Tag: 17th Century (page 2 of 2)

October 19, 2014 / 0 Comments

Let Them Eat Cake!

Portrait of 12 yr old Marie Antoinette by Martin van Meytens c. 1767-1768 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This week (the 16th of October) marks the 221st anniversary of Marie Antoinette’s execution at the hands of the revolutionaries. Although she probably never said it, she is arguably most famous for the phrase “Let them eat cake!” so in honour of Madame Deficit this Historical Food Fortnightly challenge is dedicated to cakes of all types.

Of course, just to confuse everyone, the cakes that I made for this challenge would now be considered biscuits. They come from a recipe book called The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight Opened. A courtier, diplomat and intellectual who dabbled in privateering, Digby was also a keen collector of recipes (particularly alcoholic beverages. Who needs 100 different ways to make metheglin?). Many of his recipes reflect his travels across Europe and his noble, even royal, connections. The recipes were compiled and published posthumously in 1669, giving the public a glimpse into the life of the nobility. The word closet in the title refers to a small, private study and by opening Sir Kenelm Digby’s closet for public consumption the compiler (possibly Digby’s steward Hartman) was offering exclusive access to his life.

Portrait of Sir K. Digby from the Wellcome Library London. Line engraving by R.V. Verst after Anthony Van Dyke. [CC-BY-4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Sir K. Digby
from the Wellcome Library London. Line engraving by R.V. Verst after Anthony Van Dyke. [CC-BY-4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The Recipe

Take three pound of very fine flower well dryed by the fire, and put to it a pound and half of loaf Sugar sifted in a very fine sieve and dryed; Three pounds of Currants well washed and dryed in a cloth and set by the fire; When your flower is well mixed with the Sugar and Currants, you must put in it a pound and half of unmelted butter, ten spoonfuls of Cream, with the yolks of three new-laid Eggs beat with it, one Nutmeg; and if you please, three spoonfuls of Sack. When you have wrought your paste well, you must put it in a cloth, and set it in a dish before the fire, till it be through warm. Then make them up in little Cakes, and prick them full of holes; you must bake them in a quick oven unclosed. Afterwards ice them over with Sugar. The Cakes should be about the bigness of a hand-breadth and thin: of the cise of the Sugar Cakes sold at Barnet.[1]

Digby’s recipe raises several interesting conundrums for anyone trying to recreate his recipe. First up, drying the flour in front of the fire. This is a very popular recipe amongst re-enactors but some people have said that they found them too dry and/or too dense. One of the interesting consequences of this has been discussion of the very first instruction in Digby’s recipe “Take three pound of very fine flower well dryed by the fire”[2]. Stone ground flour contains the germ of the wheat and even bolting or sifting cannot remove all of the wheat germ. The germ is oily and leaves the flour with a higher moisture content and a shorter shelf life than modern roller milled flour.[3] Whilst I think that drying the flour before the fire was more likely a way of reducing the moisture content, it’s certainly true that a low protein flour (like cake or pastry flour) is both a) closer to the soft flours grown in the 17th century and b) makes lighter biscuits. I used Lighthouse Cake Flour which is low in protein and, in Australia, available in the supermarket.

The next question is which type of currants Digby was using. I had never really thought about this question before, simply assuming that the dried currants I bought in the supermarket were dried black-currants. In fact, I couldn’t be more wrong. To read about the difference between Ribes and Zante currants I recommend reading this article by the guys over at Savoring the Past (an amazing blog on recreating 18th century food). Essentially the difference is that Ribes currants are blackcurrants (sometimes dried) while Zante currants are a type of dried grape which, at the time, was imported from the Greek islands of Zante and Cephalonia[4].

Ribes currants. By Petr Kratochvil [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Although I think it is entirely possible that Digby was using Ribes currants, I think that it is more likely he was using Zante currants. He uses both types in his recipes, although distinguishing which is meant is quite difficult. Where he specifies red or black currants I think we can be sure that these are Ribes currants. Similarly, when he adds both currants and ‘raisins of the sun’ it seems more likely that they are both dried fruit. In the other cases, it is a matter of analysing the ingredients and methods to find the most likely. In this case, the fact that we need to mix unmelted butter into the dry ingredients suggests that the butter is rubbed in, a process that would burst fresh currants and turn the mixture an unsightly grey colour. This means that it must be dried currants, but which type?

Although Ribes currants would have been local and available, imported Zante currants were extremely popular. At the end of the 16th century they were the most profitable product that the Levant Company was importing and some 2300 tons were being brought in annually.[5] Demand was so great that the Venetian traders increased the taxes exponentially, leading to an English ban on imports between 1642 and 1644.[6] Clearly Zante currants were readily available, and also had a sort of luxury cachet, but I think for me the piece of evidence that makes it most likely that Digby used Zante currants is the instruction “Three pounds of currants well washed and dryed in a cloth”[7]. It seems to fit exactly with the process described in the article mentioned above, which explains that currants were dried in the sun, pressed into barrels with oiled feet and subjected to lots of other indignities which necessitated a good wash before use. I suppose it would depend on the individual case but if you were using local, home dried currants there seems to be less reason to specify washing and drying, it would instead be a matter of common sense. Based on all of that, I used dried Zante currants in the recipe.

The final challenge: how big was a sugar cake sold at Barnet? Presumably this refers to the market at Chipping Barnet (now part of greater London but formerly in Hertfordshire) which was established in 1588. However, I am not aware of any sources which describe the sugar cakes from the fair so we are left with the other instructions: a hands-breadth across and thin. I rolled out the dough thinly and used a cookie cutter about the same size as my palm.

Excellent Small Cakes. Photo courtesy of Sophia Harris.

Photography by Sophia Harris.

The Redaction

Excellent Small Cakes

I have reduced this recipe to a third of its original size but it still make a lot of biscuits. They are so delicious that the quantity shouldn’t be a problem, but you can always halve it again if you are worried, just use the whole egg and reduce the other liquids.

450g flour (low-protein or cake flour if you can get it)

226g sugar

450g currants

226g butter, cold

3 tbsp cream

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 of a nutmeg, grated

1 tbsp sherry or sweet wine

Preheat oven to 180˚C. Mix together the flour, sugar and currants. Cut the butter into 1cm cubes and rub them into the dry ingredients until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Stir in the egg, cream, nutmeg and sherry. Add a little more cream if necessary to form a smooth dough.
Roll out on a floured board until 3/4cm thick and cut circles from the dough using a cookie cutter or the rim of a glass.
Bake on baking trays lined with baking paper for 25 mins or until golden brown.

The Recipe: Excellent Small Cakes from The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened (available here)

The Date: 1669

How did you make it?

Time to complete?: About an hour and a half.

Total cost: About $8, of which half was spent on currants and a quarter on the cake flour. I already had sherry and cream.

How successful was it?: Very successful, I was worried that they would be too dense because I had read on other blogs that they were hard and inedible, hence the low protein cake flour. However, I found that they were delicious and not too heavy at all. This is possibly due to keeping the original proportions whereas many of the other versions I have seen changed them quite a bit.

How accurate?: I used modern versions of all the ingredients and modern cooking techniques, but I did keep the original proportions of ingredients. It’s hard to tell what the original cakes would have looked like, so that’s a bit ambiguous.

Photography by Sophia Harris.

[1] The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened (London: Printed by E.C. for H. Brome, at the Star in Little Britain., 1669), 221.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Alan Scott and Daniel Wing, The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1999), 29–31.

[4] Kevin Carter, “Currant Challenges,” Savoring the Past, July 21, 2014, http://savoringthepast.net/2014/07/21/currant-challenges/.

[5] Alfred C. Wood, A History of the Levant Company, New edition edition (Abingdon: Routledge, 1964), 24.

[6] Ibid., 69.

[7] The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened, 221.

Bibliography

Carter, Kevin. “Currant Challenges.” Savoring the Past, July 21, 2014. http://savoringthepast.net/2014/07/21/currant-challenges/

Scott, Alan, and Daniel Wing. The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens. Chelsea Green Publishing, 1999.

The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened. London: Printed by E.C. for H. Brome, at the Star in Little Britain., 1669.

Wood, Alfred C. A History of the Levant Company. New edition edition. Abingdon: Routledge, 1964.

October 12, 2014 / 0 Comments

Historical Kitchens in Scotland

So as some of you know I have been traveling around Europe for the past couple of months. During my travels I have come across historical kitchens of all shapes and sizes and covering about four centuries. Since not everyone has a medieval castle just around the corner I thought I might share some of the pictures that I have taken. First up, two very different dwellings from Scotland.

Provand’s Lordship is the oldest house in Glasgow. Built in 1471 as part of St. Nicholas’ hospital, it later became the house of the Lord of the Prebend of Barlanark and the furnishings reflect this later 18th century period of occupation. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the main cooking fireplace but you can see a good picture of it on the website here.

A small fireplace and griddle.

The dining room, with 18th century furnishings.

An 18th century dresser with pewter and wooden tableware.

The back of Provand’s Lordship and part of the herb garden which would have provided medicinal herbs for the hospital across the road.

The second lot of pictures comes from the spectacularly positioned Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire. Although the promontory has been in use since Pictish times the majority of the buildings which can be seen today date between the 14th and 17th centuries, including the kitchens which are housed in the lower levels of the Palace. Construction of the palace began in the latter half of the 16th century with a basement level for the kitchens and accommodation and living areas above.

The kitchens are comprised of a number of rooms, some with specific functions and others probably for storage and preparation. At the far end of the kitchen range is an enormous fireplace which would have been the central focus of the kitchen, used for roasting and boiling. The most striking thing, however, is the gloom. The windows, where they existed, where tiny and although fires would have helped a bit, the effect of the smoke must have been absolutely suffocating!

The bread oven at Dunnottar Castle.

The entrance of the bread oven at Dunnottar Castle. The fire would be lit inside the oven to heat the surrouding stone, then once the desired temperature was reached the fire would be raked out and the bread quickly put in. The bread cooked thanks to the heat from the stones, and as they cooled a succession of items could be cooked with bread first followed by pies and more delicate items which needed a cooler oven.

Pit for brewing, I think that a large cauldron would be placed on top of the stone walls and a fire lit underneath. Weak beer was safe to drink and provided a large proportion of the average person’s daily calories and nutrients.

Ovens? *Probably not ovens, see the comments below.

The well which provided fresh water for all the residents and workshops inside the castle walls.

Apologies for the quality of the pictures, the lighting was not good at all in the cellars! I hope you enjoyed the pictures, there are lots more to come once I get myself organised.

Squares of Quince Paste (these were a little too big given the sweetness of the paste)

July 21, 2014 / 0 Comments

To make Paste of Genua, as they doe beyond the Seas

This fortnight, for the “Foreign Foods” challenge, I decided to face down a nemesis of mine, quince paste. You know those recipes that you just can’t get right? A couple of years ago I tried to make apricot paste but no matter how many hours I cooked it, it just never seemed the right consistency. I had a similar problem with quince jelly, which is supposed to turn a beautiful rosy colour during the cooking process, but stayed resolutely yellow for me. So, of course, I chose to combine the two failures and try my hand at quince paste.

A round of quince paste (set in a ramekin) served with cheese.

The ancestor of modern marmalade, people have been preserving quinces for a very long time. The Greeks and Romans packed them tightly into honey to make melomeli or cooked it down to a paste with honey and pepper, often recommending them as treatments for complaints of the stomach[1]. If you want to try a Roman version, here are two options offered by Palladius:

Of Cydonites – Having thrown away the external coat, you will cut the quince-apples into very narrow and thin pieces, and you will throw aside the core. You will then boil them with honey, until they are reduced to half the quantity, and you will sprinkle some small pepper over them when they are boiling. Another way: you will mix two sextarii of the juice of quince, one sextarius and a half of vinegar, and two sextarii of honey, and you will boil it until the mixture resembles the consistency of pure honey. You will then take care to mix it with two ounces of pepper and zinziber.[2] [Anne Wilson translates zinziber as ginger[3]]

Recipes from the 14th and 15th centuries continue to see quinces as beneficial for the stomach, and to use honey rather than sugar as the sweetener, although by the mid 1400’s some recipes for chardequince were offering the choice:

Chared coneys or chardwardon. Take a quarter of clarefied hony, iij. vnces of pouder peper, and putte bothe to-gidre; then toke 30 coynes & x wardones, and pare hem, and drawe oute þe corkes at eyther ende, and setℏ hem in goode wort til þey be soft. then bray hem in a morter; if they ben thik, putte a lituƚƚ wyne to hem, and drawe hem thorgℏ a streynour; And þen put þe hony and þat to-gidre, then sette al on the fire, and lete setℏ awhile til hit wex thikke, but sterre it weƚƚ with ij. sturrers for sitting to; And þen take it downe, and put þere-to a quarter of an vnce of pouder ginger, And so moche of galingale, And so moche of pouder Caneƚƚ, And lete it cole; then put hit in a box, And strawe pouder ginger and caneƚƚ there-on: And hit is comfortable for a mannys body, And namelyfore the Stomak. And if thou lust to make it white, leue the hony, And take so moch sugur, or take part of þe one and part of þe oþer/ Also in this forme thou may make chard wardon.[4]

The recipes, in keeping with general trends in medieval cooking, have also become much more heavily spiced. The one above contains wine, pepper, cinnamon, ginger and galangal. Similar pastes could be made of apples or pears such as Wardens. By the 16th century the quince paste, generally called cotignac, had become even thicker and could be spiced with musk. In the recipe below, from 1597, it was turned onto a table, carefully dried in the sun and covered in sugar.

To make a condonack: Take quinces and pare them, take out the cores, and seethe them in fair water until they break, then strain them through a fine strainer, and for eight pound of the said strained quince, you must put in three pound sugar, and mingle it together in a vessel, and boil them on a fire always stirring it till it be sodden which you may perceive, for that it will no longer cleave to the vessel, but you may stay musk in powder, you may also add spice to it, as ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, as much as you think meet, boiling the musk with a little vinegar, then with a broad slice of wood spread this confection upon a table, which must be strewed with sugar, and there make what proportion you will, and let it in the sun till it be dry, and when it hath stood a while turn it upside-down, making always a bed of sugar, both under and above, and turn them still, and dry them in the sun until they have gotten a crust. In like manner you may dress pears, peaches, damsons, and other fruits.[5]

Georg Flegel, Still-life with Parrot, c. 1630. Georg Flegel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The round box at the front of the painting contains a dark fruit paste, it could easily be quince.

At the same time however, Portuguese traders were bringing flattish wooden boxes of quince paste called marmelada to England where it was given as a gift or served during the banquet course among the nobility.[6] In the same cookbook as above, there is also a recipe ‘To make drie Marmelat of Peches’, followed by ‘To make the same of Quinces, or any other thing’. These recipes are even thicker than the cotignac recipes, and you know that they are done when your spoon stands up straight in the mixture. The sweetmeats were shaped and printed with fancy patterns, then strewn with sugar and kept by the fire to stay dry. To see amazing examples of shaped and printed pastes have a look at Ivan Day’s website here.

Later it became popular to serve red and white quince pastes together and there are recipes in Gervase Marhkam’s ‘Country Contentments, or The English Huswife’ (1615), Mr. Borella’s ‘The court and country confectioner’ (1770), and Hannah Glasse’s ‘The Complete Confectioner’ (1800).

The Recipe

I used a recipe from the fabulously named ‘A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen’ written by John Murrell and published in 1617.

To make Paste of Genua, as they doe beyond the seas

Boile faire yellow peare-quinces tender in their skinnes, and so let them stand untill the next day, till they be colde, then pare them, and scrape all the pulp from the coare, then take as much pulp of yellow Peaches as the pulp of Quinces doth weigh, and dry it upon a little chafing dish of coales, alwaies stirring it, then boile the weight of both these pulps in double refined Sugar, and so let it boile, always stirring it untill it come to a candie height, with as much Rose-water as will melt that Sugar, and put in your pulps always stirring it in the boiling, untill it come from the bottom of the Posnet then fashion it upon a pie plate, or a sheete of glasse, some like leaves, some like halfe fruits, and some you may print with moulds, set them into a warme Oven after the bread is drawne, or into a Stove the next day you may turne them and when the stuffe is through dry, you may box it, and keepe it for all the yeere, but before it be through dried before you lay it up in store.[7]

This recipe is somewhat unusual in that it combines the quinces with peaches. Although it’s not unusual to bulk out more expensive fruit pastes with apples or pears (such as Elizabeth Birkett’s recipe for Past of Apricocks available here), peaches weren’t a cheap fruit. Maybe it was a quirk of Genoese quince paste? Or simply a way of making an already expensive dish even more extravagant? Luckily for me, I was able to find them relatively cheaply so that they didn’t break the bank.

Osias Beert, Dishes with Oysters, Fruit and Wine c. 1620-25. Georg Flegel [Public domain], via NGA. This painting shows a lighter fruit paste in the round box to the right of the image. It could be a different fruit like apricot, apple or pear or maybe a combination.

Osias Beert, Dishes with Oysters, Fruit and Wine c. 1620-25. Osias Beert[Public domain], via NGA. This painting shows a lighter fruit paste in the round box to the right of the image. It could be a different fruit like apricot, apple or pear or maybe a combination.

I cooked the quinces, skinned and cored them before mashing them into a pulp. I did the same to the peaches, peeling and coring them before cooking, and then mixed two together. I weighed the total amount of pulp, added the same weight of sugar and cooked it all for several hours. I have to admit that I didn’t read the instructions very well and that I should have made a syrup with the sugar and some rosewater before adding the pulp. About 3 hours of cooking later the mixture had thickened and turned a dark purpley-red colour. I spread most of it onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and put it in a very cool oven to dry. You can either cut up the slab to serve with cheese, or roll small cubes or shapes in sugar to eat as sweets. The mixture can also be poured into oiled ramekins (with straight sides) which can be kept and turned out into little rounds perfect for a cheese platter.

A round of quince paste which I set in an oiled ramekin, dried slowly in the oven as for the slabs of quince paste, and then covered with a jam cover. To turn out run a sharp knife around the edge of the ramekin and tip out. If the oil has solidified you can dip the ramekin in hot water for a couple of seconds to loosen it.

The Redaction

Genoese Quince Paste

750g quinces

750g peaches

Sugar (equal to the weight of fruit pulp)

Rosewater

1. Wash the quinces well and place in a large saucepan. Cover them in water and boil on high for 40 mins- 1hr or until very soft and well-cooked but not falling apart. Leave them submerged in water while they, this makes them much easier to peel.

2. Peel the peaches and remove the stones, then cut them into quarters. Boil with a couple of teaspoons of water until very soft. Mash them with a potato masher until smooth.

3. When the quinces are cool enough to handle gently remove the skins. Most of it will peel off easily, but in some areas you may need to scrape with a knife. Quarter the fruit and remove the cores. Mash the quinces and combine with the peach pulp.

4. Weigh the combined pulps and place in a saucepan with an equal amount of sugar. Add a little rosewater (the amount will depend on how strong you want it to taste, I added about 2 tablespoons) to help the sugar dissolve. Bring to the boil and cook over medium heat for about 3 hours or until a spoon drawn across the bottom of the pan leaves a clear path. Be careful not to let the bottom of the mixture burn.

5. Line a baking tray or slice pan with baking paper which comes up over the sides of the tray and grease with a little spray oil. Pour the mixture into the pan and cook in a cool oven, about 150˚C for 15 mins. Turn the oven off but leave the pans in for another 15 mins then repeat, cooking for 15 mins and cooling for 15 mins until the paste seems dry and not too sticky, about 1-2 hrs in total.

6. Let the paste cool then lift it out using the long sides of the baking paper. Cut into slabs to serve with cheese or small cubes which can be rolled in sugar.

Squares of Quince Paste (these were a little too big given the sweetness of the paste)

The Recipe: To make Paste of Genua, as they do beyond the seas from ‘A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen’ by John Murrell (available at this website)

The Date: 1617

How did you make it? See above.

Time to complete?: 5-6 hrs

How successful was it?: It was very, very sweet but tasty with sharp cheese. I think that it was probably more accurate to serve in small bites, rolled in sugar but they were too sweet for my taste.

How accurate?: Unfortunately as I said, I didn’t read the instructions closely enough and so I didn’t cook the sugar and rose-water before adding the fruit pulp. This may have had an impact on the cooking time, and perhaps also the texture of the paste, but it was very tasty nonetheless. I was also really happy that it turned such a dark colour, especially given my previous problems with getting the quinces to change colour. One of the other problems I had with the recipe was exactly how to prepare the peaches e.g. whether to take very ripe peaches and mash them raw or whether to cook them first. In the end the peaches I had were far to firm to make a smooth pulp without being cooked, so the choice was made for me. Murrell may also have meant to cook them whole like the quinces, but it seemed easier to remove the skins and cores first because I could then mash them as they cooked.

No Peasant Left Behind

Chicken Soup à L’Ouverture de Cuisine

The challenge this fortnight: soups, stews, sauces and gravies. I set out wanting to explore the origins of the classic French dish poule au pot, and the seemingly simple chicken stew turned out to be rather intriguing.

Henry IV. Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The story goes that Henri IV of France aka Henry of Navarre, Henry the Great, Good King Henry or The Green Gallant (1553-1610), left with a nation devastated by more than 30 years of war between Catholics and Protestants, wanted to lead France back to prosperity. After a game of jeu de paume (the precursor of tennis), Henri and the Duke of Savoy were discussing the future of the kingdom and Henri says:

“si Dieu me donne encore de la vie, je feray qu’il n’y aura point de labourer en mon Royaume, qui n’ait moyen d’avoir une poule dans son pot”[1]

If God continues to give me life, I will ensure that there is no labourer in my kingdom who lacks the means to have a chicken in his pot.

The phrase became a rallying point for the French peasantry, particularly during the French Revolution and the dish has become a classic.

Unfortunately this quote is first recorded by Hardouin Péréfixe de Beaumont some 50 years after Henri’s death and while the sentiment fits with Henri’s efforts to encourage new techniques for farming, land management and even silk farming[2], there is no real evidence that he ever said such a thing. Even if he did, the use of the word “labourer” in French implies only the upper class of land owning peasant, not the majority the lower classes who were landless day labourers[3].

The Recipe

I couldn’t find any recipes which were explicitly linked with Henri, which makes sense since the gist of the phrase clearly emphasises the ability to afford a chicken rather than a particular way of cooking it. For a recipe that is somewhat related you could try this 1895 recipe (in French) for Poule Au Pot Belle-Gabrielle which is named after Henri’s favourite mistress (who was also an early adopter of that newfangled piece of technology: the fork)[4].

Gabrielle d’Estrées, Mistress of Henry IV of France. By Benjamin Foulon or Maître IDC, 1594-1596 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

For something a bit closer to the time of Henri IV (1553-1610) I turned to L’Ouverture de Cuisine, a cookbook published in 1604, written by Lancelot de Casteau. Lancelot was a master cook in Liège in modern Belgium. He offers a recipe for boiled capon to be served in the first service which goes as follows:

“Boiled capon when it is somewhat cooked, put therein rosemary, marjoram, flour of nutmeg, a salted lemon cut into slices, a reumer of white wine, or verjuice, & butter, some beef marrow bones, & let them stew together well, served on toasted white bread.”[5]

Seems simple enough right? But what on earth is a reumer? It took a lot of digging, but eventually I got there. It’s the French name for a Dutch or German wineglass called a roemer named after the Romans who had introduced the Germans to glass-making. The green glass was shaped into round cups with thick stems covered in prunts or small lumps of glass. The prunts helped people hold onto the cups with greasy fingers during meals[6]. Although quite simple in form the glasses could be highly decorated with diamond point engraving and enamel and they can be seen in many paintings of the period. For extant examples try here, or here, or here.

Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Salt Tub, c. 1644. Pieter Claesz (1597/1598-1660) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

So how much does a reumer contain? The best information I can find says that in the 16th century glasses contained between 120 and 400ml[7], so basically anywhere from half a cup to more than a cup and a half.

The Redaction

Chicken Soup

1 chicken (capon if you can find it)

A large sprig of rosemary

1 tsp dried marjoram

1/4 nutmeg, grated

1 preserved lemon, cut into slices

3/4 cup of dry white wine, or to taste

1 tbsp butter

3 or 4 beef marrow bones

Bread to serve

1. Place the whole chicken in a pot or slow cooker, cover with water and cook until the outside has turned white.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the bread. Cover with a lid and allow to simmer about 90 mins or until the chicken is cooked and falling of the bone. If cooking in a slow cooker cook on low for 8 hrs.

3. Remove the chicken and shred the meat. Add the shredded chicken back into the stock and season to taste. Serve over toasted white bread.

The Recipe: Boiled Capon from L’Ouverture de Cuisine by Master Lancelot de Casteau (transcription available here)

The Date: 1604

How did you make it? See above.

Time to complete?: I put it in the slow cooker overnight, so prep time was about 15 mins and cooking was about 8 hrs.

Total cost: The chicken was about $15 and the preserved lemons were pricey at $13 (would be a lot cheaper if home-made) but the marrow bones were only $5 and everything else I already had. All up around $30 for about 6-8 serves.

How successful was it?: It tasted good, although the grease sat on the top and had to be stirred well into the stock. The chicken was tender and juicy, and the stock was pleasantly citrusy.

How accurate?: Well obviously the choice of the slow cooker wasn’t exactly period, but it worked for me with the time constraints and mimicked a long, slow simmer nicely. I couldn’t get my hands on a capon so I used a free range chicken instead. I don’t know if the preserved lemons were the right choice, they certainly tasted good but I couldn’t find much about the use of preserved lemons in Europe at this time. Finally, the recipe didn’t specify exactly what to do with the chicken once it was cooked. Was it served whole? In its liquid? Cut up or shredded and served as a soup? Since the stock was tasty I went with the latter option and shredded the chicken before returning it to the hot stock.

[1]Hardouin de Péréfixe de Beaumont, Histoire du Roy Henry le Grand (Chez Charles Osmont, 1681), 528.

[2] Vincent J. Pitts, Henri IV of France: His Reign and Age (United States of America: JHU Press, 2009), 259.

[3] Ibid., 258.

[4] Leo Moulin, Eating and Drinking in Europe (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 2002), 196.

[5]Daniel Myers, “Ouverture de Cuisine,” Medieval Cookery, 2012, http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ouverture.html.

[6] Corning Glass Center, Glass from the Corning Museum of Glass : a Guide to the Collections. (Corning, N.Y: Corning Glass Center, 1955), 39, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015031699146; Percival MacIver, The Glass Collector;a Guide to Old English Glass, (New York: Mead and Company, 1919), 264, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x001070865.

[7] Moulin, Eating and Drinking in Europe, 198.

Bibliography

Beaumont, Hardouin de Péréfixe de. Histoire du Roy Henry le Grand. Chez Charles Osmont, 1681.

Corning Glass Center. Glass from the Corning Museum of Glass : a Guide to the Collections. Corning, N.Y: Corning Glass Center, 1955. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015031699146.

MacIver, Percival. The Glass Collector; a Guide to Old English Glass, New York: Mead and Company, 1919. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x001070865.

Moulin, Leo. Eating and Drinking in Europe. Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 2002.

Myers, Daniel. “Ouverture de Cuisine.” Medieval Cookery, 2012. http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ouverture.html.

Pitts, Vincent J. Henri IV of France: His Reign and Age. United States of America: JHU Press, 2009.

June 12, 2014 / 0 Comments

To Make a Marchpane

To kick off the Historical Food Fortnightly (read more about it here) the challenge was Literary Foods (basically to recreate a food mentioned in a work of literature based on historical documentation). For this challenge I wanted to kill two birds with one stone and make something that could be used both for the Historical Food Fortnightly and for the Rowany Baronial Changeover (a medieval re-enactment event that I was attending) which required each group within the barony to make a subtletie that represented them.

See the swan pie on the table to the left? That's a subtletie. David Teniers the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Kitchen Scene by David Teniers the Younger, 1644. See the subtletie on the table to the left? David Teniers the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

A subtletie or sotletie, according to the OED, is “an ornamental figure, scene, or other design, typically made of sugar, used as a table decoration or eaten between the courses of a meal.[1] The word is first attested in the 14th century in the Forme of Cury but elaborate confections and foods designed to look like something else (think pies covered in peacock skins with fire gushing from their beaks or hedgehogs made of meat) were fashionable well into the 17th century. Towards the end of the 16th century the fabulous savoury subtleties were becoming old-fashioned, but the tradition of moulding fabulous centrepieces from food continued in the form of marchpanes. At their most basic marchpanes were flat cakes made of almond paste and iced with sugar and rose-water, but they could also be formed into shapes and gilded with gold leaf. Fruit (those little marzipan fruits that you can buy around Christmas time are a direct descendant), nuts, plates to serve sweetmeats, and coats of arms were all popular, but the Queen’s Closet Opened of 1659 also offers a recipe to make “collops of bacon” out of marchpane.[2]

Detail from Leandro Bassano’s Allegory of the Element Earth, c.1580. The marchpane in the centre of the table looks like it has been decorated with ragged comfits, small seeds coated in layers of sugar and used to aid digestion after dinner. Leandro Bassano [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Luckily for me marchpanes pop up in quite a few literary works, including some translations of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and a little play called Romeo and Juliet. Peter, one of the Capulet’s servants, is busy decrying the lack of good help and trying to get everything cleared away for the ball so he says

“Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard,

look to the plate. Good thou, save me

a piece of marchpane, and, as thou lovest me, let

the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.” (I.v.5-9)[3]

Given the pricey ingredients in a marchpane, fully iced, gilded with gold leaf and decorated with sugar paste, it’s no surprise that Peter wanted to be saved a bit. This really was conspicuous consumption: almonds imported from the Mediterranean, sugar from Latin America and gold leaf hammered out by hand. Even the process was expensive, because someone had to spend hours pounding the sugar (which came in a solid cone) and almonds into a fine powder.

The Recipe

To make the marchpane I Robert May’s recipe To Make Marchpane which says:

“Take two pounds of almonds blanch’t and beaten in a stone mortar,

till they begin to come to a fine paste, then take a pound of sifted

sugar, put it in the mortar with the almonds, and make it into a

perfect paste, putting to it now and then in the beating of it a

spoonful of rose-water, to keep it from oyling; when you have beat

it to a puff paste, drive it out as big as a charger, and set an

edge about it as you do upon a quodling tart, and a bottom of wafers

under it, thus bake it in an oven or baking pan; when you see it is

white, hard, and dry, take it out, and ice it with rose-water and

sugar being made as thick as butter for fritters, to spread it on

with a wing feather, and put it into the oven again; when you see it

rise high, then take it out and garnish it with some pretty conceits

made of the same stuff, slick long comfets upright on it, and so

serve it.”[4]

Since two pounds of almonds was far more than I needed, not to mention rather expensive, I used half that amount of ground almonds and mixed it with caster sugar, using a little rose water to get it all to come together. I chose to use caster sugar because it was what Sara Paston-Williams uses in her redaction of a marchpane recipe from 1690[5] and I wanted to see how that would work, given that most modern marzipan recipes use icing sugar or a combination of the two. I’m still not entirely convinced that caster sugar was the right choice, it made the marchpane very grainy and more biscuity than modern marzipan but, given that it is formed into a cake, that is perhaps the texture that I should be looking for.

When I first read the recipe I wasn’t sure what it meant by “oyling” but it quickly became apparent. The oils from the almonds made the dough extremely oily and quite slimy to touch. I added more rose-water as suggested in the recipe but to be honest it didn’t seem to make much difference to the oiliness. Once the dough had come together I spread most of it into a roughly circular shape, about the size of a dinner plate. Although the recipe said to put an edge to it I found that the dough was so stiff it was very difficult to shape and, as it would be covered with icing and sugar-paste, it didn’t seem necessary, nor did I place it on a base of wafers because I wanted to keep it gluten free.

Detail of the marchpane carrots (the darker ones)

With the remaining dough I formed small carrots, coloured with orange gel colouring (which only made the oiliness worse). I baked the marchpane and carrots in a low oven for 15 minutes then left them in the cooling oven with the heat turned off for 15 minutes before repeating twice more (an idea taken from Sara Paston-William’s recipe again in order to simulate a cooling bread oven). I then made a basic icing from rose-water and icing sugar, spread it over the top of the marchpane and baked it for another 15 minutes.

My Redaction

An Iced Marchpane

450g ground almonds

226g caster sugar

Enough rose-water to make it come together

Gel food colouring

For glaze:

30g icing sugar

3-4 tsp rose-water

1. Heat the oven to 150˚C. Mix the ground almonds and caster sugar together well in a large bowl. Add rose-water a tablespoon at a time and knead together until the mixture forms a dough.

2. Place a sheet of baking paper on your bench top and place 3/4 of the dough in the middle. Roll or press the dough into a rough circle the size of a dinner plate not quite a centimeter thick. If desired, use your fingertips to pinch an edge around the marchpane.

3. Add a few drops of food colouring to the remaining dough and form into the desired shapes (fruit, vegetables, animals, flowers, hearts etc.)

4. Lift the baking paper onto a baking sheet and place the shapes around the marchpane, but if they are coloured don’t let them touch the marchpane. Bake for 15 minutes then turn the oven off but leave the marchpane in the oven while it cools for 15 minutes. Turn the oven on again and repeat, baking for 15 minutes then cooling for 15 minutes twice more. It should have paled in colour and be firm and dry.

5. Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar and 2 tsp of the rose-water to make a thick glaze. Continue to add rose-water until it is the consistency of pancake batter. Spread the glaze thinly onto the marchpane once if has finished cooking and bake for another 15 mins .

6. Once cool, attach the shapes with a little extra glaze.

My subtletie consisting of a sugar-paste bear head on a marchpane base surrounded by marchpane and sugar-paste carrots. Photo courtesy of Charlie Murray.

Details of how I turned the marchpane into a subtletie (with a recipe for sugar-paste) available here!

Challenge: #1 Literary Foods

The Recipe: To make a Marchpane from The accomplisht cook, or, The art and mystery of cookery by Robert May (1685 edition available here)

The Date and Region: Recipe was published in 1660 in England which is a bit later than Romeo and Juliet which was first published in 1597, but the process is nearly identical, apart from the baking process, to the recipe for marchpane in The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin which was published in 1594 (text available here).

How did you make it? See above.

Time to complete?: About 45 mins mixing and moulding + an hours baking and cooling

How successful was it?: It was a totally different texture from modern marzipan which I wasn’t really expecting and the combination of oily and crumbly made it difficult to shape, but it tasted good and lasted for about a week.

How accurate?: I used pre-ground almonds and sugar which was a bit cheeky of me, but saved a lot of time. I’m still not sure whether the caster sugar was the right choice, and having seen the instructions in The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin which instruct the sugar to be ground to a powder I’m even less convinced. Baking it in a historical oven as the bricks cooled down would have been a lot less fiddly than turning the oven on and off every 15 mins but I can’t quite justify a proper 17^th century oven right now. Using period food dyes would have been really interesting to try, but I didn’t have time to experiment and I needed to know that the end product would work so it was easier to use modern gel colours.

[1] Oxford English Dictionary, “‘Subtlety, N.’.,” n.d., http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/193191?redirectedFrom=subtletie.

[2] W M, The Queens Closet Opened. Incomparable Secrets in Physick, Chyrurgery, Preserving, Candying and Cookery. (London: printed for Nathaniel Brooke, 1655), 263, http://eebo.chadwyck.com.ezproxy2.library.usyd.edu.au/search/full_rec?EeboId=7940359&ACTION=ByID&SOURCE=pgimages.cfg&ID=V40569&FILE=&SEARCHSCREEN=param%28SEARCHSCREEN%29&VID=40569&PAGENO=125&ZOOM=FIT&VIEWPORT=&CENTREPOS=&GOTOPAGENO=125&ZOOMLIST=FIT&ZOOMTEXTBOX=&SEARCHCONFIG=param%28SEARCHCONFIG%29&DISPLAY=param%28DISPLAY%29.

[3] William Shakespeare and Henry Norman Hudson, Plays of Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream. Much Ado about Nothing. King Henry VIII. Romeo and Juliet. Cymbeline. Coriolanus. Othello (Ginn brothers, 1873), 258–259.

[4] Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook, Or, The Art and Mystery of Cookery. (London: printed by R.W. for Nath: Brooke, 1660), 253.

[5] Sara Paston-Williams, The Art of Dining: A History of Cooking and Eating (Oxford: Past Times, 1996), 122.