Citrus – Turnspit and Table

I felt that for the next Historical Food Fortnightly challenge, which was to make something with oranges, I wanted to do something that was a bit earlier in date. Flicking through ‘The Medieval Kitchen’ by Redon, Sabban and Serventi I stumbled across Chicken with Orange Sauce which sounded promising and was very budget friendly.

The recipe is a translation from Maestro Martino’s ‘Libro De Arte Coquinaria’ which was composed before 1465 (one of the versions is dedicated to his patron who died in that year).[1] Martino was the official cook for several important Italian gentlemen in the mid fifteenth century, and something of a celebrity chef. He was a part of an international network of courts that shared recipes and tastes, ‘De Arte Coquinaria’ shows affinities with Catalan manuscripts in particular.[2]

The Recipe

“Roast Chicken. To prepare roast chicken, you must roast it; and when it is cooked take orange juice or verjuice with rose water, sugar, and cinnamon, and place the chicken on a platter; and pour this mixture over it and send it to table.”[3]

What I soon discovered though, was that oranges in this period were not the sweet oranges which we are familiar with today. Originating in an area comprising north-eastern India, northern Myanmar and southern China, the bitter orange was brought to Europe via Islamic Spain.[4] Bitter oranges were used to give a sour taste to dishes, especially sauces, and could be used as an alternative to verjuice. Although there are some mentions of sweet oranges in the 15th century, it wasn’t until the 16th century that they were cultivated in Europe. It may be that it was the introduction of a new variety from China by Portugese traders that was the impetus for eating oranges as a fruit, rather than using them just for their sour juice (in much the same way as we use lemons today).[5] That the oranges called for in our recipe were bitter oranges is clear from the option to use verjuice instead.

By Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen (List of Koehler Images) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Citrus Aurantium by Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

As an interesting aside, one of the other results of the introduction of the orange was the invention of the colour ‘orange’. Mark Morton has pointed out that before the orange was being consumed in Europe, there were few things that were genuinely orange, and that anything that was orange-y could be described as ‘red’, ‘scarlet’ (both of which described a wider range of colours than now), ‘tawny’, or ‘brusk’.[6] It wasn’t until the 17th century that ‘orange’ was accepted as an adjective.

The Redaction

There are no quantities called for in the recipe, but as the authors of ‘The Medieval Kitchen’ provided a redaction of their own I saw no reason not to use their recipe, with one major exception. In the book, the authors say to use either bitter orange juice, or to use verjuice with rosewater. Having looked at the translation provided and, as much as possible with my basic Italian, the original recipe, I see no reason to read it as:

juice OR verjuice and rose water PLUS sugar and cinnamon

instead of:

juice OR verjuice PLUS rose water, sugar and cinnamon.

I also chose to add a bit of butter to the chicken, but that is a personal preference and you can certainly do as they suggest and use no fat. Of course, the original recipe calls for the chicken to be roasted, that is cooked in front of a fire, rather than baked in an oven, but if, like me, you don’t happen to have an open fire available then the oven will have to do.

Chicken with Orange Sauce

Adapted from ‘The Medieval Kitchen’ by Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban and Silvano Serventi.

1 chicken

Butter (optional)

Juice of 3 Seville oranges (or 2 sweet oranges and 1 lemon and omit the sugar) or 10 tbsp verjuice

1 tbsp rose water

1/2 tsp of sugar

1 pinch of ground cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Place the chicken in a pan and, if desired, dot with pieces of butter. Bake until the chicken is golden and the juices run clear, basting frequently with the pan juices.
Mix together the other ingredients in a bowl. Pour over the chicken and serve on a platter, or serve as a sauce with the chicken.

The Round-Up

The Recipe: Chicken with Orange Sauce from Maestro Martino’s ‘Libro De Arte Coquinaria’, translation in ‘The Medieval Kitchen’[7].

The Date: before 1465

How did you make it?: See above.

Time to complete?: The chicken took about an hour, the sauce itself was very quick.

How successful was it?: I liked the sauce, I was worried it would be very sweet but it wasn’t. It was a bit watery though, and I think it could have been even sourer. I would be interested to try it with Seville oranges if I can find them in season. It also made a lot of sauce for just one chicken, although it might not seem as much if you poured if over the chicken.

How accurate?: Well, I couldn’t get Seville oranges, I added a bit of butter, and I used an oven so it was really baked rather than roasted, so it could definitely be better.

[1] Nancy Harmon Jenkins, “Two Ways of Looking at Maestro Martino,” Gastronomica 7, no. 2 (2007): 97.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Odine Redon, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi, The Medieval Kitchen: Recipe from France and Italy, trans. Edward Schneider (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 115.

[4] Frederick G. Gmitter Jr. and Xulan Hu, “The Possible Role of Yunnan, China, in the Origin of Contemporary Citrus Species (Rutaceae),” Economic Botany 44, no. 2 (1990): 267–77; Clarissa Hyman, Oranges: A Global History (London: Reaktion Books, 2013), 7–13.

[5] Hyman, Oranges: A Global History, 13–17; Herbert John Webber, The Citrus Industry …, [1st ed]. (Berkeley, 1948), 12–14.

[6] Mark Morton, “Hue and Eye,” Gastronomica 11, no. 3 (2011): 6–7.

[7] Redon, Sabban, and Serventi, The Medieval Kitchen: Recipe from France and Italy, 115.

Bibliography

Gmitter, Frederick G., Jr., and Xulan Hu. “The Possible Role of Yunnan, China, in the Origin of Contemporary Citrus Species (Rutaceae).” Economic Botany 44, no. 2 (1990): 267–77.

Harmon Jenkins, Nancy. “Two Ways of Looking at Maestro Martino.” Gastronomica 7, no. 2 (2007): 97–103.

Hyman, Clarissa. Oranges: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2013.

Morton, Mark. “Hue and Eye.” Gastronomica 11, no. 3 (2011): 6–7.

Redon, Odine, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi. The Medieval Kitchen: Recipe from France and Italy. Translated by Edward Schneider. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Webber, Herbert John. “History and Development of the Citrus Industry.” In The Citrus Industry …, edited by Herbert John Webber, [1st ed]. Berkely: University of California Press, 1948.

Firstly, apologies that this post is a little late. I’ve been travelling and even though it was all cooked it’s just taken a while to get around to writing it all up.

One of my favourite things about studying/exploring/recreating social and domestic history is the way that it lets us catch a glimpse of women in the past. Although the past couple of decades has seen a real, purposeful shift from looking at history as simply the lives and deeds of famous men, it is still rare to get an insight into the everyday life of the scullery maid, the fishwife or the currency lass. Partially of course, that’s simply due to the lack of sources available for these women, even the literate ones. Even in the field of food history which one assumes would have an over-abundance of sources written and used by women, the early sources are dominated by male professional chefs writing for an audience of other male chefs.

Women have of course been collecting recipes for centuries, jotting them down on scraps of paper or carefully filling notebooks to be handed down the generations, but few were published before the late 17th century. Anna Wecker’s cookbook, Ein Köstlich new Kochbuch (A Delicious New Cookery Book), was published in 1598 and is the first known to be written by a woman, but this was extremely unusual and in England published cookbooks by women didn’t become available until much later. Hannah Woolley was a pioneer with her book The Ladies Directory which came out in 1661. Her series of successful cookbooks (which also contained medical knowledge and tips for domestic servants) made her one of the first women to earn her living from her pen.

By the 19th century the tide had thoroughly turned with a flood of female authors, many of whom are still household names (Isabella Beeton, Eliza Acton, Hannah Glasse and Elizabeth Raffald come to mind). But by then there was a new frontier to conquer, the newspaper. Today’s recipe comes from a newspaper column written by one of Australia’s first female journalists, Mary Hannay Foott.

A published poet, the beautifully haunting ‘Where the Pelican Builds’ is the most well known (you can read it here), Mary made regular contributions to The Queenslander and in 1886 joined the staff there as editor, and often writer, of the women’s page. She wrote under the nom-de-plume ‘La Quenouille’ (it means the distaff – an implement used for spinning thread; or the female side of the family) to dispense advice on cooking and cleaning, the latest fashions, handicrafts and society gossip.

I’m really excited to have discovered Mary’s story (you can read a short biography here or Patricia Clarke has written a more extensive biography in the Queensland History Journal[1]) and to be able to share a little bit of it here. Even though she was a pioneering female journalist in Australia and one of Queensland’s first female poets, her story, like that of so many others, has been all but forgotten. So in memory of Mary Hannay Foott, and her correspondent in Bundaberg who provided this recipe, I present to you a Lemon Pie.

The Recipe

Lemon Pie – The juice and grated rind of a 1 lemon, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg, 1 tablespoonful of cornflour, a piece of butter the size of a small egg. Boil the water, wet the cornflour with a little cold water and stir it in. When it boils up pour it on the sugar and butter. After it cools add the egg and lemon. Bake with an upper and under crust.[2]

This recipe is so straight forward and easy to use that I don’t think I need to provide a redaction for you (plus I’m already running late getting this post up). I used a simple short-crust pastry, just be sure you don’t make it too sweet because the filling is already very sweet. I didn’t blind bake the base, but you easily could if you wanted the bottom to be a little crisper, or you could line little tartlet cases with pastry and use them instead. Add the filling, a top if you want to and decorate with the scraps. Brush the whole thing with egg wash and bake at 180˚C for 20-25 mins or until golden.

The other thing that I did with this recipe was use my lovely new pie bird. It’s a bit anachronistic since, although pie funnels were certainly in use when this recipe was published in 1891, they didn’t take on the classic blackbird shape until the 1930s. Still, it was just too cute to resist!

Isn’t he just adorable?

The Recipe: Lemon Pie (available here)

The Date: 1891

How did you make it? See above.

Time to complete?: 1 hr approx., longer if you have to chill your pastry.

How successful was it?: Delicious, sweet and creamy lemon filling in a buttery pastry.

How accurate?: I think it was actually pretty close, I used a pastry recipe from one of Mrs Beeton’s cookbooks of a similar date. I had a couple of quandaries like whether to blind bake or not and how much butter is the size of an egg (I used 60g), but I don’t think they really subtracted from the accuracy of the dish. The main inaccuracy was the use of the pie bird, but like I said, I just couldn’t resist the chance to use it.

Pie-related Links

Find out how to use a pie bird here

Learn 3 different ways to crimp a pie crust here

[1] Patricia Clarke, “Queensland’s First Professional Woman Journalist: Mary Hannay Foott,” Queensland History Journal 22, no. 4 (March 2014): 302–15.

[2] “THE HOUSEWIFE. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. LEMONS.,” The Queenslander, June 13, 1891.

Bibliography

Clarke, Patricia. “Queensland’s First Professional Woman Journalist: Mary Hannay Foott.” Queensland History Journal 22, no. 4 (March 2014): 302–15.

“THE HOUSEWIFE. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. LEMONS.” The Queenslander. June 13, 1891.

Tag: Citrus (page 1 of 1)

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