, made it a quite nice snack I realised that I might have used a bit to much egg in the mixture.

In the second trial I instead used a dough based on a Dutch recipe from 1510

Om panckoecken te maken inde vastenen

Square deepfried pancakes, 16th century Netherlands

To make lenten pancakes

[13] Om panckoecken te maken inde vastenen Neemt [14] fijn bloeme die suldi beslaen met gheste Dan maeckt [15] daer af deech Dan salmen van dien seluen deeghe ne[16]men een cleyn clontken ende maken dat viercantych [17] seer dunne emmers soe dunne alst moghelyck es om [18] maken tot dat cleyn gaetkens worpt: Dan bacxse wel in [19] raeptsmout Sommyghe dye willen backen der inne [20] rosinen ende dye steken si hyer en daer eene ende oock [21] cleyn stucxkens van appelen.

[13] To make lenten pancakes. Take [14] fine flour which you shall beat up with yeast. Then make [15] dough from it. Then, from the same dough, one shall [16] take a small lump and make it square [17] [and] very thin, in any case as thin as it is possible to [18] make, until small holes appear. Then fry them well in [19] rape oil. Some, who wish to, fry raisins therein [20] and they stick them one here and there and also [21] small pieces of apple.

Although certainly called pancakes there are several parts in it that we would not recognise in a pancake today. The first problem in understanding the recipe came when reading that four should be whisked with yeast in order to make a dough. At this occasion I dissolved some of the yeast into water and whisked it up with the flour making a rather firm dough. Though the whisking may suggest that should have made a batter, it also states that I should form small square cakes, which requires a nice firm dough. The flour used in both this dish and the former was of course ordinary wheat flour. After I made the dough, describing the ingredients to ne of the visitors, I did get a small revelation about the content of the dough. At the time a liquid yeast, would most likely have been the remains of making beer. If I had added some beer to the yeast I woud probaby have had a dough with a bit of a taste in it self. This ought to be remembered for future use.

I shaped the dough into small square bits on which I planted pieces of raisins and apples. As the recipe suggest that I should fry the raisins and as I at first thought I needed to turn the cakes n order to get them evenly fried.

This was not necessary, and in fact completely wrong as it turned the raisins into hard burt inedible stones. Though I appreciated the risk of that happening it came about far quicker than I had anticipated. After the first cake made this way I soon abandoned that method and instead just let the fry on one side, whilst scooping up some hot fat with a spoon and poured over the cakes. That was however not really necessary either. In the recipe one are told to make the cakes so thin that holes appear, and through these holes the fat would pour up and deep fry the surface as well, without burning the raisins.

The cakes were fried in rapeseed oil as suggested by the recipe. It is quite interesting as it is one f the first recipes suggesting the use of this oil. Finds from a settlement in Sweden dating back to the Iron Age, suggests that the plant (brassica rapa) was cultivated already at this time, it is however unclear if it was turnips or the oilrich plant that was grown.

Though the cakes lacked what we would consider the classical medieval tastes of cinnamon, ginger etc. it had a ice taste and would serve well as a small snack. It is possible that in the Netherlands – being close to the wine growing areas of Germany, raisins would not have been a to expensive commodity.

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.

Two dishes in one recipe

Among the simpler dishes porridges of different kinds would stand out. It seems to have been an important dish already in the Viking age – and probably earlier – and was probably most important during the parts of the year or circumstances when one had to rely on only dried stored goods.

As an inspiration for this dish I have used a recipe from Liber Cure Cocorum (1400).

For gruel of fors.

Fyrst take porke, wele þou hit sethe
With otene grotes, þat ben so smethe;
Whenne hit begynnes wele to alye,
þou save of þe þynnest brothe þer by
To streyne þy gruel, alle and summe;
But furst take oute þy porke þou mun
And hak hit smal and grynde hit clene;
Cast hit to þo gruel þat streyned bene,
Colour hit with safroune and sethe hit wele;
For gruel of force serve hom at mele.

This recipe, or similar, can be found in several cookbooks from the 14^th – 16^th century. Though the inclusion of saffron makes it a rather exclusive dish, the idea of a porridge cooked with bacon or with pork could in some part reflects the ingredients what we find stated as the daily distributed foodwares in navy records of the 17^th century.

Though the recipe states pork, it does not say in what form. In the cookbooks I both find reference to smoked meat and to fresh meat, but in this recipe nothing is stated. A hint towards fresh meat may be that the meat is supposed to be boiled before used in the dish, but I have found several references in which bacon is supposed to be boiled before used in dishes. As I simultaneously wanted to investigate both the exclusive dish and a more common porridge I opted for a smoked fatty side of pork. The meat I used was bought at Malmö kötthandel a very good deli that smokes the meat themselves.

Looking closer at the recipe one notices that it can be divided into a few steps; Boil the meat and remove it, cook the groats in the resulting stock, separate the liquid, mince the boiled meat, and to the liquid, add saffron & serve.

Though the recipe in itself is rather easy it did produce a rather large amount of making it possible for me to make both an exclusive soup and a more common porridge and thus making two dishes from one. As saffron was and is an exclusive spice it turns a rather simple dish into something very high society in its composition. Still to throw away all the porridge seems like an awful waste, when it easily could have been served to soldiers and servants at the keep.

I started by boiling some water with the smoked pork, rendering it soft and releasing oth some taste and salt into the water. I then removed the pork, added the crushed oats and started chopping the meat small. As the meat had been smoked with the rind it had to be cut of as well. Though smoked meat may dry out and getting hard if I keep it for a few weeks, boiling it makes it very soft again and easy to chop up. The recipe suggested that the meat should than be ground in a mortar. Though I only have a pounding mortar – as opposed to a grinding one – it was still turning the meat into something of a mush. When the oats had softened and the liquid started to get milky, I was supposed to strain of the liquids.

However, lacking a good strainer or a cloth through which to strain the liquid I proceeded by decanting the liquid from the pot. The problem using this method in the semi-dark cavern of my kitchen was that I only managed to get it separated that much, and some of the oats did remain in the liquid.

The liquid was mixed with some saffron and the main part of the porc. This was put back on the embers in a second earthenware pot. Into the first pot where the boiled oats remained I put in a small amount of smoked pork and the rind from the chunk of meat I originally used.

I let both simmer for a while after which I served both up in a bowl. The oat/saffron soup had really nice if a bit salty taste, and could certainly serve as a starter or side dish in a larger meal. The porridge on the other hand was far more timid in taste. Though the recipe for a porridge is a bit of a construction from my side it is a) still using an original recipe as a base, b) a plausible way of preparing a porridge in the early renaissance and c) as close as we get to an authentic recipe from the period. Personally I quite like the notion that with just the addition of some saffron and an extra step of preparation one may produce two dishes – one for the high seat and one for the workers.

Common food for common people

A constant question that has haunted me since I started to study past food cultures is cuisine of the common people. In general most cookbooks are aimed at the upper echelons of the medieval/renaissance society with even the dishes that might be considered simpler including exotic spices or some other ingredient that will make it a bit to expensive to be considered something that the majority could afford. Though the renaissance and baroque cookbooks are increasingly aimed at a reader from the middle-class, the simpler dishes are still (with a few exceptions) not easily found in the cookbooks.

 

In order to get closer to the food that might have been eaten at the time I have mainly been looking at four sources;

The implications found in later cookbooks

Vague references in other texts

Indications found through description of handouts to soldiers

Archaeological evidence & historical context

 

Though most cookbooks are aimed at the upperclass or wealthy middle class there are some dishes that can be considered to be upgraded versions of more simpler dishes. In some of the cookbooks we may find pea soups, groat porridges, bean dishes or soups based on turnip greens but with a twist, such as saffron to make it a bit more prominent. In the cookbooks from the end of the period or the baroque we start to find inclusions of what can only be considered to be part of the more everyday meals. In a Danish cookbook from 1616, dishes such as salted herring and kale porridge are included, in the latter case we are told that the best examples of that dish are made in farmers kitchen.

 

Other, non-culinary texts, may give us a hint to dishes eaten by workers, farmers and the like. In an Italian text from the 15^th century we learn that farmer preferred turnips or onions baked in the embers. Similar small tidbits of information can be found if one look through non culinary texts.

 

Although reflecting very special circumstances and being a bit later than the studied period some good input into the contents and sizes of a more common meal can be found through old navy documents stating what and how much food the sailors were issued daily. Though the diet and compositions of dishes may have changed somewhat, it is illuminating as it indicates to what extent the food was based on porridges of either barley or peas.

 

Archaeological evidence can if mapped out geographically and socially give us an idea as to what the preferred or most common ingredients were, although this in fact only tells us so much about the finished dishes. However, archaeology is still valuable in order to pinpoint the food of the ordinary people. Through analyses one may find indications of deficiencies of various minerals or if a marine diet was preferred. If related to the social status of the remains one may also gain a further understanding of the diet of the time. Historical contexts are also very important in the understanding of the food of the period. Not only do we know that fish was very important from a religious perspective, but also that the trade of salted herring and dried cod were important for Scandinavia yet wellspread throughout the social stratas.

 

In my hunt for some simpler dishes I am trying to find the dishes that may reflect what the sum of all of the above sources may indicate. In short I am looking for dishes that includes, porrridges, simple soups, kale, turnips or salted herrings. The dishes ought to be boiled rather than fried or roasted.

 

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.

Eggs in moonshine

While most dishes in medival or renaissance cookbooks have rather matter-of-fact names there is one that stands out and has always tickled my imagination. In the cookbook A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye from the 16^th century one can find a dish called ”Eggs in moonshine”:

 

”To make egges in moneshyne.

Take a dyche of rosewater and a dyshe
full of suger, and set them upon a
chaffyngdysh, and let them boyle, than take the
yolkes of viii or ix egges newe layde and putte
them therto everyone from other, and so lette
them harden a lyttle, and so after this maner
serve them forthe and cast a lyttle synamon
and sugar upon them.”

This is also one of the recipes that I find rather straightforward without many pitfalls. In a three fotted pan I heated equal amounts of rosewater and sugar. The sugar I used was brown cane sugar, though I suspect that a bit more refined cane sugar would have fitted the dish better. I must admit that am not entirely sure about the sugar qualities of the time – but the name of the dish suggest a rather light coloured sauce. The rosewater used was a commercially available rosewater, which may differ some from the rosewater made at the time. (A recipe for making rosewater can be found in ”The goodman of Paris”.)

While the sauce was working its way to a boil I started separating egg yolks from the white. Though the egges were storebought and refridgerator kept, I became quite aware that the eggs where not newly laid – most of the yolks burst at the mere sight of them. When I considered the sugared rosewater hot enough I placed the yoks, one by one in the pan. With the quality of the yolks I had this was a tricky operation.

I let the egg yolk cook just long enough to still be semi-soft. The decision to do so was partly based on personal preferences, my estimation on how the dish would tie together better but also repeated references from medieval sources that runny or softboiled eggs were preferred.

Here I might have let the rosewater syrup cook for a bit long as it started to caramelise, and got somewhat brown and sticky. Still I could pour some of the sauce over the eggs. Before serving I sprinkled the eggs with some cinnamon and finely ground sugar.

Though it did not look exactly as I was imagine it, it turned out to be a very nice little dish. Though rose water often may give desserts a somewhat perfumed and soapy taste, it ws actually quite balanced here. The fairly rich amount of sugar makes it a good and rather simple example of renaissance cooking. And though it may seem a bit strange it was really appreciated by the few co-workers that got a chance to try it. In keeping the yolks somewhat soft, they mixed quite well with the sauce giving it almost an impression of a custard in texture and taste.

In order to be served at a high table it should be improved somewhat visually, with a clearer sauce and perhaps even served on a silver plate. This may however be my modern association of moonshine and a silvery shine.

According to C.S. Lewis “eggs in moonshine” seem to be a term meaning something else than just this dish, anyone who has a clue?