A delicious "failure" - Medieval bread experiment

 

I decided to try and work with the rye dough and, sadly, only the rye dough.  I should have [mixed it with other flours](https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/english/recipes/medieval-bread-with-fennel-seeds-and-onion-salad-a-peasants-meal/), which would have been period correct.  I did add [fennel seeds](https://www.petersyard.com/recipes/rye-bread/) to it which makes it a good "savory" bread.  

It's not a bad bread, just very, very dense.  I'll still eat it because I'm sure that's what they did in the medieval period.  I'm actually looking forward to using it with my soup tonight.  

I've had to give up on the Wednesday/Friday only medieval thing only because my schedule changed and we must be in the office all the days of the work week.  Not a big deal and I'll still try to do one or two medieval meals a week.  I'm still sticking to the "no meat" for the rest of Lent.  

Last week, I did have pasta, peas, and olive oil for lunch and that was quite good, honestly.  I also made bread (white flour), and had my beer brined salmon dish that I've had multiple times over the years.    

Friday 6 March

 

Within itself, bread is not a meal but it was a vital part of the Medieval and Renaissance diet.  The Medievalists already did an excellent run down on bread in the middle ages so I won't bore you here with repeating what they've already done.

For my bread, I used mostly what I had around the house.  The all-purpose baking flour would have been for the rich in the Renaissance but it is something that was used.  I also used olive oil, honey, salt, and a cheater starter.  Honey I've previous documented as being used specifically during lent.  The cheater starter is just half flour, half water, and a teaspoon or so of yeast left for 24 hours before I made the bread.  

This isn't too out there for what they did in the medieval period.  Ale-barm has been used since the Romans, really.  All ale-barm is is the yeasty foam on top of ale.  Bakers would collect this and use it in breads and cakes.  This still happens today though the practice mostly lessened in the 18th and 19th centuries.  While the English Housewife is from the early 17th century (the link says 1660, but it also says it's the seventh printing.  The original is from 1615.), it at least shows multiple uses for barm as a leavening agent.  

The cheater starter also happened to smell like ale after 24 hours.  :-)  

To Make a Cheater Starter

1/2 cup of flour 

1/2 cup of warm water

1 teaspoon of yeast ( I used Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast)

Mix it all together in a jar.  I used a cleaned out jalapeños jar.  Leave with only a cloth or a napkin covering it somewhere out of the way but warmish.  It will smell fermented after 24 hours.  

To Make Bread

3~ cups of flour

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of olive oil (any oil or fat will do)

3 tablespoons of the charter starter

1/4 cup of honey (sugar is also fine here)

1 cup of water

I added half a cup of water to start to the above mix.  KEEP THE FLOUR ON HAND!  You'll want to add more to the mix as you are blending and kneading it.  Once you've mixed everything to a dough consistancy, add some more flour and just mix it in with your hands.  Keep kneading it until the dough no longer feels sticky.  You'll have to play with the water versus flour levels as you are mixing it and kneading it.  If it's all clumpy and not forming one bit clump, add more water.  If it's not doughy enough and too wet, add more flour.  

Once it feels not sticky, put it in a pan.  Let it rise for a few hours and then punch it down.  Put some olive oil over the top of the dough and let it rise overnight.   

Bake at 375F/190C for 35 minutes.   

The bread is honestly really good.  I had some this morning with just a bit of my butter flavored olive oil (Yes, it's a thing) and salt.  I'll have more later but it's good it's a fasting day or I'd eat the whole thing!

Wednesday 4 March meal

 

Rice with Raisins

This is one of those meals that we'd probably be more likely to eat for breakfast today than just anytime of day during the Renaissance.  Overall, it's very simple:  Rice cooked in almond milk with a bit of sugar, saffron, and raisins.   That's pretty much it.  

This very basic recipe shows up in a few different places.  Sometimes it's rice flour and sometimes it's just rice.  However, rice with almond milk and saffron seems to be pretty common.  

Taken from Medieval Cookery

Taken from Medieval Cookery

"Take good almond milk and let it boil.  And do there in almond with flour of rice and color it with saffron.  And after, dress it with grains of pomegranates or otherwise with raisons, if you don't have the other.  And take sugar and do therein, and serve it forth."

Taken from Medieval Cookery

  "To make rice of Genoa.  Take rice and parboil them in fair water and steep them well.  And then take them off and cast them in a fair vessel and pick them clean and set them on the fire.  And then do to it a broth of fresh beef or of good bone broth and let them boil well and add ground saffron and salt.  And if it be a fasting day, make it with almond milk and serve forth."

Rice wasn't always cleaned of it's husk in the middle ages so boiling the rice to clean it and then boiling it again to cook it makes sense. 

Really, I took the middle recipe and just used rice grains rather than rice flour.  I also added some poudre dulce.   I'll probably have the rest for breakfast in the morning.  

27 Feb Friday's Dish

 

Taken from Medieval Cookery

This one was a successful failure.  What I mean by that is that the mixture failed to retain ball shape when I fried them up but the hash that I did fry up was pretty darn good.  It is a recipe I'll try again with a few changes.  

One, make sure I blend everything separately and thoroughly.  I chucked the golden raisins (sultanas), the blanched almond slivers, and pieces of cod in the blender together.  I should have had each done up separately and then combined them to make the fish balls.

Two, use a bit more fish and a few less raisins.  I used equal amounts, more or less, of each of the three ingredients.  

I did add some Poudre Forte to the recipe which really made it taste amazing.  The ground up raisins should act as a binding agent for the almonds and the fish - I used cod- but nothing got completely ground up so this was the result.  I fried them up in olive oil.  

 

The result!  Yes, I know it doesn't photograph well.  At all.  As you can see, the almonds weren't ground up properly but I got tired of fighting with the blender and just made up what I had.  And yes, I used a blender rather than a mortar and pestle.  

Wednesday Medieval dish

 

Taken from Medieval Cookery

This is honestly one of my comfort foods when I've done medieval Lent in the past.  It's a good, hardy recipe that I've even made for others.  I simply serve it over a bed of saffron rice.

Now, some of you may be wondering, "But wait!  Aren't kidney beans native to the New World?  What are they doing in a 15th C recipe book?!?"  Yes, the red kidney beans we know and love are from Peru.  However, the original Italian calls for "fasoli" beans which just beans beans.  So you can use any beans you want for the dish.  I typically stick with kidney beans of some sort simply because it's what I have on hand.  Not 100% correct but it works well.  

In this case, I used cannellini beans or white kidney beans. 

Ingredients:

 1 can of beans

1 1/2 tablespoons of dried minced onions (you can use half a regular onion if you want, I just was being lazy and didn't want to cut an onion)

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1/4 cup of Garden Vegetable broth

Pepper to taste

Salt to taste

A pinch of saffron

I stir fried the beans with the ingredients for maybe seven minutes?   I was waiting on the rice - which is the kind from a bag - to finish.

This is such a good dish simply because it's not super complex, it's stuff we still easily eat today, and who doesn't like rice and beans?

1st Friday of Lent meal

 

Taken from Medieval Cookery

This morning, I tried to make almond milk with my new fangled Christmas gift of a soy milk machine.  It worked -and I had hot chocolate- but I ended up with a lot of ground up almond paste.  I looked up recipes that use almond paste and this was one of the ones that sounded both simple and pretty decent.  Plus, I got to use up the rice from Wednesday!  Woohoo!

The Almond Porridge; yes it looks like milk

Ingredients

1/2 cup of almonds ground into paste

1/2 cup of rice ground into paste

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Raisins for garnish

Really, just heat the pastes together and you have the porridge.  I added too much water to the rice paste and the porridge came out more as a very thick soup.  

I ended up eating it more as a dip for these lovelies:

It was DELICIOUS that way.   I highly recommend it.  I may have also gotten the good dates and eaten those as a side dish...

Ash Wednesday Medieval Meal

 

For Lent this year, I will only be doing the medieval meals on Wednesdays and Fridays.  I found out, the hard way, that too much almond milk can cause you to have kidney stones.  

For Ash Wednesday, I wanted a lunch that was easy to make but fit the medieval lenten rules.  Not only on Wednesdays and Fridays will I not have meat - fish is fine-, but no eggs or dairy.  This means no cheese, butter, or yogurt for the full 40 days of Lent if you do the real medieval Lent.  Sundays are a cheat day.  :-)  However, I'm only giving up meat for the full 40 days with Wednesdays and Fridays being "medieval" days.  

For lunch, I fixed a bowl of chickpeas over rice.  The recipe I ended up making came from a number of different sources but here are the main ones.

Taken from Medieval Cookery

Another preparation during Lent. Take crushed or whole chickpeas, set them to cook with oil, salt and peas that have been split, or beaten and diluted in the mortar; and add spices and saffron, and serve.

Taken from Medieval Cookery

Chyches. XX.III. XII. Take chiches and wry hem in ashes all nyzt, oþer lay hem in hoot aymers, at morrowe, waisshe hem in clene water and do hem ouer the fire with clene water. seeþ hem up and do þerto oyle, garlec, hole safroun. powdour fort and salt, seeþ it and messe it forth.

Translation: Chickepeas.  20. 3. 12.  Take chickpeas and dry them in ashes all night, otherwise lay them in hot embers, and in the morning, wash them in clean water and cook them over the fire with clean water.  Cook them up and add to them oil, garlic, whole saffron, pouder forte, and salt.  Cook it and serve it forth.  

Taken from Medieval Cookery

Another preparation. Take boiled crushed chickpeas, and throw away their cooking water, and add fried onions to the aforementioned things, and preserve them well with oil or lard, as the time or day requires.

I added the last one because, well, I added onions.  Having chickpeas with just spices seemed wrong.  Adding the onions and serving it over rice was pretty good, actually.   Here's the recipe I came up with based on these three together.

Ingredients:

 1 can of chickpeas

1 cup of  rice

1 tablespoon of Poudre Forte

1/2 a yellow onion

Salt to taste

A couple of pinches of saffron - about five strands per a pinch

3 garlic cloves, pressed

Olive oil

Preparation

I used enough oil to coat the bottom of the frying pan and added a pinch of saffron.  While that was heating up, I rinsed the rice, added enough clean water to the pot to cook the rice, and added a pinch of saffron to the rice pot.  I also added some salt and started heating the rice up to cook that.

I then returned to the frying pan and added the chopped onion.   After a few minutes, when the onions were soft, I added the chickpeas and let them fry up for about five minutes.  The rice should be done at this point.  Remove from heat but let it sit until the chickpeas are done.

Add in the poudre forte, garlic, and salt.  Stir that up and cook for another minute.  Serve this over the bed of rice.

Conclusion

  I'll probably play with the spices a bit more.  As is, it's fine.  However, I think a bit more of the poudre forte would be great.  For a fasting day medieval meal, I'll probably make it again.   

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge 5: Roasts

A day late but it's done! Since it's Lent, I did a Salmon Roast based on several 15th Century English recipes.

samon Rostyd In Sause
This is an excerpt from Gentyll manly Cokere (MS Pepys 1047)
(England, ca. 1500)
The original source can be found at James L. Matterer's website
Samon rostyd in sause. Cutte thy samon in Rownde pecys and roste hit on a roste Yre take wyne and powder of cannell and draw hem throwgh a streynner. Do ther to onyons mynsed small boyle hit well take vynegyr or verius and pouder of gynger and salt do ther to lay the samon In dyshys and pore the syrrppe ther on and serue forth.

samon Roste In Sauce
This is an excerpt from Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books
(England, 1430)
The original source can be found at the University of Michigan's "Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse"

Samon roste in Sauce. Take a Salmond, and cut him rounde, chyne and all, and roste the peces on a gredire; And take wyne, and pouder of Canell, and drawe it thorgh a streynour; And take smale myced oynons, and caste there-to, and lete hem boyle; And then take vynegre, or vergeous, and pouder ginger, and cast there-to; And then ley the samon in a dissh, and cast the sirip theron al hote, and serue it forth.

To Mail samon Rost In Sauce
This is an excerpt from A Noble Boke off Cookry
(England, 1468)
The original source can be found at MedievalCookery.com

To mak samon rost in sauce tak a samon and cutt hym in round peces and rost hym on a gredirne and tak wyn and pouder of canelle and draw them throughe a stren and mynce onyans smalle and do ther to and boile them then tak vergius pouder of peper and guinger and salt and do ther to then lay the samon in a disshe and pour on the ceripe and serue it.


My translation of all three (since they really don't differ much):

To make a salmon roast in sauce, take a salmon and cut it in round pieces. Roast the pieces on a grill (or a roaster in the 1500 one). Take wine and cinnamon powder, passing them both through a strainer. Mince onions and boil them in the wine and cinnamon. Take vinegar or verjuice, ginger powder, and salt as well. Lay the salmon in a dish and pore the syrup over it. Serve forth!


The only difference really is that the recipe from 1468 calls for pepper as well. After tasting it, I think it's perfectly fine without the pepper - which would have been long pepper most likely at this point and not black pepper.

My Recipe:

1 cup white cooking wine
1~tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1 small onion, minced - I ended up with about 1/4 cup of onion
1 tablespoon of Sicilian Lemon Balsamic Vinegar (I buy it at Under the Olive Tree for any other DC locals. There is a similar store in OBX as well at mile marker 6)
1 teaspoon powder Ginger
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 flank of salmon

I got my salmon frozen at IKEA. Yes, they have salmon in their grocery store. It was on sale for $8 for four flanks in a package so I cooked one of the pieces for this recipe.

I didn't cut it up into round pieces for a couple of reasons: I couldn't think of a logical reason to do so; I'm not sure if they really meant round or if them just meant to clean it. Since it was already clean and cutting it into round pieces seemed more a chef Ramsey thing than actually necessary, I just left it. I preheated the oven to 390F since that's what I've cooked other salmon dishes at. I put the salmon piece into one of those tin foil bread things you get for $1 at the grocery store. Once the oven was preheated, I threw in the salmon and got to work on the sauce.

I minced the onions and ground up the cinnamon. I did start to use the mortar and pestle but it was too messy (chunks of cinnamon bark kept falling to the floor because I was smashing it) so I did use the modern blender - which got the job done in a few seconds. I put the cinnamon in the strainer and poured the cup of cooking wine over it. I then threw the onions in and let them boil.

Once the onions started to boil, I put in the Vinegar, ginger, and salt. At the ten minute mark for the oven, I took the salmon only partially out and poured the still quite liquid wine/vinegar/onion mix over the salmon. I let it cook for another ten minutes.

Final verdict: It was quite tasty! I served it on a bed of wild and brown rice (that I heated up in the microwave) which they probably would have done in the 15th Century.  The bed of rice, not the heating up in the microwave.  I'm not a fan of onions - I love cooking with them to get the taste but I tend to avoid actually eating them. However, I did eat a few of these with the salmon and rice and it works. It's sort of a sweet and sour dish. The final calorie count for this one ended up being just over 500 calories - which is excellent if you are on a diet like me. I think I might have it again next week because it's not a hard recipe at all and it's actually pretty modern in taste really. It really took maybe a total of 25 minutes for the prep and the cooking.

As far as cost:

Salmon	$2.00
Onion	$1
Cinnamon Sticks	25 ¢
Ginger	??On hand
Cooking Wine	$1.50 for the amount used
Vinegar	$2.00 for the amount used
Salt	On hand

For one dish, it was probably about $6 once you figure out the cost of the salt, ginger, and the rice.

Historical Food Fortnightly '16 3:History Detective

3. History Detective (January 29 - February 11) For this challenge, you get to be the detective! Either use clues from multiple recipes to make a composite recipe, or choose a very vague recipe and investigate how it was made. 

This challenge couldn't be easier for me. Most medieval and Renaissance recipes don't have things like measurements or how hot the dish needs to be or how long it needs to cook for - they assume you know all of this. For instance, the one I used:

Tart for Lenton. Take figges and raisinges, and wassh hom in wyne, and grinde hom, and appuls and peres clene pared, and the corke tane out (the cores taken out); then take fresh samon, or codlynge, or hadok, and grinde hit, and medel hit al togedur, and do hit in a coffyn, and do therto pouder of ginger, and of canelle, ande clowes, and maces; and plaunte hit above (ornament it on the top) with pynes, or almondes, and prunes, and dates quartert, then cover thi coffyn, and bake hit, and serve hit forthe.
The above is from Ancient Cookery [Arundel 334](England, 1425). My translation:

A tart for Lent. Take figs and raisins, wash them in wine, and then grind them. Also get apples and pears that have been peeled and corked. Then take fresh salmon, or cod, or haddock, and grind it small. Mix all these things together and put them in a pie crust. Add powdered ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and mace. On top of this, put pine nuts or almonds, prunes, and quarted dates. Cover the pie crust, bake it, and serve forth.
So the questions begin. Do I make the figs and raisins into a mush? Does the wine just wash the fruit or should I soak them in it? How the heck do I make a pie crust without butter? How long do I cook this for? Do I cook the salmon first and then add or should I keep it raw and cook it with everything else?

Well, some of the questions can be answered through a ton of other medieval cookbooks. This late 14th century one has a recipe for "Tarte of Fysshe" that mentions the salmon should be boiled in almond milk before being put into a pie. Okay, I can do that! This page shows me how long to cook the salmon and using this page I figured out a pie crust. I also used modern renditions of a pie crust to figure out the amounts. Basically, you always have to snoop around other cookbooks to figure out what the heck the original chef meant.

Pie Crust:


then make a dough of sugar, flour, oil, water and salt, mix them together to make the dough, spread it over the bottom of a low pan, and put the mixture in so that it is no more than a finger deep; cook it in the oven or on the fire as is directed for the other tortes; when almost cooked, get wafers, crumble them over the Tart - those wafers should be made with good sugar; when cooked, garnish with sugar and rosewater. (Italy, 15th C)
Sugar, flour, oil, water, and salt - all very normal ingredients for a pie crust. Using modern sites like this one I figured out how much I'd need of each. Rather than vegan butter, I'd use olive oil as the fat.

• 2 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar (1 of white and 1 of brown)
• 3/4 cup of oil (I probably should have used only a half cup)
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/2 cup ice cold water

I mixed the flour, sugar, oil, and salt until it made sort of a clumpy mess. I added the water until it had a more dough like consistency. I then rolled it out on a floured board (I used a lot of flour. I think it was another half cup while rolling it out). I split the dough into 1/3 and 2/3. The 2/3 became the actual "coffin" and the 1/3 became the cover. Once the pan was covered with the coffin part, I put the pan and the cover in the fridge and went to Mass.

Although they couldn't have used a fridge in the middle ages, they would have used a root cellar and probably just used the dough the next morning rather than a couple of hours later.

At 350F in my very modern oven, I cooked the coffin part for about ten minutes once I came home.

Ingredients:

For the salmon, I cooked it in store bought almond milk at 420F in the oven for 20 minutes. It cooked up beautifully. While I was waiting for it to cook, I peeled the pears and chopped them up, let the raisins and figs sit in the wine I've had in my fridge forever, and I also got out the apples I picked back in September to add them to the pie.

• 1 cup raisins
• 12 figs
• 2 pears
• 2 apples

I cut up the figs, the pears, and the apples were already cut up. I mixed in the salmon when it was done with this mess - draining the wine beforehand. Once it was mixed, I put this in the coffin. On top of that, I added the ginger, cinnamon, mace, and cloves - all ground. I spinkled it on so I have no idea what I used and of what but I know I used a good bit of ginger and the cinnamon and only put a bit of the mace and cloves on. All the spices were pre-ground in to a powder.

On top of that, I added 7 dates and sprinkled some almonds on. I didn't have prunes but I doubt they are vital to this dish. The cover went on over that. I cooked the pie at 350F for 40 minutes. I tried for 30 but the cover didn't look "cooked" so I added another 10 minutes to the total time.

Verdict:

It just won't cook.  The pears and the apples were only slightly mushy.   The crust wasn't completely baked either - it also could have used a bit more sugar, probably.   However, the consistency of the crust was perfect so I'll just have to work on the baking time part of it.  The salmon tasted fine - it was cooked thanks to the almond milk- but nothing else really seemed to have cooked correctly.   If I try this again, I'll probably put it in at a higher temp and for longer.  

The taste wasn't bad - it's mostly fruit and nuts with ginger and cinnamon.  It really was just a need to bake longer, I think.

Before adding the cover

After I took it out of the oven

De constructed pie!  I'm terrible at taking pies out without destroying them.

Ash Wednesday!!!

It's that time of year again! This year will be slightly different than previous Lents for a couple of reasons: a) I am no longer allergic to dairy and b)I'm trying to keep to a diet.

Granted, for Mardi Gras I sort of didn't keep to the diet but I didn't gain any weight either. I realized that even when I try to splurge now, I really don't go too far over what is recommended for a maintain weight diet. As for the dairy, I knew I had very low Vitamin D which is shown to cause an increase in allergies. By very low, I mean 8. Normal range is 20-50 and doctor's prescribe medication at 12. I wasn't good about taking the Vitamin D like I should until a few months ago. After reading scholarly articles like this I'm sort of kicking myself for not keeping up with the vitamin D more. Not only do I feel better, I can eat dairy! Ordering at a restaurant has gotten easier - as many people can now attest to for me. I can have cheesecake! (I did on Monday.)

So why, only a couple of weeks after figuring out I can eat dairy am I willing to give it up? Well, Sundays are cheat days anyway and I will be chowing down on mashed potatoes, chocolate cake, and lots of cheddar cheese then. I'm only giving it up during the rest of the week. Honestly, I feel more "joyful" for Easter when I've done the medieval Lent thing. I want Easter to come - it's not just an excuse to wear a new dress to Church. It's more of a celebration after all the fasting and staying away from animal products during the week. I like that celebratory feeling. Easter is the biggest holiday on the Christian calendar and doing the medieval Lent helps me to realize that. Plus, I do look forward to some of the foods like almond milk infused rice with raisins and cinnamon or kidney beans and rice.

Today, I've had OJ for breakfast (it's Vitamin D infused and probably not all together period for the 16th century but it is necessary so...) and a mug of hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was the Williamsburg (18th century) stuff I pay way too much for when I go down to Williamsburg but it's so good. They did have hot chocolate in the late 16th century and there is some evidence of vanilla being added to it. I mix the chocolate powder with almond milk and it's yummy. The Smithsonian has a pretty good article on hot chocolate. Wired also has a pretty good time line on chocolate in Europe. So, although the particular mix may not be exactly 16th C, hot chocolate with sugar is.

Tonight, I'm going to make a fish tart for the historical food fortnightly. Keep a look out for that!

Historical Food Fortnightly #22

The Challenge:Make It Do or Do Without


The Recipe: (where did you find it, link to it if possible) This is something I've made many times before.

Kidney Beans. Cook the kidney beans in pure water or in good broth; when they are cooked, get finely sliced onions and fry them in a pan with good oil and put these fried onions on top [of the beans] along with pepper, cinnamon and saffron; then let this sit a while on the hot coals; dish it up with good spices on top.

The Date/Year and Region: 15th Century, Italian


How Did You Make It: (a brief synopsis of the process of creation) This is really simple to make - which is why I make it so much. I just open a can of kidney beans, drain em, and fry them in some oil with onions, cinnamon, pepper, saffron, and salt. I put this on top of a bed of rice - this time I made the rice with salt, water, and saffron. It's become something of a comfort food during Lent.


Time to Complete: about 20 minutes because of how long the rice takes to cook.


Total Cost: I always have rice on hand. And saffron. And pepper. And salt. And cinnamon. Kidney beans were only $1.29 a can and the onions were $2.50 a bag. I only used half of one onion. Basically, this is a very cheap dinner.


How Successful Was It?: (How did it taste? How did it look? Did it turn out like you thought it would?) It's really quite good. It's just basic comfort food really.

How Accurate Is It?: (fess up to your modifications and make-dos here) I cooked it on an oven but other than that, there probably isn't much difference.

The reason I chose this one for this challenge (I made this again on Thursday) was for a couple of reasons. It's a Lenten recipe- Lent is all about not having meat, eggs, dairy, or really any animal products except fish. You had to ration what you had and both rice and beans keep well for a long time.

I also wanted to use it because I should have cooked the rice in either almond milk (too sweet for this recipe) or veggie broth (which I didn't have) so I went with plain old water with a bit of salt. They clearly had both in the middle ages so I'm not worried about how accurate the recipe is.

Medieval Diet on hold - again

Last time, it was because I didn't have a kitchen for a couple of days. This time, I'm sick. I have pneumonia and the medication I need to take requires food. This means fasting is out the window. I'll probably go back to it Holy Week (next week, the week after Palm Sunday) but from now until Monday, the diet is on hold while I get better.

Medieval Salmon Dinner

14th Century French Fresh Salmon recipe:

Fresh salmon. Smoked (keep the chine for roasting), cut into steaks, and then cooked in water; [add] some wine and salt while cooking; eaten with Yellow Pepper [Sauce] or Cameline [Sauce]. Some dry it again (for eating) on the grill. In a pie (if you wish) powdered with spices; eaten with Cameline [Sauce].

If it is salted: cooked in water without salt; eaten with wine and chopped scallion. 

I cooked it in a 50/50 mix of red wine and salt water because it's frozen.  ;-p   

Honestly, it just sounded like it would go better with the Cameline sauce if I cooked it that way. I set the oven to 390F and cooked it for about 20 minutes since I only have one small steak for me.

The Cameline sauce:

15th Century English version

Sauce gamelyne. Take faire brede, and kutte it, and take vinegre and wyne, & stepe þe brede therein, and drawe hit thorgh a streynour with powder of canel, and drawe hit twies or thries til hit be smoth; and þen take pouder of ginger, Sugur, and pouder of cloues, and cast þerto a litul saffron and let hit be thik ynogh, and thenne serue hit forthe.
Translation: Cameline sauce. Take white bread and cut it; and take vinager and wine, and seep the bread in it. Then put it through a strainer and add cinnamon, and draw it two or three times until it is smooth; and then take powdered ginger, sugar, and powdered cloves and put those in with a little saffron and then when it is thick enough, serve forth.

14th Century French version

155. Cameline: To Make Cameline Sauce. Grind ginger, a great deal of cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, mace, and if you wish, long pepper; strain bread that has been moistened in vinegar, strain everything together and salt as necessary
My version:

1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup red wine
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 whole long pepper
about 3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon ginger (probably more)
1/2 teaspoons cloves
1 pinch of safforn

I used the good ole very medieval blender (it's a nutra bullet) to mix this all up and then heated it up until it had the consistency of apple sauce.

How was it? I am so glad I made a ton of the cameline sauce because it is delicious! The salmon is just a sauce conveyer. ;-)

16th Century Lenten Pasta Dish

255. Several ways to make and cook macaroni for a day in Lent.

Get a pound of fine flour and a pound of grated bread that has been put through a fine sieve, and make up a dough with boiling water and olive oil mixed with a little saffron.  On a table make the dough so it is not too firm, but well mixed together.  When it is warmed up make the gnocchi - that is, macaroni- on the cheese grater and put them to cook in lightly salted boiling water.  When they are done, take them out and put them into an earthenware or wooden vessel, putting on them a garlic sauce made with ground walnuts, cloves of garlic, pepper and breadcrumb that has been moistened in hot water.  Mix everything together and serve it garnished with pepper and cinnamon.   - The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570) translated by Terence Scully

So, I didn't make the macaroni. I did call up my Mom and ask if I was a bad Italian for using Penne rather than macaroni. She laughed - not only does she do the same thing but my great Aunt (who is 93) called Mom up a few minutes before to ask a similar question - but in regards to chicken broth. Basically, I'm not a bad Italian and it's hereditary. :-)

Sorry I haven't made anything for the Historical Fortnightly in about a month. I was going to make gingerbread last week (sandlewood and long pepper!) but I ended up getting wrapped up in other things.

Anyway, back to the not-macaroni. I cooked whole wheat penne in salt water. Not exactly difficult.

The sauce recipe:

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
1/2 cup of warm water
1/2 tablespoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon ish of black pepper
1/2 cup of walnuts - ground up
1 teaspoon of salt

I first ground up the walnuts in the very period blender. I also added hot water to my already somewhat ground up breadcrumbs because I really was going to make gingerbread and just never got around to it. Since I didn't have garlic cloves (mine were dead), I used garlic powder. I threw this all in the pot to heat up with pepper. Unfortunately, it had the consistency of...vomit. Really, there is no other way to describe it. So, I added some more water and threw the sauce into the blender. About 20 seconds later, it looked much more like a sauce. However, it tasted like garlic flavored breadcrumbs. So I added salt which helped a lot - now it tastes like garlic bread on pasta. :-) I probably could add some olive oil to the mix to make it more yummy for a modern pallet.

This is after adding the cinnamon and even more pepper on the pasta dish. It really looks like a white sauce on pasta. Later in the recipe, it says a green sauce is also good. I might try that later.

Second Day of Lent

I decided this year to keep tabs on everything I eat during Lent. Sorry for those that don't like the cooking stuff. I swear I'll have sewing stuff this weekend.

Anyway:


Breakfast: Oatmeal with Almond Milk
Lunch: The red beans and rice leftovers
Snack: Raisins and olives.  Not at the same time, of course.   I've just been snacking on one or the other throughout the day
Dinner: Oatmeal with Almond Milk and then Salmon


This weekend will be a bit difficult since I'll be traveling.  I did buy crackers (not exactly period but definitely in the spirit of the medieval lent) and raisins for snacks.  As in previous years, I won't be as strict when I'm traveling because it's simply not doable.  I'll stick to the no meat whatsoever and no eggs (except Sundays!) but that will be about it.  Lots of fish & chips this weekend for me!

Oatmeal!!!

Before Lent, I bought Nature's Path Organic Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal.  It's this stuff.  The ingredients are simple: Rolled oats, cane sugar, dried apple, cinnamon, and sea salt.

I know they had all these ingredients in the middle ages/Renaissance, but did they have oatmeal as we know it.  Yes.  Yes, the did.

1520's Spain  Oatmeal Gruel
1390's England  Grewel of Almounds
1420's France Oatmeal

There are actually quite a few different recipes but almost all have the basic oats in almond milk (or regular milk) with salt and sometimes sugar.  They'd add all sorts of things really beyond that so apple and cinnamon?  Not exactly out there for the middle ages.


Luckily for me, this means I get to have oatmeal for breakfast on non-fasting days!   And without soaking the oats for days or any of the other work that sounds way too hard for just making a bowl of oatmeal. 

Ash Wednesday!!!

I'm so excited to do the Medieval Lent thing again this year. I did it last year and the the year before that and the year before that. Today I've had hot chocolate (chocolate, sugar, almond milk), raisins, a pickle, and red beans and rice.

The recipe for the red beans and rice is here.

The difference I did this time was I added salt and I made the rice with almond milk. Rather than store bought almond milk, I made my own. I used the oh so period correct blender to chop up some blanched almonds and poured water through an bag specifically created to make almond milk. I ended up making 3 cups of almond milk and it took all three cups to cook the rice correctly.

The rice is really creamy because of the almond milk but it's quite good.  This is one of my favorite recipes.