Squibs: The Historic Egg
Jan. 20th, 2016 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjBrainstorming for squibs may regularly involve browsing through my research folders and saying, "Hey I think I could throw something together easily on that." In this case, my eyes fell on a class handout I'd made for teaching basic techniques of medieval hearth cookery, centered around a variety of basic recipes involving eggs.
The topic of hearth cookery is another idea for the future -- it's a very different rhythm than using a stove, so there are some interesting philosophical aspects to it. But for now, this is just the recipes.
People who are new to medieval and Renaissance cookery (or who haven't thought about it much at all) often have peculiar notions of how "weird" the food must be. I enjoy coming across recipes that highlight the continuity of foodways in western culture, although I'd never want to give the mistaken impression that historic cuisine was "just like" modern food. This assortment of egg-based dishes falls more toward the "just like" end of the scale, and is somewhat misleading in terms of representing the whole. But they do go some way to debunking the notion that all medieval food is "weird and strange".
De Ovis
This first item is from a very early source, and one that frames a great deal of its information in terms of being a "health manual" rather than a culinary treatise. (The intertwining of the genres of "health manual" and "culinary treatise" continues well into the Renaissance.) This is from a treatise by the 6th century Byzantine physician Anthimus, written for Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths (and including a fair number of snarky digs at Gothic cuisine in relation to the much more enlightened tastes of the Byzantines). I didn't use this in my cookery class, but it includes one of the most perfect descriptions of how to soft-cook an egg in the entire history of culinary literature.
De ouis gallinarum quantum plus quis uoluerit praesumat, sorbilia tamen, et sale modicum mittendum, et si ieiunus quis accipiat quanta potuerit, ad uirtutem proficit corporis melius quam alter cibus et sanis hominibus et infirmis; ita tamen fiant, ut in tepida aqua mittantur uel maxime in frigida, et sic coquantur lento foco, aut in carbonibus paulatim calefiat illa aqua: sic penetrat intus. Nam si in feruenti aqua missa fuerint, albumen coagulat et mediolum illud tarde sentit; et deuenit intermperatum, et qui sic acceperit nocetur. Nam sicut superius dixi, si ita fuerint facta, bene conueniunt. Et tamen semper cocus agitet cum spatula. Tamen recentiora oua meliora sunt.
You can eat as many hens’ eggs as you want, but they should be runny, and taken with a little salt. If someone who is hungry eats as many eggs as he can, they are of more benefit to the body than any other food, both in the case of sick and healthy people. Prepare eggs in the following way: make sure that they are put in warm water, or preferably cold water, and then cook them over a low flame; let the water warm up gradually on the charcoal, for in this way the heat penetrates inside the eggs. If, however, they have been put in boiling water, the white congeals and the yolk is warmed only gradually, and so the eggs become unevenly cooked, and whoever eats them is harmed. But if they are prepared in the manner I described above, they are most agreeable. The cook should stir the water constantly with a spoon. The fresher the eggs, the better.
* * *
Anthimus doesn't offer any guidance for how long to cook the eggs to achieve the desired "runny" state. Folklore (which is to say, I read it somewhere and can't be bothered to try to track down a citation at the moment) suggests that for short, but fixed, cooking times, cooks sometimes used the recitation of specific prayers as a way of providing a consistent timing mechanism. I.e., cook for a certain number of Paters or Aves.
* * *
The rest of these recipes are all from a collection published as "Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks", being a combined edition of two major variants of a particular text tradition (with lots of notes on other versions with variants). In terms of the most commonly available English-language medieval culinary texts, this collection stands around the point when a knowledgeable cook with no special familiarity with Middle English can easily make sense of the recipes. (A century earlier, the collection of texts published as "The Forme of Cury", show a progression of variants of a basic text over time that start from "pretty much a foreign language" to "I think I can puzzle this out".)
Payn perdeux (French Toast)
Take fayre 3olkys of Eyroun, & trye hem fro the whyte, & draw hem thorw a straynoure, & take Salt and caste ther-to; than take fayre brede, & kytte it as trounde3 rounde; than take fayre Boter that is claryfiyd, or ellys fayre Freysshe grece, & putte it on a potte, & make it hote; than take & wete wyl thin trounde3 in the 3olkys, & putte hem in the panne, an so frye hem vppe; but ware of cleuyng to the panne; & whan it is fryid, ley hem on a dysshe, & ley Sugre y-nowe ther-on, & thanne serue it forht.
Or in modernized form:
[ETA: Obviously the original and modernized versions are slightly different texts. Not sure how I missed that. I've added the second version.]
Version 1: (This was what I had posted originally and is a variant of the above.) Take fair yolks of eggs and try [separate] them from the white and draw them through a strainer. And then take salt and cast thereto. And then take manchet bread or pain-de-main [i.e., fine white bread] and cut it in slices. And then take fair butter and clarify it, or else take fresh grease and put it in a fair pan and make it hot. And then wet thy bread well there in the yolks of eggs. And then lay it on the butter in the pan when the butter is all hot. And then when it is fried enough, take sugar enough and cast there-to when it is in the dish. And so serve it forth. [Note: "fair" in recipes like this should be understood as "clean" or in the case of ingredients, perhaps "purified". What this specification suggests about unspecified defaults is left as an exercise for the reader.]
Version 2: (This is a more faithful version of the original that is posted above.) Take fair yolks of eggs and try [separate] them from the white and draw them through a strainer. And then take salt and cast thereto. Then take fair bread and cut it in slices. Then take fair butter that is clarified, or else fair fresh grease and put it in a pot and make it hot. Then take and wet well your slices in the yolks and put them in the pan and so fry them up. But beware of cleaving [sticking] to the pan. And when it is fried, lay them on a dish and lay sugar enough there-on and then serve it forth.
• Separate your egg yolks and beat them.
• Add a small pinch of salt to the eggs.
• Slice good white bread.
• Heat a little clarified butter or grease in a frying pan.
• Dip a slice of bread in the egg yolk on both sides and fry it on both sides in the pan.
• Put it on your dish and sprinkle with sugar.
• Repeat until your egg yolk is all used up.
Eyron en poche (poached eggs)
Take Eyroun, breke hem, an sethe hem in hot Water; than take hem Vppe as hole as thou may; than take flowre, an melle with Mylke, & caste ther-to Sugre or Hony, & a lytel pouder Gyngere, an boyle alle y-fere, & coloure with Safroun; an ley thin Eyroun in dysshys, & caste the Sewe a-boue, & caste on pouder y-now. Blawnche pouder ys best.
Poached Eggs – Take eggs, break them, and seethe them in hot water. Then take them up as whole as thou may. Then take flour and mix with milk, and cast there-to sugar or honey and a little powdered ginger, and boil all together and color it with saffron. And lay thine eggs in dishes and cast the sauce over it, and cast on enough [spice] powder. Blanche powder is best.
• Bring a pot of water to a simmer and carefully break an egg into it.
• Cook the egg to your desired hardness.
• Make a thin paste with flour and milk (maybe 1 Tbsp flour to ½ cup milk, or as you will).
• Add sugar or honey to taste (maybe 1 Tbsp)
• Add ginger (maybe ¼ - ½ tsp) and a pinch of saffron.
• Heat the sauce over a gentle heat, stirring regularly, until it thickens.
• Remove the egg from the water with a slotted spoon and place it in your dish and pour a little of the sauce over it.
• Sprinkle with a sweet spice powder.
("Blanche powder" was a popular spice mixture involving what we would think of as "dessert spices" combined with sugar. So for quick-and-dirty, cinnamnon sugar can substitute.)
Hannony (omelette with onions)
Take an draw the Whyte & the yolkys of the Eyroun thorw a straynoure; than take Oynonys, & schreded hem smal; than take fayre Buter or grece, & vnnethe kyuer the panne ther-with, an frye the Oynonys, & than caste the Eyroun in the panne, & breke they Eyrouns & the Oynonys to-gegere; an than lat hem frye t-gederys a litelwhyle; than take hem vp, an serue forth alle to-broke to-gederys on a fayre dyssche.
Take and draw the white and the yolks of the eggs through a strainer. [The purpose of "draw through a strainer" seems to be equivalent here to a modern instruction to beat the eggs.] Then take onions and shred them small. Then take fair butter or grease and cover the pan there-with and fry the onions. And then cast the eggs in the pan and break the eggs and the onions together. And then let them fry together a little while. Then take them up and serve forth all to-broke together on a fair dish.
• Beat your eggs, the white and yolk together. (This is an opportunity to use up whites from other dishes.)
• Mince onion small.
• Saute the onion in butter or grease in a frying pan.
• When the onion is cooked, add the beaten eggs and stir together until the eggs are cooked.
Creme boiled (egg custard)
Take mylke, and boile hit; And then take yolkes of eyren, and try hem fro the white, and drawe hem thorgh a streynour, and cast hem into the mylke; and then sette hit on the fire, and hete hit hote, and lete not boyle; and stirre it wel til hit be som-what thik; And caste thereto sugar and salte; and kut then faire paynmain soppes, and caste the sopes there-en, And serue it in maner of potage.
Cream Boiled (egg custard) – Take milk and boil it. And then take yolks of eggs and try [separate] them from the white and draw them through a strainer. And cast them into the milk. And then set it on the fire and heat it hot and let [it] not boil. And stir it well til it be somewhat thick. And cast there-to sugar and salt. And cut then fair pain-de-main [fine white bread] sops. And cast the sops there-on. And serve it in the manner of pottage.
• Heat milk (better to aim for a simmer than a full boil). About half a cup or less per egg yolk should be right.
• Separate an egg yolk from the white and beat it.
• Add the yolk to the milk.
• Cook it over a low heat so that it doesn’t boil, stirring constantly, until it thickens.
• Add sugar to taste (maybe 1-2 Tbsp per ½ c milk or as you will) and a pinch of salt.
• Slice bread and put it in your bowl.
• Pour the custard over the bread.
The topic of hearth cookery is another idea for the future -- it's a very different rhythm than using a stove, so there are some interesting philosophical aspects to it. But for now, this is just the recipes.
People who are new to medieval and Renaissance cookery (or who haven't thought about it much at all) often have peculiar notions of how "weird" the food must be. I enjoy coming across recipes that highlight the continuity of foodways in western culture, although I'd never want to give the mistaken impression that historic cuisine was "just like" modern food. This assortment of egg-based dishes falls more toward the "just like" end of the scale, and is somewhat misleading in terms of representing the whole. But they do go some way to debunking the notion that all medieval food is "weird and strange".
De Ovis
This first item is from a very early source, and one that frames a great deal of its information in terms of being a "health manual" rather than a culinary treatise. (The intertwining of the genres of "health manual" and "culinary treatise" continues well into the Renaissance.) This is from a treatise by the 6th century Byzantine physician Anthimus, written for Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths (and including a fair number of snarky digs at Gothic cuisine in relation to the much more enlightened tastes of the Byzantines). I didn't use this in my cookery class, but it includes one of the most perfect descriptions of how to soft-cook an egg in the entire history of culinary literature.
De ouis gallinarum quantum plus quis uoluerit praesumat, sorbilia tamen, et sale modicum mittendum, et si ieiunus quis accipiat quanta potuerit, ad uirtutem proficit corporis melius quam alter cibus et sanis hominibus et infirmis; ita tamen fiant, ut in tepida aqua mittantur uel maxime in frigida, et sic coquantur lento foco, aut in carbonibus paulatim calefiat illa aqua: sic penetrat intus. Nam si in feruenti aqua missa fuerint, albumen coagulat et mediolum illud tarde sentit; et deuenit intermperatum, et qui sic acceperit nocetur. Nam sicut superius dixi, si ita fuerint facta, bene conueniunt. Et tamen semper cocus agitet cum spatula. Tamen recentiora oua meliora sunt.
You can eat as many hens’ eggs as you want, but they should be runny, and taken with a little salt. If someone who is hungry eats as many eggs as he can, they are of more benefit to the body than any other food, both in the case of sick and healthy people. Prepare eggs in the following way: make sure that they are put in warm water, or preferably cold water, and then cook them over a low flame; let the water warm up gradually on the charcoal, for in this way the heat penetrates inside the eggs. If, however, they have been put in boiling water, the white congeals and the yolk is warmed only gradually, and so the eggs become unevenly cooked, and whoever eats them is harmed. But if they are prepared in the manner I described above, they are most agreeable. The cook should stir the water constantly with a spoon. The fresher the eggs, the better.
* * *
Anthimus doesn't offer any guidance for how long to cook the eggs to achieve the desired "runny" state. Folklore (which is to say, I read it somewhere and can't be bothered to try to track down a citation at the moment) suggests that for short, but fixed, cooking times, cooks sometimes used the recitation of specific prayers as a way of providing a consistent timing mechanism. I.e., cook for a certain number of Paters or Aves.
* * *
The rest of these recipes are all from a collection published as "Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks", being a combined edition of two major variants of a particular text tradition (with lots of notes on other versions with variants). In terms of the most commonly available English-language medieval culinary texts, this collection stands around the point when a knowledgeable cook with no special familiarity with Middle English can easily make sense of the recipes. (A century earlier, the collection of texts published as "The Forme of Cury", show a progression of variants of a basic text over time that start from "pretty much a foreign language" to "I think I can puzzle this out".)
Payn perdeux (French Toast)
Take fayre 3olkys of Eyroun, & trye hem fro the whyte, & draw hem thorw a straynoure, & take Salt and caste ther-to; than take fayre brede, & kytte it as trounde3 rounde; than take fayre Boter that is claryfiyd, or ellys fayre Freysshe grece, & putte it on a potte, & make it hote; than take & wete wyl thin trounde3 in the 3olkys, & putte hem in the panne, an so frye hem vppe; but ware of cleuyng to the panne; & whan it is fryid, ley hem on a dysshe, & ley Sugre y-nowe ther-on, & thanne serue it forht.
Or in modernized form:
[ETA: Obviously the original and modernized versions are slightly different texts. Not sure how I missed that. I've added the second version.]
Version 1: (This was what I had posted originally and is a variant of the above.) Take fair yolks of eggs and try [separate] them from the white and draw them through a strainer. And then take salt and cast thereto. And then take manchet bread or pain-de-main [i.e., fine white bread] and cut it in slices. And then take fair butter and clarify it, or else take fresh grease and put it in a fair pan and make it hot. And then wet thy bread well there in the yolks of eggs. And then lay it on the butter in the pan when the butter is all hot. And then when it is fried enough, take sugar enough and cast there-to when it is in the dish. And so serve it forth. [Note: "fair" in recipes like this should be understood as "clean" or in the case of ingredients, perhaps "purified". What this specification suggests about unspecified defaults is left as an exercise for the reader.]
Version 2: (This is a more faithful version of the original that is posted above.) Take fair yolks of eggs and try [separate] them from the white and draw them through a strainer. And then take salt and cast thereto. Then take fair bread and cut it in slices. Then take fair butter that is clarified, or else fair fresh grease and put it in a pot and make it hot. Then take and wet well your slices in the yolks and put them in the pan and so fry them up. But beware of cleaving [sticking] to the pan. And when it is fried, lay them on a dish and lay sugar enough there-on and then serve it forth.
• Separate your egg yolks and beat them.
• Add a small pinch of salt to the eggs.
• Slice good white bread.
• Heat a little clarified butter or grease in a frying pan.
• Dip a slice of bread in the egg yolk on both sides and fry it on both sides in the pan.
• Put it on your dish and sprinkle with sugar.
• Repeat until your egg yolk is all used up.
Eyron en poche (poached eggs)
Take Eyroun, breke hem, an sethe hem in hot Water; than take hem Vppe as hole as thou may; than take flowre, an melle with Mylke, & caste ther-to Sugre or Hony, & a lytel pouder Gyngere, an boyle alle y-fere, & coloure with Safroun; an ley thin Eyroun in dysshys, & caste the Sewe a-boue, & caste on pouder y-now. Blawnche pouder ys best.
Poached Eggs – Take eggs, break them, and seethe them in hot water. Then take them up as whole as thou may. Then take flour and mix with milk, and cast there-to sugar or honey and a little powdered ginger, and boil all together and color it with saffron. And lay thine eggs in dishes and cast the sauce over it, and cast on enough [spice] powder. Blanche powder is best.
• Bring a pot of water to a simmer and carefully break an egg into it.
• Cook the egg to your desired hardness.
• Make a thin paste with flour and milk (maybe 1 Tbsp flour to ½ cup milk, or as you will).
• Add sugar or honey to taste (maybe 1 Tbsp)
• Add ginger (maybe ¼ - ½ tsp) and a pinch of saffron.
• Heat the sauce over a gentle heat, stirring regularly, until it thickens.
• Remove the egg from the water with a slotted spoon and place it in your dish and pour a little of the sauce over it.
• Sprinkle with a sweet spice powder.
("Blanche powder" was a popular spice mixture involving what we would think of as "dessert spices" combined with sugar. So for quick-and-dirty, cinnamnon sugar can substitute.)
Hannony (omelette with onions)
Take an draw the Whyte & the yolkys of the Eyroun thorw a straynoure; than take Oynonys, & schreded hem smal; than take fayre Buter or grece, & vnnethe kyuer the panne ther-with, an frye the Oynonys, & than caste the Eyroun in the panne, & breke they Eyrouns & the Oynonys to-gegere; an than lat hem frye t-gederys a litelwhyle; than take hem vp, an serue forth alle to-broke to-gederys on a fayre dyssche.
Take and draw the white and the yolks of the eggs through a strainer. [The purpose of "draw through a strainer" seems to be equivalent here to a modern instruction to beat the eggs.] Then take onions and shred them small. Then take fair butter or grease and cover the pan there-with and fry the onions. And then cast the eggs in the pan and break the eggs and the onions together. And then let them fry together a little while. Then take them up and serve forth all to-broke together on a fair dish.
• Beat your eggs, the white and yolk together. (This is an opportunity to use up whites from other dishes.)
• Mince onion small.
• Saute the onion in butter or grease in a frying pan.
• When the onion is cooked, add the beaten eggs and stir together until the eggs are cooked.
Creme boiled (egg custard)
Take mylke, and boile hit; And then take yolkes of eyren, and try hem fro the white, and drawe hem thorgh a streynour, and cast hem into the mylke; and then sette hit on the fire, and hete hit hote, and lete not boyle; and stirre it wel til hit be som-what thik; And caste thereto sugar and salte; and kut then faire paynmain soppes, and caste the sopes there-en, And serue it in maner of potage.
Cream Boiled (egg custard) – Take milk and boil it. And then take yolks of eggs and try [separate] them from the white and draw them through a strainer. And cast them into the milk. And then set it on the fire and heat it hot and let [it] not boil. And stir it well til it be somewhat thick. And cast there-to sugar and salt. And cut then fair pain-de-main [fine white bread] sops. And cast the sops there-on. And serve it in the manner of pottage.
• Heat milk (better to aim for a simmer than a full boil). About half a cup or less per egg yolk should be right.
• Separate an egg yolk from the white and beat it.
• Add the yolk to the milk.
• Cook it over a low heat so that it doesn’t boil, stirring constantly, until it thickens.
• Add sugar to taste (maybe 1-2 Tbsp per ½ c milk or as you will) and a pinch of salt.
• Slice bread and put it in your bowl.
• Pour the custard over the bread.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 03:51 pm (UTC)The earliest reference I found on eggs was Empanadas from Libre del Coch, but my soft-boiled recipe is in the Epulario in the Martino of Como corpus: “Put eggs in cold water, and make it boyle a Pater noster while, and then take them out.”
no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 04:30 pm (UTC)(eek livejournal thinks I'm posting both anonymously and with twitter at the same time and makes me do TWO of those horrible jigsaw captchas! EVERY TIME!)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 03:54 pm (UTC)Hearth cookery seems really interesting!
no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 09:16 pm (UTC)When fresh eggs which were placed in a pot with fresh water have boiled a little, take them out and eat them, for they are very good and very nourishing. (On Right Pleasure, Book IX, 1465)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-21 01:08 pm (UTC)Ah: found it. http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/veggie.html
no subject
Date: 2016-01-21 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-21 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-21 04:59 pm (UTC)