A Luncheon of Fast Day Dishes for A Pelican Vigil 

When the joyous, and over due, news came that a friend was being elevated to the Order of the Pelican, I was asked to provide food for the vigil. Now normally for these types of receptions I fall back on a balanced spread of savory and sweet finger foods that can be prepared well ahead of the event. However, for some time I had been entertaining the notion of a menu constructed of the fast day recipes that fill Medieval cookbooks. While a fast day menu laden with fish and drenched in almond milk might not be very practical for a full blown feast, it could be just the ticket for a quasi-religious Pelican vigil. 

 On top of things the guest of honor had recently had surgery and was on a restricted diet. Fast day dishes without animal fats or dairy products neatly sidestepped most of the dietary restrictions. And while Arontius didn't wish to inconvenience the guests in any way, what's the fun of not being able to eat at your own party?

 So what to serve? A simple Salat seemed a good place to start. Then a fish dish; crab? perch? salmon.  All popular and readily available. Take a Thousand Eggs or More, Vol. II had a nice salmon rost (grilled salmon with a nice wine sauce) from one of the Harleian Manuscripts.  For another vegetable; Marinated mushrooms. May had a nice recipe, perhaps a little post period but not too far.  Then for dessert: Apples Royale, no sugar, nice soft texture. But not too showy, so something additional was called for. Glazed Lozenges seemed interesting, a simple sweet lozenge fried and served with a sauce rich with wine, dates, currents and figs. A little rich for the guest of honor but something special to impress the guests and stretch my skills. Add a little fresh fruit, bread and some nice wine or cider, et voila, luncheon is served.

 The recipes:

 A simple salat or salad of assorted spring greens dressed with a simple vinegar and oil dressing was a common medieval dish.  While actual recipes may be scarce, they do exist and much evidence of salads can be found in period poetry and fiction.  Any tender spring greens can be included as well as flowers.  Dress it simply, with a vinaigrette made of olive oil, red wine vinegar and a a little salt and pepper. (For a more detailed discussion of medieval salads see Modern Dishes in Medieval Guise, a Discussion of Food, The Salad  )

Salmon rosted in Sauce (Harleian MS. 4016, #156) Take a salmon, and cut him round, chop and all, and the roast the pieces on a gridiron; And take wine, and powder of cinnamon, and draw it through a strainer: And take small minced onions and cast thereto, and let them boil: And take vinegar, or verjuice, and powdered ginger, and cast thereto: And then lay the salmon in a dish, and cast the syrup thereon all hot, & serve it forth.

Salmon rost is clearly salmon steaks rather than the filets I used, but since some fine salmon filets were donated, well, one doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Since this luncheon was to be prepared for a diverse crowd rather than food purists, this compromise made it possible to offer plain cold cooked salmon with the more unfamiliar sweet wine sauce on the side. Although broiling could more accurately replicate roasting over an open fire, simple baking, seasoned with salt and pepper and a bit of olive oil was a bit more controllable at these quantities.   (Note: a very similar recipe in Le Cuisinier (1656) additionally calls for sugar, pepper, cloves and lime in the sauce.)

Sauce Redaction:

• One Bottle of fruity red wine

• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon - combine with wine and let sit for at least an hour, longer is better. - spice powder in wine gets slimy - which makes all that straining of Hypocras understandable.

• Strain wine through fine sieve or cheese cloth

• Add 1/2 cup finely minced onions, (recommend food processor)

• Add in sugar (1/4 -1/2 cup depending on sweetness in wine)

• Boil to reduce to one third original volume

• Stir in 1 tbsp red wine vinegar and 1/2 tsp ground ginger.

 To dress mushrooms in the Italian Fashion  (The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May, 1685)

Take mushrooms, peel & wash then, and boil them in a skillet with water and salt, but first let the liquor boil with sweet herbs, Parsley, and a crust of bread, being boil'd. drain them from the water, and fry them in sweet sallet oil; being fried serve them in a dish with oil, vinegar, pepper, and fried parsley, or fry them in clarified butter.

Mushrooms in the Italian style -While this recipe actually comes from a post period source, marinated mushroom recipes are known as early as the Roman cookbook De Re Coquinaria attributed to Apicius.

Redaction: I did not work out precise proportions for this recipe but rather a method. Boil water, salt (a good quantity) and sweet herbs and parsley in a deep skillet. I always like thyme with mushrooms so used a lemon thyme and taragon as my sweet herbs but you could use any combination you like. Bruise and leave them whole if you choose to remove them or you can chop them small and leave with shrooms when you drain them.   Using generic white mushrooms was my choice both for availability and cost. Also their soft skins would not require peeling. In future I hope to try more exotic varieties but need to research what might have been available. The purpose of the slice of bread eludes me, unless it was to absorb excess salt?  Add mushrooms in single layer to broth and boil for about 5 minutes. The shrooms will darken some. Dip out mushrooms and add the next batch if doing large quantities or simply drain for a small batch.  (Broth is great for soups later) Heat oil and fry mushrooms for about 10 minutes. They will not get crisp but will show some browning. Drain well and dress with a simple vinaigrette with pepper but no salt. (White wine vinegar and olive oil was the choice for this serving. Red wine vinegar will darken the dish somewhat but tastes fine.) chill and serve cold.

Apple Royale, (Harleian MS 279 potage dyvers recipe #135) Take Apple, & seethe them till they are tender, &  then let them cool; Then draw them through a strainer; & on flesh day cast thereto good fat broth of fresh beef, and white grease, & Sugar, & Saffron, & good powder; & in a Fish day, take Almond milk, & oil of olive, & draw there up withal a good powder, & serve forth.  And for need , draw it up with wine , & a little honey put thereto for to make it then sweet: serve it forth.

 Apples Royale:  There are many versions of this in Medieval cookbooks. The names of the dish may be apple mush or moyle.  It would be easy to dismiss this as nothing more than our familiar applesauce, and in the main that's exactly what this is. This is the type of recipe most often given a cursory redaction by well-meaning cooks without really reading the recipe. But I think it is worth it to skip the shortcuts and follow the medieval directions exactly at least once.  Renfrow includes 6 different versions in Vol. II of Take a Thousand Eggs or More. The inclusion of almond milk may not seem too odd to modern tastes but Olive oil or fatty beef broth in the flesh day version steps over the modern line between sweet and savory. Other recipes thicken the mush with rice flour or grated bread. Like the mushrooms, I again did not work out exact proportions.  After cooking the apples into an unsweetened sauce add spices such as ground cinnamon, cloves, mace, saffron or other spices to taste.  (Remember allspice, however, is a new world spice and should not be used in Medieval recipes.) add in some almond milk (if you don't want to make your own, almond milk is available in health food stores) and a little olive oil.

Glazed Lozenges (Bryndons) ( Harleian MS 279 Potage Dyvers Recipe # 49)Take Wine, & put it in a pot, and clarified honey, and sandlewoods, pepper, Saffron, Cloves, Maces, & cubebs and minced date, Pine nuts and raisons of Corinth, & a little vinegar, & seethe it on the fire; and seeth figs in Wine, & grind them & draw them through a strainer, & cast thereto, and let them boil all together; then take fair flour, Saffron, Sugar, & fair Water and make thereof cakes, and let them be thin enough" the cut them like lozenges, and cast them in fair oil, and fry them a little while; Then do take them out of the pan, and cast into a vessel with the syrup & so serve them forth, the lozenges and the syrup, in a dish; & let the Syrup be running, & not too stiff.

Glazed Lozenges or Bryndons: This was to be the showpiece of the luncheon and it delivered.  It was rich without being cloying and looked beautiful in the dish. This recipe needs to be read carefully because like many period recipes the steps are a little out of order.

I started with 8 oz of dried figs, black for reasons of cost. I simmered them in 1 and 1/4 cup of red wine until they were soft and nearly all the wine was cooked off. While they were still warm I ran them through my food mill pulp. (This process can be completed at some time before the dish is to be served, as the pulp can be refrigerated or even frozen.) This amount of fig pulp turned out to be too much for a single recipe, but more on that later.

Next a bottle of red wine was put in a clean pot. I added 6 ounces chopped dates,1/4 cup currents, 1/4 cup honey. 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 10 cubebs, ground pepper, pinch of saffron threads, 10 whole cloves and 1/4 cup of pine nuts. This mixture I brought up to a hard simmer.

Then added in the fig pulp and brought to a full boil.  At this point I understood the caution at the end of the recipe that the syrup be running and not too stiff. These quantities made a thick almost pudding consistency to the sauce.  It was good but too thick.

To fix the thickness and a few other perceived problems, I started another bottle of wine in the pot. I increased the currents to 1/2 cup and the honey to 1/2 cup as well. This time I used ground cloves and crushed the cubebs before adding them to avoid biting into a whole spice.  Then added the entire previous batch.  This got me to a consistency more in line with a sauce rather than pudding. 

You might notice one thing I left out. Sandalwoods.  This simply wasn't an item I had readily available. While I ruminated on various substitutions, I decided I just didn't know enough about the properties of sandalwood to make one.  A Culinary Reference Manual published by the Madrone Culinary Guild states sandalwood was used to color foods red which is not really something this dish needed when made with red wine.  Using a white wine for the sauce would require some red colorant. A light colored wine is certainly a choice the medieval cook could have made but it was not directly specified in the recipe.

Onto the lozenges: It is tempting to look at recipes for "cakes" calling for flour, sugar, and water as having left something out.  Interpretations by other cooks have postulated pie dough and puff pastry, but I have always found it best to follow the recipe exactly first. I did just as the recipe called for flour, sugar, some saffron threads and enough water to make a dough.  Kneading to make a smooth dough and develop some gluten seemed natural. I rolled it out thin, like pie dough and cut it into diamond shapes.  I fried them up with hot almond oil in a skillet turning them once, then drained them on a paper towel.  They were sweet but sometimes tough.  Some puffed up slightly but others did not.  As they cooled they became tougher but the puffed up ones remained tender.   While the sauce could be done up ahead, the lozenges clearly needed to be made fresh. But I wanted that puffiness as well. I solved that problem but rolling the dough out once, folding it over on itself and rolling it back to the same thinness. This made a sort of pocket in the inside of each lozenge that puffed them up every time.

• Redaction:

• 4 ounces dried figs

• 3/4 cup of red wine (You can use part of the wine to be used later, but may need to add some extra liquid if needed)

• simmer together until the figs are soft, most of the wine will be cooked into the figs, add more liquid (wine or even water) if needed. While still warm run the figs through a food mill or push through a sieve, set aside pulp.

• 1 bottle red wine- look for a fruity sweet wine but don't bother getting a pricey one as the other flavors in this dish are not subtle and will overwhelm any delicacy of the wine.

• 6 ounces pitted chopped dates. (cutting them with scissors can be a little easier than chopping)

• 1/2 cup currents

• 1/4 cup pine nuts

• 1/3 cup of honey (You may want to adjust this in relationship to the sweetness of the wine.)

• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 1/2 tsp ground mace

• 1/2 tsp ground cloves

• 1/2 tsp ground pepper

• 10 cubebs, crushed (if you don't have cubebs, use more pepper and a couple of juniper berries)

• Spices can be increased if you like it spicier.

            Combine all ingredients except fig pulp in a clean pot and bring to a hard simmer for a few minutes, add fig pulp and bring to a boil for about 5 minutes.  Sauce can be stored in fridge or frozen at this state and reheated when it is to be served.

Lozenges:

• 2 cups flour plus extra for kneading and rolling out

• 1/2 cup sugar

• pinch of saffron threads soaked in 1/4 cup hot water till water gets dark gold.*

• 3/4 cup cold water

• Oil for frying (almond oil is nice but pricey, a mild flavored vegetable oil works nearly as well but a certain fine delicacy of flavor is lost.)

Mix all ingredients, except oil, together and knead into a smooth ball, adding extra flour to keep it from sticking if needed. Let rest, covered, for 10 minutes. On floured surface, roll out thin (a little less than 1/4 inch thick) fold in half and roll out to original thickness. Cut into one inch (or slightly larger) strips and cut the other direction at an angle to make diamond shapes.  In hot oil, fry lozenges till lightly browned, turning once. Drain on paper towels.  Arrange the lozenges on top of sauce in a wide shallow serving dish. The yellow pastry on the rich plum colored sauce is very pretty.  The lozenges can also be used to simply dip into the sauce. 

This quantity is sufficient for a potluck dish or will serve at least 12-15.

 * Saffron is often thought of as only for color but it does impart flavor as well, if the cost of the saffron is an issue you can substitute food coloring or simply omit it, but try it with at least once.

Rycheza z Polska, AA, GdS, JdL, Dragon's Pearl, Wyvern
 

Copyright 2006 by L.J. Henson aka THL Rycheza z Polska, Posted dragonslaire.org  March 30, 2006 Posted Receipt Book of Rycheza z Polska March 17th, 2011

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