La vraye methode de trencher les viande

La vraye methode de trencher les viandes (VM) was published some time in the late 17th or early 18th century. It seems to be a derivative work, using many, but not all, of the illustrations from Jacques Vontet’s L’art de trancher la viande et toute sorte de fruictz : la monde italienne et nouvelle a la françoise (AT), published in Lyon in 1647.

Here are some translated sections (found here):

Though the art of carving Meats does not seem to be useful except to Trencher carvers, or the Master of the hotel of the House of Princes, or to people of means, Seeing that many think that it is only at their table where one observes the Method of serving by fork or of cutting in the air, See that I avow nevertheless, that there is no-one even of a mediocre condition to whom the art of carving is not greatly necessary, since he cannot Invite his friends to any banquet, that he is not at the same time obliged to serve them which he could not do with honor, without knowing the art of carving, for there is nothing of such bad grace as a badly portioned part, and badly served, this is why I believed, that all those who frequent fellowships, or who voyage, either in Germany, Italy, or Spain where one observes this Method will be greatly curious to be able in a little time to know how to cut up all sorts of Meats, & in all ways, and according to the diverse Usages of the country such that I have learned in the House of the Princes of Spain, and Italy, as You may see by the diverse skewering of all sorts of.

Meats which you will notice by the listing of the figures and beside it the means to be able to slake one’s appetite without spoiling the other pieces, and to find a better morsel, and in addition, to peel a pear in diverse manners, to cut lemons, oranges, to represent all sorts of animals, Such as Eagle, Scorpion, and which I promise to teach with great ease, and all sorts of people desiring to serve with honor an honest company.

More from La vraye methode de trencher les viande

La vraye methode de trencher les viandes (VM) was published some time in the late 17th or early 18th century. I found the translation over here. With Easter season, LAMB is a traditional meal. This is how you would handle the meat and presentation using this source.

Translation:

A Shoulder of Lamb

Concerning the shoulder of Lamb the leg and other similar things You present the pieces that you would have cut from the side that will be best cooked and best roasted, However it is to be considered that in a Leg there is a little bone, called by the Germans the mother’s bone, & by the Italians the spur, and it is presented most respectably on A plate, with another piece of the same.

It must be remarked that the roasts of whatever nature that they are, they are all presented with orange, or lemon, or other similar trifling thing, after adding salt, and all that is presented in each serving that one makes.

Chese Nesh at is Ouer Hard

A period cheese recipe from MS Harley 5401:

To make Chese Nesh at is Ouer Hard. Lay þe chese lappyd all about in fayr grene nettyls. And lat it ly styll on a fayre borde or on a floore, and within fow[r] dayes it schall be nesgh & fresh.

Translation:

To make Soft Cheese that is “Too Daring.” Lay the cheese in a fair green nettle wrap. And let it lay still on a fair board on the floor, and within four days it shall be soft and fresh.

The nettle (cynara cardunaculus) is the rennet that is needed in order to create curds in cheese.

This was found over here.

Orange Omelette for Harlots and Ruffians

Below is an excerpt from The Medieval Kitchen Recipes from France and Italy by Odile Redon, Françoise Sabban, & Silvano Serventi Translated by Edward Schneider :

How to make an orange omelette (From “Le ‘Registre de Cuisine’ de Jean de Bockenheim, cuisinier du pape Martin V” edited by Bruno Laurioux)

Take eggs and break them, with oranges, as many as you like; squeeze their juice and add to it the eggs with sugar; then take olive oil or fat, and heat it in the pan and add the eggs. This was for ruffians and brazen harlots.

Redaction:

6 eggs
2 oranges
1 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt

Juice the oranges and the lemon. Beat the eggs, add the juice, the sugar, and salt to taste, and cook the omelette in olive oil. Serve warm.

Johannes Bockenheim (or Buckehen) was cook to Pope Martin V and in the 1430s wrote a brief but highly original cookbook recently edited by Bruno Laurioux. This German, who lived at Rome, wrote as a professional, with telegraphic terseness and little detail; yet he was careful to specify the destined consumer of each recipe, pigeon-holed by social class—from prostitutes to princes—or by nationality: Italian, French, German from any of various provinces, and so forth.

Since medieval oranges were bitter, we suggest a blend of oranges and lemons. The sugar and the acidity of the juice prevent the eggs from completely setting, so this is more of a custardy cream that makes an unusual and very pleasant dessert.

All this information is available here.

Success in Entertaining

With the holidays starting to wind down, I came across this fantastic article on how to entertain successfully.  Since some of you might still be planning New Years Eve Parties, 12 night and perhaps some other holiday party, this article might help you along the way.

Ward McAllister (1827–1895) was the writer of this article, and this was originally published in Society As I have Found it (1890). Ward McAllister, a Gold Rush millionaire who married an heiress, “the Mrs. Astor,” Caroline, whose husband, William, had inherited the vast estate of his brother John Jacob Astor III.

Read the article here (and download the PDF) from The Library of America.

Here is also another quick link to a description of who Ward McAllister was.

Caricature of Ward McAllister as “an ass”
telling Uncle Sam to imitate “an English
Snob” (Source: WikiCommons)

Simple Cheese in Period

Cheese is an ancient food (from the dairy family) that predates recorded history. There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheesemaking originated, either in Europe, Central Asia or the Middle East, but convincing evidence of dairying in Egypt and Sumer, ca. 3100 BCE, is preceded by fourth-millennium evidence for the Saharan grasslands. Proposed dates for the origin of cheese follow at some distance the earliest domestication of sheep and goats around 8000 BCE. Around 3000 BCE dairying is first documented in Egypt and Sumer; dairying seems to have begun earlier in the grasslands of the Sahara. Cheese-making had spread within Europe at the earliest level of Hellenic myth and, according to Pliny the Elder, had become a sophisticated enterprise by the time the Roman Empire came into being, when valued cheeses were exported long distances to satisfy elite Roman tastes.

The idea of how the original cheese was made came from a story of traders storing milk form their journeys into an animal bladders for storage. As they traveled, the heat from the sun activated the enzyme, rennet, found in the stomach lining (usually the bladders/sacks were made of sheep or goat stomach’s). The motion helped stir the contents. This made the milk turn into its liquid whey and solid curd and cheese components. Thus cheese was discovered.

Here are some of the bullet points of history that could have lead to pressed cheesemaking as we know it:

• Sherds of pottery pierced with holes found in pile-dwellings of the Urnfield culture on Lake Neuchatel are interpreted as cheese-strainers
• Secure evidence for cheese (GA.UAR) is in Sumerian cuneiform texts of the early second millennium BCE Third Dynasty of Ur.
• Visual evidence of cheesemaking has been found in Egyptian tomb murals, dating to about 2000 BCE.
• In Late Bronze Age Minoan-Mycenaean Crete, Linear B tablets record the inventorying of cheese (tu-ro), as well as flocks and shepherds.
The flavor of early cheese were likely sour and salty, similar to cottage cheese or feta.

Recipe

Original recipe from Platina:
De Recocta. We heat the whey which was left from the cheese in a cauldron over a slow fire until all the fat rises to the top; this is what the country-folk call recocta, because it is made from leftover milk which is heated up. It is very white and mild. It is less healthful than new or medium-aged cheese, but it is considered better than that which is aged or too salty. Whether one is pleased to call it cocta or recocta, cooks use it in many pottages, especially in those made of herbs.
- Andrews, E. B. trans. Platina. De Honesta Voluptatae. L. de Aguila. Venice, 1475. St. Louis: Mallinckrodt, 1967.

What I did:

I played with a cheese recipe that I found in one of my cheese books. In my cheese research, I noticed that some recipes for Ricotta called for vinegar and others asked for citric acid. I’ve also seen natural ricottas that used lemon for the acid. So I decided to experiment a bit as I wanted a creamy texture as I needed to add many herbs for this cheese I wanted to make.
1 ½ citric acid powder (dissolve in Luke warm ¼ water)
1 gallon whole milk
¼ calcium chloride (dissolve in cool ¼ water)
¼ liquid rennet (dissolve in cool ¼ water)

1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp fresh Parsley
½ tsp fresh Sage, chopped fine
½ tsp fresh Rosemary, chopped fine
½ tsp fresh Thyme, chopped fine

1. Sterlize equipment before using and take large double boiler, and combine milk and dissolved citric acid powder. Stir in an up and down motion making sure the combination mixes up thoroughly.
2. Heat milk slowly to 88 degrees over medium heat. Stir gently to avoid scorching.
3. Add rennet and calcium chloride into the water using an up and down motion in order to make sure the entire milk gets totally combined with the new indredients.
4. Remove from heat in order to keep at the same temperature at this point. Cover and let set for 30 minutes. Check for clean break. If its too fragile, leave for another 15 minutes or until the break is achieved.
5. Cut into 1” cubes with a long blade knife. Let stand for about five minutes to firm up.
6. Place pot back over the double boiler and slowly bring up to 106 degrees slowly (twenty minutes if possible). Once you hit temperature, turn off heat and stir.
7. Drain off the majority of the whey (I held back about 1/3rd or it) draining the cheese through a cheese cloth.
8. Take the cheese and add back the reserved whey, herbs and salt. Mix and put in the fridge to settle and combine flavors for several hours. Serve.

Bibliography:
200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes, Amrein-Boyes, Canada, Robert Rose Inc, 2009.
History of Cheese website: http://shannak.myweb.uga.edu/history.html
Period Illumination: Cheese-making, [Tacuinum sanitatis Casanatensis (14th century)
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cheese

The food in Spain in the 16th Century…

Perhaps one of the most interesting cuisines within history, Spain has many recipes that took advantage of their fresh local resources of the time. Ruperto de Nola’s “Book of Cooking” or “libro de cozina” was published in 1520 in Barcelona. It was written in Catalan – a language related to, but distinct from, Spanish. It was called “Libre del Coch.”

Full English translations of this book is here:

Part I
Part II

The Edible Monument

Not sure if you out there in cyberspace have seen Ivan May’s great blog or his recent post on “Joke Food” or not. If so, I would strongly suggest giving it a look if you are into illusion foods and learning about some fun things to make with sugar paste, marzipan and the like.

Also, there is a great resource for illusion foods and displays at the Getty called The Edible Monument. Check that one out if you love historical festival research, sugar sculpture info, cookbooks and table setting info… just a lot of great cooking stuff.

Both links have been added to my links sections for reference.

Enjoy!

Preserved lemons

Months ago I did some preserved lemons and I was so behind with other projects (getting ready for the West Coast Culinary Symposium among other things), that I was remiss in actually updating my blog with the recipe for my lemons. This is a very simple recipe and living in a region where citrus is in abundance, that this is a great way to use them up.

When I made mine, I couldn’t find my juicer attachment for any of my kitchenaids, so I did everything by hand. After juicing about 15 lemons, my hands were done with me, though my skin was lemony fresh.

I used this recipe over here, but ended up adjusting it a bit.

How to Make Preserved Lemons

Ingredients

8-10 lemons, scrubbed very clean
1/2 cup kosher salt, more if needed (I ended up using far more)
Extra fresh squeezed lemon juice, if needed (I needed a lot)
Sterilized quart canning jar

1. Place about 2 Tbs of salt in the bottom of jar.
2. Trim each lemon off all stems and cut 1/4 inch off the tip of each lemon. Cut each lemon as if you were going to cut them in half lengthwize, starting from the tip, but do not cut all the way. Keep the lemon attached at the base. Make another cut in a similar manner, so now the lemon is quartered, but again, attached at the base.
3. Open the lemons up like you are opening up a flower, still keeping the base attached and sprinkle in salt. The salt should cover all of the inside and the outside of the lemon.
4. Pack the lemons in the jar and really press them down. As you add lemons, pack them down (crush) so that juice comes out of them. You will want to fill the jar with lemons and ultimately there needs to be lemon enough lemon juice to cover these lemons. I ended up juicing about 12 more lemons to cover the 10 lemons I had, but it all depends on how much liquid you get from your lemons.
5. Top with a couple of tablespoons of salt.
6. Seal the jar and let sit in a cool room for a week. Turn the jar upside down every day or so. Put in refrigerator and let sit, again turning upside down every few days for at least 3 weeks, until lemon rinds soften.
7. To use, remove a lemon from the jar and rinse thoroughly in water to remove salt, discarding seeds before using. You can discard the pulp before using or use. You can can the peels and store in the refrigerator for up to six months.

Options: you can add other spices to this like cloves, coriander seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon stick, and bay leaf. These preserved lemons are a great condiment, a great addition for rice, meat dishes, and salads. When you need to liven up a dish, these are really great. It’s also a nice gift if you put in a nice jar.

Some cheese research in period…

From Ein Buch von guter Spice is the earliest known German language cookbook. It is dated from between 1345 to 1354. My translations were taken from this website over here.

q Ein gut fülle (A good filling)
Nim mandel kern. mache in schoene in siedem wazzer. und wirf sie kalt wazzer. loese die garsten und stoz die besten in einem mörser. Alse sie veiste beginnen. so sprenge dor uf ein kalt wazzer. und stoz sie vaste und menge sie mit kaldem wazzere eben dicke. und rink sie durch ein schoen tuch. und tu die kafen wider in den mörser. stoz sie und rink sie uz. schütez allez in ein phannen. und halt sie über daz fiur. und tu darzu ein eyer schaln vol wines. und rüerez wol untz daz ez gesiede. nim ein schün büteltuch und lege ez uf reine stro. und giuz dor uf die milich. biz daz sie wol über sige. swaz denne uf dem tuche belibe. do von mache einen kese. wilt du butern dor uz machen. so laz ein wenic saffrans do mit erwallen. und gibz hin als butern oder kese.

Take almonds. Make them beautiful in boiling water (Blanch them). And throw them in cold water. Remove the rancid (almonds) and pound the best in a mortar. When they begin to be oily, so sprinkle thereon a cold water. And pound them strong and mix them with cold water smooth and thick. And wring it through a fine towel. And do the pods/husks in the mortar again. Pound them and wring them out. Pour all in a pan and hold it over the fire. And add thereto an egg shell full of wine, and stir it well and (so) that it is boiled. Take a good servant-cloth and lay it on clean straw. And pour thereon the milk, until it drops well over that (Probably means until the whey runs out.), (and) which then stays on the towel. Therefrom make a cheese. If you want to make butter out of it, so let a little saffron boil with it (but this needs to be done when the almond milk is made). And give it out as butter or cheese.

Ein cygern von mandel (A cheese of almonds) (This type of cheese, cygern, is made from curdled whey, rather than from curds.)
Wilt du machen ein cyger von mandeln. so nim mandelkern. und stoz die in einem mörser. und die mandelmilch erwelle und schüte sie uf ein schoen tuch. und einen shaub drunder. und laz in erküeln. und slahe in uf eine schüzzeln. und stoz dor uf mandelkern. und strauw da ruf zucker und gibz hin.

How you want to make a cheese of almonds. So take almond kernels. And pound them in a mortar. And boil the almond milk and pour it on a fine cloth. And tangled straw thereunder. And let it cool. And put it on a bowl. And pound thereon almond kernels. And strew thereon sugar and give out.

Einen kese von mandel (A cheese of almonds)
Wilt du machen aber einen kese von mandeln. so nim mandelkern und stoz die. und nim die milich und slahe eyer dor in. giuz einer guten milich dorzu. und erwelle daz abe. und schütez uf ein tuch. laz in erkalden. und lege in uf einen kesenapf. und mache in. und lege in denne uf ein teler. bestrauwe in mit eime zucker. daz heizzet ein mandelkese.

How you want to make but a cheese of almonds. So take almond kernels and pound them. And take the milk and mix eggs therein. Pour a good milk thereto. And boil it down. And pour it on a cloth. Let it cool. And lay it on a cheese bowl. And make (shape) it. And lay it then on a plate. Strew it with a sugar. That is called almond cheese.