Historic cooking: Fylettys en Galentyne, c. 1430.

Fylettes en Galentyne. Photo:
Elizabeth Urbach.

So, I signed up for the History of Royal Food and Feasting course on FutureLearn, again, in the hopes that I will be able to complete the recipe challenges/assignments this time around!  After all, it is the 3rd time I've taken it, and I get a few more done each time ... 

Week 1 focuses on the Tudors, and the court and kitchen of Henry VIII.  I made the Tarte owt of Lente during one of the previous runs of this course, and although I bought some cheese to try it again this year, it finally cooled off this week (first heat wave of the year! ugh.) that I decided to try another one of the suggested recipes, called Fylettys en Galentyne, from ca. 1430.  It is a kind of braised pork dish, and is really tasty, and something that makes your house smell really good!  My housemates kept coming into the kitchen to see what was cooking.

Here is the original recipe:

Take faire porke of the fore quarter, and take of the skyn, and put the pork on a faire spitte, and roste it half ynogh; and take hit of, and smyte hit in peces, and cast hit in a faire potte; and then take oynons, and shred and pul hem, not to small, and fry hem in a pan with faire grece, And then caste hem to the porke into the potte; And then take good broth of beef or Motton, and cast thereto, and set
hit on the fire, and caste to pouder of Peper, Canel, Cloues and Maces, and lete boile wel togidur; and then take faire brede and vinegre, and stepe the brede with a litull of the same broth, and streyne hit
thorgh a streynour, and blode with all; or elles take Saundres and colour hit therewith, and late hem boile togidur, and cast thereto Saffron and salt, and serue hit forth.
-Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, (Harleian MS. 27, c.1430 – Early English Text Society print, 1888)

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #18 Descriptive Food -- Tuff-Taffity Cream from 1670.

Ingredients for Tuff-Taffity Cream.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

The Challenge: # 18 -- Descriptive Food We all know those recipes that come attached to interesting and imaginative names - slumps, crumbles, buckles, trifles, flummery. Pick a historic recipe that has a descriptive title.

There were so many interesting-sounding recipes that I considered for this challenge, but I decided on Tuff-Taffity Cream because I wanted to know why it had that name!  Other descriptive recipe titles are a bit more clear, but this one ... I have read about a fabric called "taffety" – which became our modern "taffeta" – but I don't know what period taffety was like, and why a custard would be called by that name.  And the "tuff" part?  Modern taffeta is a stiff, glossy fabric that is used to make women's formal gowns, but it's also lightweight and can be luxurious, and I thought that might be the clue to the relationship between the fabric and this recipe. 

The Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities defines "tuftaffeta" (also spelled "tufted tafata") as a silk taffeta (a fabric which has a smooth finish), that has a pile or nap arranged in tufts, to create a decorated pattern: "creating a pile and then cutting some of it only so as to form a pattern was very popular in the sixteenth century and early seventeenth, but largely died out thereafter as different ways of finishing became available.  ... Tuftaffetas were normally made of silk and were therefore valued highly, but some were made of half-linen." So, "tuff-taffity" is really "tufted taffeta", which is a decorative silk fabric.  I guessed that the custard called "tuff-taffity cream" must have a silken, "tufted" texture, then.  I don't know that I've ever eaten a food with a "tufted" texture! 

Food historian Ivan Day contributed his opinion on the subject on his blog, Historic Food: "Quince marmalade or sliced quinces were added to apple pies and taffety tarts to improve their flavour. The taffety tart filling ... also contains preserved orange.Taffety tarts borrowed their name from the textile material called taffety, but why this was the case is not understood. A more elaborate taffety called tuff-taffety was popular for making hats in the Tudor period. Hannah Wooley, the seventeenth century writer on domestic matters gives a recipe for a tuff-taffity cream, which is a smooth frothy cream garnished with red current jelly." So there you have it!  Maybe "tufted" is the same as "frothy"?  Let's find out.

A failed Florentine of Marrow -- Historical Food Fortnightly challenge #14

ingredients for a Florentine of Marrow.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

The Challenge: #14 -- Fear Factor.

What foods have you always wanted to attempt, but were afraid to attempt to make - or afraid to eat? Choose a dish that is either tricky to create or nerve-wracking to eat, and get adventurous! It’s historical Fear Factor!

I could have re-done Calf's Foot Jelly from earlier in the year, but I had trouble finding fresh calves' feet.  I could have done Beef Tongue, but a few other people chose the same thing, and while I will probably try it myself later, I preferred to work with a different ingredient, to give the challenge postings more variety.  I also thought about doing stuffed beef heart, or kidneys, but had trouble finding fresh ones, even at the local Filipino grocery store.  Then I saw beef marrow bones at my regular grocery store, and that sealed the deal.  I've heard of marrow bones being a popular dish even into modern times, but never having had them before, I didn't know what the commotion was about.  I was a bit turned off by the thought of eating blood, but the bones didn't look very bloody when I bought them, and I was intrigued.  Instead of making a modern recipe like Osso Bucco, I looked through my historic recipes and saw that marrow could be substituted for suet and butter in boiled puddings, as well as used as the filling for fritters, tarts, and other sweet dishes, mixed with spices, dried fruit and candied citrus peel. 

The history of eating bone marrow goes back to prehistoric times.  Archaeologists are always finding bones and bone fragments in the kitchen refuse heaps that are dug up, and it seems that until the Medieval era, the bones were simply roasted or boiled for broth, and then broken to extract the marrow, which was then eaten as a dish by itself.  Removing the marrow and using it as an ingredient in other recipes became very common by the 16^th century, with recipes for rissoles, pies, puddings, and tarts containing marrow in the filling, with sugar, spices, and dried fruit.  The 17^th and 18^th centuries seem to have been the heyday of marrow's popularity, with multiple recipes for marrow puddings, both boiled and baked, marrow tarts, pasties, fritters, and other sweet dishes.  By the 19^th century, marrow seemed to be most popular as a dish of beef-bones, roasted or broiled, replaced by suet and butter in puddings and other desserts, although many Victorian cookbooks still include a recipe for marrow pudding. 

Recipe books, along with other publications, record the rapid increase in knowledge and innovation characteristic of the Enlightenment, with new dishes, and new names for old dishes, abundant.  The Florentine is one such dish; a variation on a regular custard tart, Florentines are baked puddings, in a puff pastry crust, or simply in a buttered dish with an edging of puff pastry, with a filling of eggs and cream or milk, with any combination of sugar, marrow, butter, suet, fruit, sweetmeats, spices or other flavorings, and bread crumbs.  Generally sweet, Florentines could also be savory, with vegetables, herbs, marrow or suet, and gobbets of meat as the filling.  I chose to re-create a recipe from 1674 because I had all the ingredients already; the book, English and French Cook, is on Google Books.

Victorian Christmas customs, ca. 1855

AntiqueClipArt.com

CHRISTMAS AND ITS CUSTOMS.  By Caroline A. White.  (from Godey's Lady's Book, December 1855)
THERE is something so congenial to human nature, so absolutely necessary to the health of mind and body, in the relaxation which festivals afford, that we do not wonder at the unwillingness which Sir Isaac Newton tells us the heathens felt to part with their holidays ... During the continuance of this antique feast, every one interchanged presents with his neighbor; their houses were decorated with evergreens and laurel; no criminal was punished; no arms taken up; the very slaves were permitted to sit at the table with their masters, in allusion to the happy equality which was supposed to have existed during the reign of Saturn; nay, banquets were sometimes made for them, at which their masters served—a custom whose shadow still lingers with us in the yule feast once common in the baronial halls of England, and not yet quite exploded from them.
We know of hospitable hearths, whose yeomen-proprietors annually preside at a supper given to their laborers, or, if this part of the business be deputed to their bailiff or foreman, at least make their appearance amongst them, to utter the old-fashioned but hearty “Much good may it do you!” and to give and receive the gratulations of the season.

Celebrate the Queen's Jubilee with a special afternoon tea

Cherries Jubilee, Wikimedia Commons.

 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria are the longest-reigning monarchs in the history of the U.K. -- amazing that they beat out all the men!  There are a lot of events and festivities scheduled for this weekend in the U.K., the Commonwealth nations, and in households where Brits, Canadians, and their friends live, including the Sunday Lunch (tomorrow).  Red, white and blue bunting, ribbons, and flags are used to decorate homes, businesses, and even cakes this year!  Many people are decorating regular cakes with the Union flag in fondant, or red and blue sprinkles, but why not adapt a recipe or two invented for Queen Victoria's Jubilee back in 1897 and bring some history into it?

Greet May 1st with Morris dancing!

Morris dancers in England.  By Kaihsu Tai,
GNU Free Documentation 1.2

My friend Amy is a Morris dancer and says that it's traditional to greet the sun (i.e. get up before sunrise and dance at dawn) on May 1st, "to make sure the sun will rise for the rest of the year."  So, if you happen to be up before 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, and you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, why not go down to one of the following Morris dancing performances?

Berkeley Morris: from 5:30 to 6:45 a.m. at Inspiration Point in Tilden Park.
Mad Molly: at 5:50 a.m. at the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve.
Goat Hill: at 5:45 a.m. in the Twin Peaks parking lot in San Francisco. E-mail goathillsquire (at) oakashthorn (dot) com for more information about the group.
Seabright Morris & Sword: at 5:30 a.m. at the Lighthouse on West Cliff Dr in Santa Cruz.
Apple Tree Morris: at 5:30 a.m. at the Sebastopol Community Center Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Santa Rosa.

They say that there will be dancing all day long, so you may still be able to catch a performance even if you can't be there at dawn!  

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and The Young Lady's Toilette, from 1858.

Image: Simon Howden.

Tomorrow marks the day when England's Queen Elizabeth II equals her predecessor Queen Victoria in one thing -- a reign of 60 years!  Queen Victoria is the only other English monarch to live to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, and hers was in 1897.  The U.K. and the Commonwealth nations will celebrate this anniversary with speeches, a flotilla on the Thames, statue dedications, garden parties, and of course, lots of tea.  The Queen is scheduled to host a tea party for thousands of people at one point!  The festivities will continue through the summer, picking up frequency around the first week of June, which is the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty's coronation.  Whether you are a citizen of Great Britain or just a fan, why not take some time in the coming months to raise a cup of tea to Queen Elizabeth and the tact and intelligence that have kept her sanity intact doing government work for so long!

Downton Abbey is back for Season 2!

Downton Abbey cast photo.  Photo: Carnival Films.

If you'd like to watch the Christmas Special, click here.

It's on KQED for the next 6 or 7 weeks; the schedule is here.

Lots of costume fun!  

May Day and spring traditions in the Victorian era.

Primroses.  Photo: Nikolay Dimitrov.

The Victorian era is famous for its nostalgia and love of sentimental customs. Many Victorian traditions have roots going back hundreds of years, often including veiled references to Medieval Celtic folklore and pagan deities.  In the Victorian era, May Day, or May 1, was the middle of spring, and was marked with a fair, parade, dances, and lots of floral decorations.  The traditional celebrations often began with “bringing in the May”, which involved getting up very early in the morning on May Day, and going into the country to pick flowers to decorate the town with, as well as make preparations for the parade and other festivities.  Women were also said to bathe their faces with dew from the grass and flowers on May morning, to preserve their beauty. 

Cowslips.  Photo: Nickolay Dimitrov.

What would Jane Austen eat with her tea?

Tea with toast and jam. Image from FreeFoto.com
Tea-drinkers in Jane Austen’s time liked to have a bit of food with their beverages just like we do, but tea time was not the feast of pastries that it often is today. One or two kinds of tea, bread and butter, and one kind of cake were about all you could expect to have with tea, otherwise you were approaching a proper meal. Tea was enjoyed with breakfast, and served more formally after dinner, especially if there were guests, and it's a lovely custom to revive. If you want to enjoy tea the way Jane Austen might have done, here are some menu suggestions:

Rose congou (Chinese black tea scented with roses)
Bohea (Chinese large-leaf black tea) or Pekoe (known as “orange pekoe”)
Hyson (Chinese large-leaf green tea)

Toast (homemade or country-style bread) or Toasted English muffins
Butter

Pound cake or fruit cake

China was basically the only tea supplier to England during Jane Austen's lifetime, so choose a loose-leaf, unflavored Chinese black or green tea. Twinings is one well-known tea company that was in business from the late 1700s. Offer sugar cubes instead of granulated sugar with the tea, and whole or skim milk if your guests want it (Jane didn’t have 2% or lowfat!). Save the cream for your coffee; it will cover up the flavor of the tea. Have a CD of classical music, especially piano or harp, playing in the background, and you will be ready for a wonderful tea experience in the style of Jane Austen and her contemporaries! You can also check out _Tea with Jane Austen_ for more great ideas, including recipes.

If you want to go all out and have a Regency-style tea served to you, and you're in California, you can go to Capitola and attend the Jane Austen Tea at Bloomsbury Tea Room:

Jane Austen Tea
Friday, August 6, 6:30 p.m.
Bloomsbury Tea Room,
911-B Capitola Ave
Capitola, CA
831-477-1798
Cost: $34.95 per adult guest, $15.95 for children.
Limited Seating - Reservations Required
http://www.bloomsburytearoom.com/upcoming-events.html

“Tea history: what type of tea did American Founders drink?”
“Teas of Yore: Bohea, Hyson and Congou”
Tea with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson
“To Make Bread” Regency recipe from the Jane Austen Centre, Bath, England
“English Muffins” Regency recipe from the Jane Austen Centre, Bath, England
“To Make An Excellent Cake” Regency recipe from the Jane Austen Centre
“Jane Austen Historic Reciepts”

Lemon Curd recipes (part 2)

Unfortunately, while updating this blog today, Blogger deleted my earlier post about lemon curd, which has been a popular post with readers! I will attempt to re-create it here:

The traditional English tea fare tends to be slightly different from the menu that has become traditional on American tea tables. When I was a student in the south of England in 2000, I indulged my love of tea with good old PG Tips with milk and sugar, and a digestive biscuit on the side. In tea shops, where I loved to stop when it rained (even for 5 minutes), the usual offering was a pot of tea and a plain (unflavored) scone served with Devon cream and strawberry preserves. A variety of cakes and sandwiches were available, as well, but my English friends said that cakes and things were for holidays and other special occasions. Tea (as in, the everyday mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack) was a simple affair: a pot or cup of tea and a biscuit or two, or a piece of toast. The combination of tea, scone, cream and jam comprise the traditional English Cream Tea. The addition of egg and cress, and cucumber sandwiches, with perhaps some biscuits and one kind of cake, made the menu into a traditional English Afternoon Tea.

In the United States, however, Tea has taken on another dimension. For many people, Tea is more of a special occasion than a part of everyday life. American tea tables tend to be well-filled with a variety of foods, under the misnomer "High Tea:" tea shops and individual tea hostesses usually offer a variety of teas -- especially flavored teas and "herbal teas" or tisanes -- to accompany the scones -- also often flavored or filled with dried fruit, chocolate bits or topped with thin icing -- and the most common toppings, which are whipped cream or "mock clotted cream" and lemon curd. Several kinds of sandwiches and savories (formerly known as canapes or mini finger foods), including cucumber sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, mini quiches and sausage rolls, and even, on occasion, bowls of soup, are served with cookies or pastries, and bon-bons, cakes, miniature tarts, and other tempting desserts.

While the traditional English tea table is characterized by elegance, quality, and comfort, the American tea table is an example of variety and abundant luxury, as well as practicality, oddly enough! Americans, in general, don't like to put a lot of effort or money into something if it's too simple; we like to get our money's worth, especially when we splurge on something special!

When I was in England, however -- and according to my English friends -- I hardly ever saw lemon curd, which I happen to love. When I did encounter lemon curd, it was used as a filling for tarts, but not served with scones at the tea table. Knowing that the traditional English Tea descends from the menu popularized by Anna, Duchess of Bedford, in 1840 or thereabouts, I began to wonder how lemon curd came to replace strawberry preserves as the preferred companion to scones, in the United States. Is lemon curd a 20th century delicacy, or did the Victorians know and enjoy it? I looked through my collection of vintage and antique reproduction cookbooks and found little to no mention of lemon curd, but the use of lemons as a flavoring for cakes, puddings, custards, beverages and desserts of all sorts was evident. Then I came upon some of Jane Austen's reprinted letters, which mention "lemon cheesecakes", and a recipe for something called "lemon cheese" and I wondered, is this the same thing as "lemon curd"?

Perhaps the following reciept is what Jane Austen and her friends enjoyed. It is from a Scottish cookbook from 1820, called _The Practice of Cookery, etc._

Lemon and Orange Cheese-cakes.
Grate four lemons or oranges, scrape out the pulp, boil the skins till they are very tender, then take them out and beat them fine in a mortar with four ounces of sweet butter and the grate [grated zest]. Cast [beat] six eggs (keeping out four of the whites) with six ounces of sugar beat and sifted until it is light and white; then mix the whole well together, with two-ounces of orange-peel cut in small pieces. Line some patty-pans with paste; fill them with the meat, and glaze them as before.

Here is another similar recipe, American, this time, from Godey's Lady's Book, May 1860:

Lemon Cheesecakes.--The rind of a large lemon; squeeze half of the juice, three eggs, half a pound of lump-sugar, quarter of a pound of butter, to be melted.

And here is a modern recipe from my friend Helen:

Lemon Curd
Grated rind and juice of 4 medium lemons
4 eggs
100g (4 oz/ ½ cup) butter
350g (12 oz/ 1 ½ cups) caster sugar
1. Place all the ingredients in the top of a double saucepan or in a bowl standing over a pan of simmering water
2. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and continue heating gently for about 20 minutes until the curd thickens
3. Strain into jars and cover (I just prepare the jars by heating them in the microwave and dropping the lids into the simmering water as I am straining the curd.)
Makes about 700 g (1 ½ lb)

A January recipe and a knitting pattern

image from Grandma's Graphics.
It's been alternately cold, windy and foggy, and cool, windy and sunny for the past week or so. The wind has been really strong, and the sun -- when it's out -- doesn't really feel warm at all. Time for a nice dish of something warm and comforting, and something warm to wear.

How about a nice pot of bean soup? This is a compilation of several 19th century recipes, put together by a living history re-enactor of my acquaintance. It sounds like a really simple and tasty recipe!

Bean Soup.
1 lb. white beans
water to cover the beans
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 small/medium onion, chopped
1 - 3 cloves of garlic, minced
ham or well-rinsed salt pork, diced

Brown the meat and garlic in the soup pot, then add and brown the onions. Add the rest of the ingredients, and bring to a boil. Let boil until the beans are tender.

But it needs some nice warm bread to go with it, I think. Then again, I would eat warm bread with just about anything! Here are a couple of 18th century recipes from Hannah Glasse:

"To make a Scotch Rabbit. Toast a piece of Bread very nicely on both sides, butter it, cut a slice of Cheese, about as big as the Bread, toast it on both sides, and lay it on the Bread."

"To make a Welch Rabbit. Toast the bread on both Sides, then toast the Cheese on one Side, lay it on the toast, and with a hot Iron brown the other side. You may rub it over with Mustard."

"To make an English Rabbit. Toast a Slice of Bread brown on both sides, then lay it on a plate before the Fire, pour in a Glass of Red Wine over it, and let it soak the Wine up; then cut some Cheese very thin, and lay it thick over the Bread; put it in a Tin Oven before the Fire, and it will be toasted and brown presently. Serve it away hot."

As for something warm to wear, here is a pattern for a knitted Bosom Friend or Sontag, from Godey's Lady's Book, January 1860: http://www.vintagevolumes.com/sontag.html. I actually tried to copy this garment in crochet, since I don't knit, and produced a wearable sontag, but it doesn't look quite as neat as the illustration, or the one the lady at VintageVolumes.com made!

Keep warm and hydrated with lots of tea!