broths-msg - 10/30/09

Broths in period recipes. Substitutions.

NOTE: See also the files: aspic-msg, roast-meats-msg, roast-pork-msg, chicken-msg, sauces-msg, soup-msg, stews-bruets-msg, gravy-msg, duck-goose-msg.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:51:58 EDT
From: Seton1355 <Seton1355 at aol.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Substitutions

Varju at aol.com writes:
<< Is a vegetable stock a good substitution for chicken stock?  >>

Why not?  Vegetable stock renders the dish suitable for vegetarians. 
Vegetable stock is often much lower in fat than chicken stock and can 
indeed be made completely fat-free.  (With chicken stock, even when you 
remove the fat, it still has a little fat in it.)

The taste changes only slightly unless you use cabbage or broccoli (strong
flavors - I wouldn't.)

Respectfully,
Phillipa Seton

Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:20:37 -0400
From: mermayde at juno.com (Christine A Seelye-King)
Subject: Re: SC - Substitutions

Well, it depends on why you are substituting.  Vegetable stock does not
have the fat associated with chicken stock, and so seems a little
'thinner'.  If your aim is to get away from animal products, vegetable
stock is a good substitution, it is much better than just using water.
If you are making it from scratch, I would recommend roasting your
vegetables first, especially your carrots and onions (in the skins, cut
in half or large chunks) to release the sugars within and to add to the
color and aroma of your stock.   I usually let my onions get black on the
bottom before adding them to a stock pot for this very reason.   Be
careful of using pungent veggies such as turnips in the stock, for the
flavor these impart will be very noticable in the finished product.

Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 23:09:08 -0400
From: Mike Hobbs <llewmike at iwaynet.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Substitutions

When cooking for vegetarians,  I have used a good strong celery stock in
place of chicken.  Add just a touch of wine for body.  LLEW

Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 03:00:08 EDT
From: Varju <Varju at aol.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Substitutions

Thank you all!

Now I have an answer to pass on.  I know my mother's solution was to use what
we called "potato water" (water left after boiling potatoes) especially to
soups, because it added a bit of body.

Noemi

Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 11:02:35 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Substitutions

Noemi asks:
>Is a vegetable stock a good substitution for chicken stock?

As far as period recipes are concerned, you often get substitutions when
going from a meat-day version of a recipe to a fish-day or Lenten version.
Le Menagier de Paris recommends water that has been used to cook peas (I
would guess dried peas); almond milk (the white liquid you get by infusing
well-ground almonds in water) or water with a little oil added are
substituted for meat broth in some recipes; and I think I have seen both
onion broth and "half water half wine" used.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 21:55:58 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Pot Luck

Angie Malone wrote:
> At 09:39 AM 5/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
> >Usually, If I know I will have access to eletricity, I will take barley
> >and beef broth and mushrooms and onions and just let them cook all day on
> >low in a crock pot.  Not a period recipe but it is perioid and it
> >introduces people to barley........  I've done the same with rice in a
> >slow cooker, also.
> >
> >Mercedes
> >
> What a great idea.  I am going to try this, although I am going to use
> chicken broth or vegetable broth only because I don't like beef broth, well
> the kind I've ever had usually overpowers the rest of the taste so much
> that I just don't like it. But that's my prejudice.  ;- )
>
>         Angeline

You might try a white beef stock, made more or less like ordinary beef
stock, only without the caramelizing/roasting of the bones and veg.

So far as I know, though, this product is unavailable canned. The good
broth of beef referred to in period recipes is probably more likely to
be a white beef stock, or something in between the two. Chicken broth is
a decent substitute.

Adamantius

Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 19:27:55 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

Karen O wrote:
>         Here is a question:  I am planning next camp's kitchen menu,  and my
> butcher shop has its own smoked ham.  I usually get a boneless, coz there is
> only the two of us at home,  and I still make a nice soup with the  "ham
> scraps".  Besides being cheaper per pound,  I am wondering if the  Bone adds
> more to the flavor of the broth.

Yes, the bone adds flavor and gelatin to the broth, as does any skin
that may be on the beastie. I'm guessing the bone, etc., comprises maybe
30% of the total weight of the whole ham. So, you can do the math
something like this example: if a boneless ham is, say, $.99/lb, weighs
seven pounds, and costs $6.93, while a ham on the bone costs $.79/lb,
weighs 10 1/2 pounds, and costs $8.30. The total cost of the _meat_ on
that larger ham on the bone is still $8.30, but for around seven pounds
of meat, which means, for practical purposes, that the ham really costs
$1.19/lb. You then need to decide if the bone is worth it to you. It
does make a great stock for things like pea soup, etc., but I don't know
if I'd eat much of the marrow from a ham bone, it can be pretty
overpowering compared to, say, beef or veal marrow.

> I would use the ham meat for a meal
> (maybe two if I have enough for sandwiches) and then the scraps for a soup.
> I remember growing up my Mom loved to eat the marrow from a beef bone after
> she cooked it all day.

All logic aside, I usually look in my freezer and see if I have room for
such an addition. In a perfect world I'd make stock twice a week and
save all the bones that come into the kitchen, but in the real world I
end up throwing most of them away, unfortunately.

Adamantius

Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 22:36:30 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

kareno at lewistown.net writes:
<< Besides being cheaper per pound,  I am wondering if the  Bone adds
 more to the flavor of the broth.  >>

Possibly, Especaially if you brown it in the oven before putting it in the
soup kettle. Another real advantage of using bones in making soup broth is
the texture or mouth feel of the finished product. The bone adds body in the
form of gelatin to the broth which can make a diffrence between a 'thin'
stock and a more substantial stock.

Ras

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 21:14:24 -0600
From: "Brian L. Rygg or Laura Barbee-Rygg" <rygbee at montana.com>
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

> Ok, new cook question time. If I'm going to use a bone in a soup, can
> I just put it in whole? Or should I split it some way? Do I just add
> it to the soup? Or should I boil it in water or broth first and then
> add the other ingredients?
> --
> Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
> Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net

That depends.  Most bones will leave some scum on top when boiled
separately.  If you're making a splitpea, it won't matter.  If you want a
clear broth, boil and skim first.

Raoghnailt
Stan Wyrm, Artemisia
rygbee at montana.com

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 23:18:47 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

stefan at texas.net writes:
<< Ok, new cook question time. If I'm going to use a bone in a soup, can
 I just put it in whole? >>

I just add the bone to the pot before I add anything else and dump everything
else on top. The bone can be fished out  when the dish is done.

Ras

Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 23:28:36 EDT
From: LordVoldai at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

stefan at texas.net writes:
> Ok, new cook question time. If I'm going to use a bone in a soup, can
>  I just put it in whole? Or should I split it some way? Do I just add
>  it to the soup? Or should I boil it in water or broth first and then
>  add the other ingredients?

There are several preperations you can use depending on the result you want.
Roasting the bone(s) will give a deeper richer flavor (also makes the
difference between a brown and light beef stock).  Breaking the bone will let
the marrow out faster giving more gelatin (and also more impurities) to the
stock.  Get rid of the impurities by keeping the stock at a _low_ simmer and
skimming off the scum as it forms,  a high boil will incorporate the
impurities into the stock.  these impurities are merely non soluable proteins
and give the stock a cloudy look, nothing harmful.  The length of boiling
time depends on the type of bone, fish bones give up their flavor faster than
poultry which is faster than beef bones.   A fish stock should take around
30-40 min while a beef stock simmers for around 4+ hours.

voldai

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 00:04:28 -0500
From: "Chris and Anne House" <house at texoma.net>
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

>stefan at texas.net writes:
>> Ok, new cook question time. If I'm going to use a bone in a soup, can
>>  I just put it in whole? Or should I split it some way? Do I just add
>>  it to the soup? Or should I boil it in water or broth first and then
>>  add the other ingredients?
>there are several preperations you can use depending on the result you want.
>roasting the bone(s) will give a deeper richer flavor (also makes the
>difference between a brown and light beef stock).  breaking the bone will let
>the marrow out faster giving more gelatin (and also more impurities) to the
>stock.  get rid of the impurities by keeping the stock at a _low_ simmer and
>skimming off teh scum as it forms,  a hight boil will incorporate the
>impurities into the stock.  these impurities are merely non soluable proteins
>and give the stock a cloudy look, nothing harmful.  the length of boiling
>time depends onteh type of bone, fish bones give up their flavor faster than
>poultrywhich is faster than beef bones.   a fish stock should take around
>30-40 min while a beef stock simmers for around 4+ hours.

If you want a truly clear - read uncloudy - broth for some reason, try a
raft. Egg whites mixed with *extremely* lean meat and a mirepoix gently -
gently now - poured onto the top of a barely simmering broth after you have
discarded all else you wish to. The "raft" will rise and take the impurities
with it. Very, very carefully use a ladle to press down onto the raft near
the edge and siphon off the broth. Very clear, very nice, especially when
made with a beef shank.

Kiriandra

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 06:55:23 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

LordVoldai at aol.com wrote:
> Kiriandra gives the preperation for a consumeé, does anyone know if this is
> a period preperation?
>
> voldai?

I don't think so. Consomme is probably 18th century, but I have no hard
data on it. There are various stock-related preparations for the sick in
quite a few period sources, but they seem to be going primarily for a
concentrated richness more than clarity. Generally they involve cooking
the stuff in a sealed pot, sometimes with no added liquid, relying on
the liquid from the meat itself.

Today such dishes get less stuff (i.e. fewer herbs, ground gems, etc. 
; )  ) added to them, at least in the European tradition, and are called
meat teas in English.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 06:44:20 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

LordVoldai at aol.com wrote:
> stefan at texas.net writes:
> > Ok, new cook question time. If I'm going to use a bone in a soup, can
> >  I just put it in whole? Or should I split it some way? Do I just add
> >  it to the soup? Or should I boil it in water or broth first and then
> >  add the other ingredients?
> there are several preperations you can use depending on the result you want.
> roasting the bone(s) will give a deeper richer flavor (also makes the
> difference between a brown and light beef stock).  breaking the bone will let
> the marrow out faster giving more gelatin (and also more impurities) to the
> stock.  get rid of the impurities by keeping the stock at a _low_ simmer and
> skimming off teh scum as it forms,  a hight boil will incorporate the
> impurities into the stock.  these impurities are merely non soluable proteins
> and give the stock a cloudy look, nothing harmful.  the length of boiling
> time depends onteh type of bone, fish bones give up their flavor faster than
> poultrywhich is faster than beef bones.   a fish stock should take around
> 30-40 min while a beef stock simmers for around 4+ hours.

This is all excellent advice, I'd say. Just a couple
of...ahemhem...clarifications: yes, for a pea or bean  soup (a standard
use for ham stock) the clarity doesn't matter all that much to most
people, and many people do simply add the bone in while cooking the
soup, without a huge difference in product quality. This is probably
because the ham bone has been smoked; to some extent it has been
"cooked", and some of its collagens have been converted into gelatin
already. Also, the biggest carrier of that smoky ham flavor is the fat
that gets into the soup. The great thing is that while fat, in the case
of a ham bone, does bring a great amount of the flavor into the coup, it
can still be skimmed off before serving without losing the flavor. It's
basically just a transport medium.

In general, classic stockmaking procedure involves, at least, bringing
the bones and water to a boil for just a few seconds, then lowering the
heat to a low simmer, skimming, and letting it cook slowly. If you're
really retentive you can also blanch the bones by placing them in cold
water, bringing them to a boil, then rinsing them off before proceeding.
I never do this myself, and find that it makes no real difference as
long as you skim well.

A comment on whether to chop up the bones (although many at home would
find this difficult anyway): probably the best argument in favor of it,
given the long cooking times for most types of stock, is that it is
easier to figure out how much water to use if the bones aren't sticking
out of the top of the pot. In theory the rule is a quart of water to a
pound of bones and/or meat, but if youi have something like a long leg
bone, the temptation can be strong to be sure to add enough water to
cover the bones, which can cause difficulties (like a really weak stock).

With regard to cooking times, I was taught (and have experimented
subsequently) that a good fish fumet gets around 40 minutes, a poultry
stock ~4 hours, a beef or veal stock ~6-8 hours. The 8-hour cooking time
is probably best for a really brown beef stock; while a white beef stock
(i.e. unroasted, Stefan ;  )     ) can probably get by on less, like
maybe 4, probably better with six, hours.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:07:12 -0400
From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

Adamantius, as usual, covered all the bases, but just as a suggestion, if
you have a whole leg bone and you want it cut up, either to fit into the pot
or to release the marrow more easily, a basic hacksaw, a tool most people
have around the house, will do the job. If you don't have one, they, and
their blades, are cheaper than say, a meat saw.

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 08:21:40 -0500
From: upsxdls at Okstate.edu
Subject: Re: SC - bone soup

I use a hammer to crack ham bones.  The ham has normally been cooked already and
most of the meat removed.  I throw the whole bone in with the beans.

If I'm making beef stock, I talk to my friendly butcher and ask for "bare
rendering bones" and "please cut them into 2 or 3 inch pieces."  For a dark
stock, I bake in the oven (350 deg) until they turn brown.  For a light stock,
put in your stockpot and cover with water.  I add onion, celery and carrots.
Then, bring to a simmer and cook on low overnight.  Add more water to keep bones
barely covered.  Then I strain the bones and toss.

If I'm using chicken hindquarters, I cut the backs off and use them to make
chicken stock the same way.  Skim the foam off as it forms.  Any of these stocks
can be preserved by freezing or canning.  Liandnan

Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 22:00:45 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: OT/OOP beef tea (was Re: SC - bone soup)

kat wrote:
> Adamantius writes:
> > Today such dishes get less stuff (i.e. fewer herbs, ground gems, etc. ; )  )
> > added to them, at least in the European tradition, and are called
> > meat teas in English.
>
> So THAT'S what beef tea is!  I suspected from the description that it was 
> some sort of bouillon-type preparation...  now I know.
>
> Thank you!!!
>         - kat, oft-puzzled avid reader

Yep. Although beef tea is often made either from nasty chemical
bouillion stuff today, or some kinda mysterious flavored yeast extract
in the UK, with names like Oxo and Bisto. Real beef tea (including
places outside of Texas!) is made by scraping a piece of lean steak with
the edge of a serrated knife, to get an untrafine pulp, but to leave
behind an astonishing network of elastin and collagen fibers. Looks like
something out of "The Invisible Man". In its most basic form, the beef
tea is made by cooking the pulp, which will be pure red with virtually
no fat, or anything else, in it, either with just a bit of added water,
or no additional liquid at all, in a double boiler for a couple of
hours, as I recall. The resulting liquid is drained off the meat solids,
which now resemble an inedible hamburger made of fine sawdust, skimmed
of any fat (there generally isn't much), and then for the real party
animals a tiny bit of salt is added.

The end result is more than a bit like beef consomme, actually, but
without the complex flavor of the added aromatics and tomato, which,
obviously, aren't there. It's also lighter in body than stock, lacking
the various gelatins that would be present in a stock, which is probably
why it is deemed a good food for invalids.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 20:25:31 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: SC - Period Veggie Broth (was: It's Harvest Time)

Brangwayna wrote:
>> ... The recipe just specifies "good broth"; I
>>used vegetable broth because I wanted it to be a vegetarian dish. ...

and Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon replied:
>If you'd like to try period-style vegetarian cooking, consider substituting
>almond milk (and perhaps a little olive oil) for the broth. There are some
>recipes that seem to indicate that this was a fairly usual practice, such as
>"appulmose," no. II 35 in _Curye_on_Inglysch_. But I don't recall ever
>seeing a period reference to vegetable "broth."

Le Menagier de Paris (late 14th c.), in his discussion of potages,
sometimes uses almond milk instead of meat broth on a fish day, but
sometimes uses water from boiling onions or from boiling peas.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:11:03 +0100
From: Christina Nevin <cnevin at caci.co.uk>
Subject: SC - Period Veggie Broth

Brangwayna wrote:
>> ... The recipe just specifies "good broth"; I
>>used vegetable broth because I wanted it to be a vegetarian dish.
...
and Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon replied:
>If you'd like to try period-style vegetarian cooking, consider substituting
>almond milk (and perhaps a little olive oil) for the broth. There are some
>recipes that seem to indicate that this was a fairly usual practice, such as
>"appulmose," no. II 35 in _Curye_on_Inglysch_. But I don't recall ever
>seeing a period reference to vegetable "broth." 

Elizabeth/Betty Cook wrote:
>Le Menagier de Paris (late 14th c.), in his discussion of potages,
>sometimes uses almond milk instead of meat broth on a fish day, but
>sometimes uses water from boiling onions or from boiling peas.

The Perre recipe from Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks (Cariadoc's
Miscellany) also reads:

Take grene pesyn, and boile hem in a potte; And whan they ben y-broke, drawe
the broth a good quantite thorgh a streynour into a potte, And sitte hit on
the fire;

which can be interpreted to mean using the pea water rather than mushed
peas.

Lucretzia
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia   |  mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald | London, UK

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 21:46:36 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

kerric at pobox.alaska.net writes:
<< How was broth made? And from what? >>

I usually save up the bones and skin and stuff from various meats prepared
throughout the year. Freeze them and cart the packages off to the site. The
first thing I do is put a big kettle on the stove dump all the pieces and
bits into it and fill it with water. I bring it to a boil and reduce to a
bubbling. I either add to or take away from during the feast preparation
depending on what the recipe calls for and what stage the preparation is at.

Ras

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 21:38:47 -0600
From: "Karen O" <kareno at lewistown.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

>kerric at pobox.alaska.net writes:
><< How was broth made? And from what? >>

    The "Good Book"  (Joy of Cooking) says that broth "unlike stocks, which
are made primarily from bones, broths are made from meat (except veggie
broth) and they cook for shorter periods of time.  The resulting liquid has
a fresher, more definable flavor but less body than a stock.  For this
reason, broths are ideal for soups."

ABOUT STOCKS: the characteristics of any good stock are flavor, body and
clarity.  Of the three, flavor is paramount, and the way to get it is by
using a high porportion of ingredients to water.  The most flavorful stocks
are made with only enough water to cover the bones, shells, or veggies.
    Instead of calling for tender, young ingredients, stocks are best made
with meat from older animals and mature veggies, cooked slowly for a long
time to extract every vestige of flavor.

    Because I was starting to wonder about "good broth" myself, and then
what the diff was between broth and stock.

    Caointiarn

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 10:55:34 -0400
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

I believe the original question was, "What did medieval cooks mean by
'good broth'?"  They seem to have used the term for any kind of flavored
liquid made by cooking meat, poultry or fish in water.  I have not seen
the word "stock" used in any of the medieval cookbooks.  Broth seems
to be the term used to describe the whole spectrum of flesh-based
liquids.

In the Spanish sources that I know best, "good broth" is usually chicken
or mutton.  Some recipes specify that the broth should be fatty or lean,
well-salted or bland, according to the nature of the dish, but not how
strong it is, nor how it is made.  The only recipes that specify a
concentrated broth are those for "solsido", which is a specialty dish for
invalids, made by slowly cooking a hacked-up chicken in little or no
water.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 12:22:59 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:
> I believe the original question was, "What did medieval cooks mean by
> 'good broth'?"  They seem to have used the term for any kind of flavored
> liquid made by cooking meat, poultry or fish in water.  I have not seen
> the word "stock" used in any of the medieval cookbooks.  Broth seems
> to be the term used to describe the whole spectrum of flesh-based
> liquids.
>
> In the Spanish sources that I know best, "good broth" is usually chicken
> or mutton.  Some recipes specify that the broth should be fatty or lean,
> well-salted or bland, according to the nature of the dish, but not how
> strong it is, nor how it is made.  The only recipes that specify a
> concentrated broth are those for "solsido", which is a specialty dish for
> invalids, made by slowly cooking a hacked-up chicken in little or no
> water.

True. It'd probably be worth looking at some sources in their original
language. Some French recipes roughly equivalent to identifiable English
counterparts seem to use a word along the lines of bouillion, I think,
rather than anything like fond, which is the modern French term for what
we know as stock.

I'd say, offhand, that when the source meat is identified at all, in
English sources, the meat for the broth tends to be either beef (more
likely something along the lines of a white beef stock, not the brown
stuff) or capons. Mutton somewhat less often. Probably you boil either
meat, usually in water, sometimes spiked with vinegar and/or wine, use
some, or half, of your bouillion, with the meat, for your sauced meat
dish, then reserve the rest of the bouiilion. Then there's the
possibility of that Eternal Stockpot thang, in which case your Good
Broth might be a sort of mutant composite stuff. I'm inclined to think,
though, that the concept of boiling everything in one pot is a little
less common than some believe.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 17:29:59 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

oftraquair at hotmail.com writes:
<< In specifying good broth, is the writer warning that being
 too cheap to toss out the contents of the ever present and economical stock
 pot will only result in wasting even more food?
  >>

Possibly. My take on it when previewing it's occurrence in period recipes is
that 'the best' was what was intended. Therefor 'gode brothe' would be
translated as 'the best broth.' In actual experience, I have found that the
best broth in the particular recipes that mention it specifically seems to
indicate full flavored broth as opposed to more diluted broth. Of course, my
mileage is just as much conjecture as yours. ;-)

Ras

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 20:28:42 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

macdairi at hotmail.com writes:
<< Sounds like a good premise to me, but let's ask the redactor
 what his interpretation of it was...

 Ras? >>

Hard one to call. When I do a feast, I usually put a large pot of water on
the back furthest burner and fill it about half way with water. Since I
normally start feast preparation on Friday evening and do no preprep there is
never a lack of things to throw in the kettle. However, I generally restrict
the contents to meat scraps, bones, and skin from the meats that I use. As
each meat is processed, all these things are thrown in the kettle which is
maintained at a simmer until the feast is served or until the contents are
gone. When a recipe calls for good broth or broth I just dip into the kettle
and pour the contents through a strainer to the amount I need.

Those things that require long cooking naturally get a weaker broth because
it is removed from the pot earlier in the day Saturday. Those things that
require a stronger broth such as pies, vegetables and sauces which take less
cooking time and need a broth that is stronger because they have little time
to produce their own get broth from the kettle later in the day after it has
had a chance to concentrate.

This has always worked well for me and I never need to rely on bouillon cubes
or commercially canned broth.

Ras

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 23:06:10 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

ChannonM at aol.com writes:
<< Would just boiling a whole lotta veggies be
 reasonable? Seems to me I would need to do some sauteing first to build up
 some flavor. What are others ideas?
  >>

A vegetable broth could be accomplished in much the same way as the meat
broth except throwing in peelings, as well as reinforcing it with perhaps a
pound of carrots a couple of onions and maybe a stalk or 2 of celery.
Personally, I am reticent to take such an approach because a varied menu with
a good selection usually covers just about anything.

Ras

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 00:42:44 -0500
From: Christine A Seelye-King <mermayde at juno.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

>Would just boiling a whole lotta veges  be reasonable? Seems to me I
>would need to do some sauteing first to build up some flavour. What are
>others ideas?
>
> Hauviette

Roast your vegetables first, just as you would to start a dark brown
sauce.  Place your vegetables, including onions with the skins on,
carrots with peels, celery, etc. in a roasting pan and place in a hot
oven until they start to carmelize to the pan.  Take it out, deglaze the
pan with water, and pour the whole mess into a stock pot to boil.  You
can also take whole onions, cut them in half - with the skins on, and put
them cut-side down on a hot, dry  grill top or frying pan to turn black.
This will add a great deal of color and flavor to your stock, which will
make a big difference in an all-veggie stock.  Use a bouquet garnish of
fresh or dried herbs, fresh bay leaf adds a whole dimension to the stock
all on its own.

Christianna
ok, my French restaurant roots are showing...

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 02:07:30 -0500
From: "Richard Kappler II" <rkappler at home.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

>What are your suggestions about dealing with vegetarians.
>I have made my own meat broth for eons, but haven’t
>worked much with vege type. Would just boiling a whole lotta veges be
>reasonable? Seems to me I would need to do some sauteing first to build up
>some flavour. What are others ideas?
>
>Hauviette

Personally, with vegetables I briefly sear, then roast for about ten minutes
at 375, then into the stock pot they go.  With large veggies such as taters,
turnips etc, I'll roast for 1/2 hour.  Before roasting, I drizzle a little
olive oil over the top, salt and pepper, then into the oven they go.  After
simmering for two hours or so, I get a good rich stock.  I have found the
key to be using barely enough water to cover, though YMMV.

regards, Wulfrith

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 07:36:44 EST
From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

ChannonM at aol.com writes:
<< What are your suggestions about dealing with vegetarians. >>

My solution to this has been to ask the vegetarian members of our shire to
assist me by providing me with veggie broth.  They routinely keep vegetable
peelings in the fridge or freezer until they have enough to do a good batch
of broth for their own use.  I simply tell them how much I think I will need,
and ask them to note what vegetable bits are in it for the ingredients list.
When they have not been able to do this, I've resorted to vegetarian
vegetable bouillon or canned veggie broth (although those usually include
tomato among the ingredients).

Since veggies often don't get cut or prepared until closer to the actual
feast time, depending on what is being done with them, it might be little
more difficult to implement Ras' ever-simmering stockpot for veggie broth -
but if you kept your own household peelings and started it with them, it
might work.

Although at least one person on this list doesn't agree with me, I think, if
the recipe does not specify that it has to be meat broth, and since we know
that vegetables were boiled for various dishes, that it might be reasonable
to use vegetable broth for dishes to be served during Lent.  Until I get a
chance to study any surviving Lenten menus, and see if all of the dishes in
them use almond milk, or if there are others specifying "good broth", I think
using vegetable or possibly fish broth to make vegetarian dishes is logical.

Brangwayna Morgan

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 10:22:25 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

mermayde at juno.com writes:
<< Use a bouquet garni of
 fresh or dried herbs, fresh bay leaf adds a whole dimension to the stock
 all on its own.

 Christianna >>

Is there any evidence that such a procedure was used in the MAs? While I
would tend to agree that the above procedure would produce a nice 'stock,' i
am leery about applying it to medieval cookery.

The foremost problem that I see is the introduction of flavors (e.g., bay
laurel and others herbs) not mentioned in the original recipe. The second is
that using such a technique that you describe quickly transposes a simple
broth into a 'stock' which is a completely different thing. The third is that
there are several techniques and suggestions in medieval manuscripts which
indicate the procedure for replacing broth with other liquids none of which
include vegetable broth.

The description I gave previously would work and be less obtrusive in the
area of adding undocumented flavors but I would personally never use it for
fear of transforming a perfectly acceptable period recipe into something
unnecessarily period-like.

The best way would be to simply follow and use period recipes that fit the
criteria. At the Weekend of Wisdom, I had only one person contact me in
advance concerning an allergy to almonds. Since only one dish contained
almonds, I did nothing to change the menu or recipes. At the feast site,
there were several people who came to me with this 'food problem' or that
'food problem.' Again I listened to what they were saying and pointed out the
ingredients list posted outside the kitchen and at the troll. I did not
change the menu or the recipes and the feasters were able to go away with the
satisfaction of knowing that the feast was an event happening and NOT a
restaurant offering. No one left the hall hungry and complaints of too much
food were heard by the end of service. The only real complaint with possible
merit was that there was not enough bread. I thought 3 loaves per table was
sufficient and still do given the large number of dishes served.

I did use water to make the rice after the milk was scorched because I had
little choice and it was a period substitute.

Ras

Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 11:14:24 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Good Broth

Bronwynmgn at aol.com writes:
<< that it might be reasonable to use vegetable broth for dishes to be 
served during Lent.   >>

The most common period reference to vegetable broth used as an ingredient
that I could find is pea broth. I found no references to other vegetable
broth being used as substitutes for meat broth.  They may or may not exist
but given the short time I had to look for them, I found none.

Ras

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 15:31:35 -0500
From: Jeff Gedney <JGedney at dictaphone.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Need venison advice!

>>> Bernadette Crumb <kerelsen at ptd.net> 12/15 2:22 PM >>>
>What I want to know is if venison bones make a good base for
>broth?  Everyone around here just throws theirs away and tells me
>that leaving the bone in the meat makes it taste gamey, but I
>hate to waste these bits if they can really be used. 

I am not sure, but I think that a good broth can be made if you brown the bones first, and then use beer instead of water....

Brandu

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 15:45:46 EST
From: Aldyth at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Need venison advice!

I have never had good luck with the taste of the broth when I used venison
bones, so by and large I toss them after I butcher.  I do roast the ribs
though, if I have not stripped them down for jerky.  Be careful giving the
bones to your dogs, though.  Venision is higher in protein then they may be
used to, and it can have some nasty consequences to clean up, so to speak.
Make sure you remove all visible fat before you package and freeze, or you
can get the same gamey taste.

Aldyth

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:38:09 -0500
From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Need venison advice!

Definitely save those bones and use them for broth! The gamy taste which so
many people object to actually comes from the fat, and while I like it, it
is definitely an acquired taste. If you're not used to it, don't make a
stock without roasting the bones first- roasting helps render more of the
fat away, so the flavor in that direction isn't as strong, and you'll get
more of the browned flavor.

<snip of other venison info - see venison-msg>

Phlip
Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 08:08:04 EST
From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Need venison advice!

Take all the bones and leavings and put them in a covered roasting pan with
enough apple cider & scotch to cover.  Roast them at 250 degrees for a long,
long time.  Eventually, you'll end up with some really great juice.  You can
then use this juice to marinade beef.  We did this at a feast once, and we
fooled everyone.  Even the seasoned hunters/venison gourmets thought they
were eating roasted venison, when in actuality it was just roast beef, soaked
in venison juice.  Super stuff.

Wolfmother

Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 07:56:35 -0500
From: grizly at mindspring.com
Subject: Re: Re: SC - chicken broth questions

Chris.Adler at westgroup.com writes:
>Skin? Into the broth. Always into the broth.
>And don't forget to add the feet.

Here's a boot to the head . . . we can buy chicken feet here in Atlanta, and the latest price I found is $2.29 per lb. That's more than their skinless, boneless thighs!  The injustice of it all :o)
I hope it is seasonal and that feet season brings down the price.  Feet stock is an incredible base for rice dishes.

niccolo difrancesco

Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:51:15 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: SC - A milestone, and a comment on cooking without meat

I'm feeling somewhat pleased with myself.  I have just finished the rough 
draft of de Nola's chapter on meat dishes -- 179 recipes!! -- and have 
begun the Lenten section.  As there are only 64 Lenten recipes,  many 
of them short, I have high hopes of finishing the translation sometime 
before the end of the current geological epoch.  :-)

The introduction to the next chapter contains an interesting remark 
about adapting meat dishes for Lenten cooking.  De Nola says:

"Although the victuals that you can make for meat days are infinite, 
many of them can be made in Lent, because in the chapters on those 
victuals where I say to dissolve them with meat broth, those sauces or 
pottages can be dissolved with salt and oil and water, but first you have 
to give it a boil.  And in this manner it is as good as meat broth if it is 
well tempered with salt and if the oil is very fine, and in this manner, 
many victuals which are put forth for meat days can be made in Lent."

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 00:49:04 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Subject: SC - daryoles

> I am playing with a recipe that calls for fresh broth...it is a kind of
> cream pie with strawberries.  Any ideas as to what kind of broth?
>
> gwyneth  

In the Anglo-Norman recipe corpus, I'd guess the most common broths
specified would be "fresh broth of beef" or "of capons". In general,
these would be likely to be white bouillions/stocks made as a by-product
of boiling meats, not brown stocks made from roasted bones. You'd
probably want to use less water per pound of meat than the usual quart
per pound generally called for in modern stock recipes, on the
assumption you want to eat the meat you're boiling, rather than cooking
the meat to bone-dry rags and throwing it away. You might try perhaps
two quarts of water for a four-pound baking chicken (egad, a
substitution!!! this is somewhere between a roaster and a fowl) or piece
of beef. Start with cold water and simmer a chicken, depending on type,
between 30 and 90 minutes, or a piece of pot-roast type beef, such as
bottom round, chuck or brisket, for perhaps 2 hours. Cool your meat in
the broth, off the heat, for an hour or so, drain, skim and strain the
broth, or chill it overnight and lift off the fat that way.

If you find yourself using canned stock, your best bet would be one of
the low-sodium chicken stocks. Brown beef stock would probably be too
strongly flavored for a dariole or doucet, and would be a less likely
candidate, I think, for an accurately prepared dish.

Adamantius 

Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 22:39:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Subject: SC - daryoles

I think that this is a perfect example of how the
medieval cook looked at fruit and sweet dishes as
compared to how we now look at fruit and sweet dishes.

In today's world, we think of fruit as a salad
ingredient or a dessert ingredient or on occasion as a
sauce for a main course.

However, to the medieval cook a sweet strawberry pie
was more likely to be looked on as a side dish than a
dessert, which is why they used a meat broth or stock
in such a dish.  A modern cook would never think of
putting meat broth in a strawberry pie because we
would never consider a sweet pie as a side dish.

Adamantius please forgive my addendum.  I know you and
a hundred others on the list know this, but I think
there are some novice cooks on this list who might not
know this.

Huette

Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:10:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: SC - Free Bones for stock (was Alosed Beef)

- --- Jeff Gedney <JGedney at dictaphone.com> wrote:
> The fat I get free at the supermarket, they 
> just throw it away otherwise so they are happy to give it to me.
> I trim out the connective tissue and process everything lightly in the 
> cuisinart.

Just a quick note along these lines, in case some of
you out there were not aware of this...

When you buy "boneless" meat at the supermarket, or
have the butcher de-bone the meat for you, you are
still paying for the bones.  In most areas, if you ask
the butcher to give you the bones, as well, they will.
 I used to do this all the time when I worked in a
restaurant where we made our own stock.  Most of the
time they were rib bones, chine bones or the like, and
not the BEST bones for stock, but they certainly
worked well enough FOR FREE.  Of course, the best
bones are those of young veal, particularly the
knuckle, but how often do you buy boneless veal
knuckle these days?

Balthazar of Blackmoor

Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 09:14:01 -0600 (CST)
From: phlip at morganco.net
Subject: Re: SC - Meat jellies

Brigid asked:
> 2. Would any of the experienced cooks like to share their favorite methods of
> *completely* defatting a broth?  My gravy separator did a decent job, but
> missed a little of the fat.

When I make a broth or a stock, I usually make it the day before and
chill it. Next day, you can just lift out the fat solids, or if you
want them completely gone, strain them through a sieve or mesh
strainer.

One thing you might want to keep in mind, though- you may want a
little fat in your broth- it adds a bit of flavor. I know when I make
my shrimp stock, I use the shrimp heads (as well as the shells)
because the heads have a fair amount of fat in them, and strain hot
(collander, fine metal strainer, then coffee filter) so that I don't
lose the tasty shrimp fat.

Phlip

Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2000 10:29:21 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Meat jellies

harper at idt.net wrote:
> 2. Would any of the experienced cooks like to share their favorite methods of
> *completely* defatting a broth?  My gravy separator did a decent job, but
> missed a little of the fat.

Ah, you got the little blob that likes to hole up in the spout of the
gravy separator, didn't you ;  )  ?

Once you've skimmed it enough to reach the
tiny-little-dots-of-fat-across-the-surface stage, you can use strips of
clean brown paper, like butcher's paper, or even clean paper towels,
dragging them by one end across the surface, quickly and repeatedly.
Change strips as needed. They'll absorb miniscule amounts of whatever
liquid they touch first, including the fat droplets. This is a pretty
standard trick taught in cooking schools.

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 10:57:53 EST
From: Seton1355 at aol.com
Subject: SC - de-fatting

When I want to de-fat chicken soup, I stick it in the freezer for about an 
hour or two.  You want it to freeze, but not solidly.  Then when you take the 
soup out, just lift off the layer of fat that will have frozen.

Phillipa
<< 
 2. Would any of the experienced cooks like to share their favorite methods 
of *completely* defatting a broth?  My gravy separator did a decent job, but 
 missed a little of the fat.
 
 Brighid >>

Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 11:30:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Nisha Martin <nishamartin at yahoo.com>
Subject: SC - easy way to defat stock...

>2. Would any of the experienced cooks like to sharetheir favorite 
> of *completely* defatting a broth?  My gravy separator did a decent job, 
> but missed a little of the fat.

I usually stick my stock (pot and all) into the
refrigerator, and leave it over nite. In the morning
all of the fat is in a very obvious layer on the top.
I've also heard of people pouring cooled stock over a
lined colander filled with ice. I've never done that
particular one, but I've heard it works. 

Nisha

Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 11:46:27 -0600
From: "Michael Gunter" <countgunthar at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Soup figuring?

>I guess we go about this quite differently.  When I make soup, I usually do 
>not roast the chickens, but boil them to create both the stock and the cooked
>chicken.

Either way is acceptable, depending on the type of stock you
want. Roasting the chicken first creates a darker, richer
stock which is great for some dishes but is too strong for others.
Chicken pies, hearty chicken stews, things with full-flavor are
great for a roasted chicken stock. But if you want something lighter
or more delicate then the boiled chicken stock is needed. But you
can never really go wrong with the boiled stock.

>Kiri

Gunthar

Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 17:37:50 
From: "Vincent Cuenca" <bootkiller at hotmail.com>
Subject: SC - Re:pig parts

>I read "somewhere" pork makes too sweet a stock, and isn't good for using 
>with any other type meat.

Funny, I haven't found this to be true.  Of course, I have a tendency to mix 
bones, usually pork and chicken, and add leek greens and a few slices of 
ginger.  Also I tend not to use the stock for soup, but rather for sauces 
and gravies and so forth.

Vicente

Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 09:45:05 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re:  Ingredients list SOUP BASES

If you can manage a trip to a good food/restaurant wholesaler,
 then you ought to be able to obtain professional soup bases.
 You can mail order them also from a number of places,
 including PENZYS SPICES in Wisconsin. WWW.PENZYS.COM or
 1-800-741-7787. They aren't offering a vegetarian base
at the moment, but they do offer ham, pork, seafood, beef,
chicken and turkey. Try those for a comparison to your little
grocery store cubes.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 23:56:32 -0600
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Gorgeous Muiredach <muiredach at bmee.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Duck bones, and other parts

>Definitely roast them. How do I know this? Well, I didn't, until about a
>year ago I wanted to make a beef barley soup, and managed to produce the
>most insipid, pallid, boring excuse for a beef stock... So then I
>decided that maybe I should learn how.

AHhh, but for soup, one wouldn't roast the bones and would end up with what
is called "White stock" or fond blanc.  Typical reason for insipid fond
blanc is too much water, not enough aromatic elements...

Brown stocks, or fond brun, where bones are roasted are usualy intended for
sauces

Gorgeous Muiredach
Rokkehealden Shire
Middle Kingdom
aka
Nicolas Steenhout

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 06:30:41 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] onion soup not period?

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>You're not the first to ask about this. I asked a very similar question
>here some time ago. Most of the period onion soups we have are, I think,
>white soups in an almond milk or similar base. I think the darker, broth
>based onion soups show up later. I'm not sure that we came to a
>conclusive answer. If someone can point me to some early in period,
>dark onion soups, I'd like to hear about it.

In general, one of the big limitations on soups in period Europe is
likely to be an effective absence of brown stocks. While I could see
the bones from roast meat going into the stockpot (hopefully not
after being among the scented rushes and chewed by dogs), the kind of
caramelization of the bones required for a good brown beef or veal
stock doesn't seem to be happening in period, AFAIK.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:38:00 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] onion soup not period?

Also sprach A F Murphy:
>Remember, when I posted a while back about making a brown stock (or, in
>my case, not making a really brown stock) for soup, Muirdach gently
>explained to me that you don't use brown stock for soup anyway. You
>explained to him that us weird Americans do...

Weird Americans (tm) have been known to use brown stock for soups,
either because (a) they are using canned beef broth, and I have never
seen canned white beef stock; it appears to be invariably brown, or
(b) for certain specialty soups such as French Onion Soup, which in
America may have about as much to do with France, conceptually, as
French Fries (i.e. little to none), various English soups such as
Brown Windsor Soup, Mock Turtle Soup, etc. Most Vegetable Beef soups
(a style that may be influenced by the canned soup industry) seem to
use brown stock.

It may well be that today, white stock is preferred for soups in
France for some reason of tradition or taste, and we all know
Americans have precious few traditions and even less taste (or at
least that is our rep).

>So, what does that say about the question of brown stock in soup in
>period Europe? If it isn't standard now, at least in fine French
>cooking, is the problem not that it didn't happen, but that we (perhaps
>incorrectly) think it should? Am I making sense?

Lessee. What I'm saying is that while medieval recipes are full of
references to beef broth, I don't know how much of it is made
specifically _to be stock_, rather than as a byproduct of boiling
beef. This would be more akin to a white beef boullion, generally
more neutrally flavored, with perhaps less gelatin. The modern
French, while they do make brown stock for various purposes, don't
seem to tend to use leftover (cooked) bones very often. Rather, they
roast raw bones to caramelize them for brown stock, and the stock is
not the byproduct of another cooking process, which I suspect is the
case for a lot of medieval recipes.

Of course, the French preference for white stocks in soup may
actually support the idea that little or no brown stock was used in
period; it may simply be a throwback to medieval eating habits,
especially middle and lower-class eating habits. Bear in mind that in
France, the evening meal for the lower classes and country people
featured soup quite often in past centuries (and for all I know,
today); the name of the meal in French (and in English) is
etymologically linked to soup. Poorer people probably tended not to
have ovens or fuel for stuff like roasting bones (assuming they even
had such things for cooking meats), whereas brown stocks for brown
sauces to go on grilled, roast, and sauteed meats, seems to suggest a
somewhat higher socio-economic position than the guy pictured supping
in "The Bean-Eater".

What I know for sure is that I've never seen any evidence in medieval
recipes to suggest that brown stock was used, or even that stock made
from bones is what is being called for, rather than broth made by
boiling meat -- the frequent requirement being "good broth of good
beef," etc.

Adamantius

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 21:47:50 -0500
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] onion soup not period?

On 7 Mar 2002, at 6:30, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> In general, one of the big limitations on soups in period Europe is
> likely to be an effective absence of brown stocks. While I could see
> the bones from roast meat going into the stockpot (hopefully not after
> being among the scented rushes and chewed by dogs), the kind of
> caramelization of the bones required for a good brown beef or veal
> stock doesn't seem to be happening in period, AFAIK.

I've seen a number of recipes that say to take meat broth (type of
meat unspecified) and color it yellow with saffron.  That wouldn't
work with a brown stock.

As far as onion soup with cheese, there's cebollada in Nola.  No
bread, though.  I believe Cariadoc and Elizabeth did a redaction of
it.  It does call for almond milk as an ingredient.

Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

From: "AnnaMarie" <wolfsong at ida.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Chicken broth
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:04:25 -0700

> Is there an economical way to make large quantities of chicken
> broth without resorting to cubes and concentrates?  Can cheap
> chicken parts like backs and wings be used for this purpose?
>
> Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
> Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

I make my chicken stock in this manner (it's the pre-curser to alot of
chicken soup).  You could always scale back on how many chickens too.

Twelve chickens - cut them up.  Put breasts in bags for meals.  Put legs and
thighs aside for soup.  Put wings aside for Buffalo Sauce.

Take backs, all excess skin (I tend to skin the breasts and leg/thigh parts
too).  Put them in a large stock pot, cover with water, add onions (2 cut
into quarters), three stalks of celery cut into largish pieces, make a
bouquet garni with peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves, garlic cloves and
whatever other spices you like.  I usually make four small bags so they'll
mix around.  Bring to a boil and skim the scum off.  Down to a simmer for
eight hours.   Strain out all the solids, you usually get enough meat off
the backs for chicken in gravy over toast, Bonus!!  Put the liquid back into
the stockpot.

I put it overnight in the garage (I only do this in the dead of winter) and
the next morning skim off the schmaltz.  You then have a jelly like stock.
Sometimes I just freeze this or sometimes I make it all into soup.  YMMV.

Kristianne

Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 13:49:05 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Chicken broth

Also sprach Gorgeous Muiredach:
>I don't bother with sieve and especially not coffee filters.  Again, if
>you've controlled your heat and removed the stock outof the pot carefully,
>you dont' need to strain like that, as impurities should be mostly
>out.  Plus if you let it sit over night, it's going to drop to the bottom
>and float at the surface.

What he said. Another useful trick (I find; YMMV) is to simmer your
liquid, once it has begun to boil and actually turn into stock,
rather than just water with stuff in it, with the pot slightly
off-center on the burner. What you then end up with is a hot spot
which, instead of simmering and sending concentric ripples out from
the center of the surface, sends waves off from one edge to the
other. In practice, this creates a wad of surface gunk and fat which
collects all together on one edge of the pot, making skimming and
removal of said gunk a lot easier.

Absolute death (the official cause of death of my mother-in-law's
soups) results from boiling the stock after the initial boil, but
before removing the solids (or the stock therefrom, more accurately),
which is how you can get that greasy, thick, white dishwatery stuff,
in which various fats and particulates which are supposed to either
settle out or float on the surface, become mixed and emulsified into
your liquid. Now, you can boil your stock down to a glaze if you want
to, but not before skimming, straining and/or otherwise removing it
from the stuff you don't want mixed in.

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 13:57:10 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Chicken broth

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>Is there an economical way to make large quantities of chicken
>broth without resorting to cubes and concentrates?  Can cheap
>chicken parts like backs and wings be used for this purpose?

In short, yes. Your best bet might be to explain to your butcher (or
the supermarket functionary who does this job) what you need, and
explain that you need to find the most economic way to accomplish
this.

Standard industrial proportions call for approximately one pound
meaty bones (such as backs, necks, wingtips, etc.) per quart of
finished stock. My butcher (the good one, the one I go to for the
hard jobs) sells 5-lb. bags of backs and necks for very little. He
used to give them away for free, but if you need them in quantity,
some small fee might be needed just to be sure he has them when you
need them, which is why I order them and there is an associated fee.
What, maybe 39 cents a pound or something?

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 06:24:57 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Chicken broth

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>On 8 Dec 2002, at 13:57, Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamant wrote:
>>  Standard industrial proportions call for approximately one pound
>>  meaty bones (such as backs, necks, wingtips, etc.) per quart of
>>  finished stock. My butcher (the good one, the one I go to for the
>>  hard jobs) sells 5-lb. bags of backs and necks for very little. He
>>  used to give them away for free, but if you need them in quantity,
>>  some small fee might be needed just to be sure he has them when you
>>  need them, which is why I order them and there is an associated fee.
>>  What, maybe 39 cents a pound or something?
>
>Hmmmm..... my local supermarket has leg quarters for 39 cents/lb
>right now.  How much meaty parts per quart of stock does one
>need?

It works out to about the same. Collagen is collagen. Normally bones
are used because it's cheaper to use a by-product that you wouldn't
be eating, but you can use meaty parts as long as there's some bone.
If you use only meat, you end up with bouillon, which is tasty but
has less gelatin component than fond, or stock. The mouth feel is
different.

Also, were I you, I would avoid the temptation to use less weight of
chicken because of the price, and probably you should avoid trying to
use the meat afterwards. After the requisite 4-6 hours of simmering,
most of the virtue of the chicken meat is already in your stock.

I guess I'm trying to say it doesn't make much difference, and you
still need one pound per quart. Which, if you can get them cheaper,
is an argument in favor of backs and necks.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 01:13:51 -0500
From: Gorgeous Muiredach <muiredach at bmee.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Aha! was Chicken broth
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

>Now, trained chefs please bear with me, here... In Standard American
>Non-professional Home Cook Usage (Can I copyright that phrase? I think
>it will be useful, here) at least as I have encountered it, Brown=Beef
>and White=Chicken. But I am gathering from this conversation that Brown
>vs. White is a matter of technique, rather than ingredients, and that
>you can make either with either. Am I the only person who had missed that?

Dunno if others missed it.  Lemme review :-)  Hope this will help.

You can make white stock or brown stock from any beast you choose.  The
main difference is that you would roast the bones in brown stock, and not
in white stock.  There are a few other subtle differences.

Were I to make a white stock of beef, I would likely put the bones in cold
water, bring to a boil, remove from the water, trash the water (and scum)
that would come up.  Rinse the bones in cold water.  Then put the bones
back in the pot, add my aromatic elements (celery, onion, parsley, bay
leave, thyme, fresh garlic, carrots [some argue against carrots in white
stock, as it might colour it]).  Add water, spices (black whole pepper,
clove, NO salt [which isnt' technically a spice anyway]).  Bring to a boil,
control the heat, let simmer for a good long while (4, 5 hours, depending
on your bones)

Were I to make a white stock of poultry, I wouldn't bother with the par
cooking of the bones, and would proceed the same way.

Were I to make a brown stock of beef, I'd throw my bones in an oven at
500F, and let them brown until *just* before they are burnt.  With
experience, you get to know when to add the vegetables, which I would also
roast, but not leave in to roast as long as the bones.  I would then throw
bones/vegetables in my pot, with spices and herbs.  I would deglaze the
roasting pan over the fire with water, and get as much of the juices/stuff
that adhered to the roast pan, and pour that in the stock pot, then add
water and spices, *and* some tomato paste, bring to a boil, control the
heat and simmer.

I'd do the same with poultry.

I tend to prefer doing brown stocks with game bones, especially duck.

I tend to bone my quails and prepare a brown stock with the bones to make
my sauces.

Typically brown stocks get thickened with a brown roux, enriched with other
aromatic elements to make a basic all purpose sauce, known as "sauce
espagnole", though most times nowadays a thickened brown stock is used (set
me straight if I'm wrong guys and gals still in the field).  Reduction can
also be used.

While I'm here, I should go into the difference between a "glace de viande"
(glaze), and a "demi glace" (demi-glaze).  A glaze would be reduced brown
stock, with (or without) a bottle of sherry thrown in.  Whereas the demi
glace would be the espagnole, worked on some more and "perfected".  This is
huge generalities.

I didn't say that last paragraph to make Classical French cooking more
rarified, just to explain one of the oft mis perceived concepts.

Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd
Clan of Odds
Shire of Forth Castle, Meridies
mka
Nicolas Steenhout

From: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Beef Barley stock- was Re: [Sca-cooks] Aha! was Chicken broth
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 09:58:52 -0500

> Now - I still don't really know what I should do to improve that soup...
> I'm going to try it again in a few weeks, when I have a bit of time
> again. I've made a great chicken broth for years, but I've never really
> made beef broth, as I don't tend to just happen to have a lot of beef
> bones and meat hanging around, and most of my soups have been meatless.

Well, if you can make a good vegetarian or chicken stock, you can make a
good beef stock.

One thing you might be doing, if you actually were roasting the bones, is
thinking it was stock before it was reduced enough, because of the darker
color- It mat well be that all you'd really needed to do was reduce it a bit
more, to bring it down to the 1 lb bones/ qt of stock.

My suggestion, for your stock is as follows:

Get several lbs of beef bones (for soup) or (for pets) from your butcher or
grocery store. Particularly look for the ones with the marrow exposed.
Often, they have them in the back if they don't have them out front- all you
need to do is ask. Roast them in a moderate oven (350) for a while, until
the meaty bits look browned and crunchy, and your kitchen smells like you
have a wonderful bit of roast beast about ready to serve (It's strictly a
smell thing- you aren't trying to actually roast a roast, so you won't be
having it in the oven as long as you would for a roast, but I've found that
smell a more accurate indicator of readiness than trying to figure out
timings.)

Place the bones in a large pot, with water to cover. You can also add
chunked up carrots, quartered onions, celery, etc, but leave the peels on
the onions for extra color, as well as the peels on the carrots and the
leaves on the celery- gives you more flavor. The veggies, however, aren't
necessary.

Let it simmer away, for several hours, just checking occasionally that the
water doesn't get too low. I actually let it cook for a couple of days when
I was making the veal stock for Jasmine's Coronation feast- as long as you
don't burn it, you can't really overcook it.

When you're ready, strain out all the solids and pitch them, and taste the
stock. If it still tastes a bit weak, let it ruduce some more.

When you have it to the flavor intensity you want, take it off the stove and
chill it and remove the fat. That should make you a good stock as a basis
for your beef barley soup.

Note- if you save some of the fat you skimmed off, you can use that and some
of the stock and some flour as the basis for a gravy, when you have a Jones
for mashed potatoes and gravy, but don't have a roast to go with them.

SALT WARNING: I usually don't mention adding salt, because every time you
tell an American cook to add salt, they put 10 times as much in as it needs.
However, if you feel it's done, and it just needs a dab more strength, a
teensy tiny wee-dab pinch of salt will brighten the flavors for you quite a
bit, but I MEAN just a teensy bit, like a pinch, not the shovels full most
Americans will add. A tiny bit of sugar will do the same thing.

Phlip

Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:18:14 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Gorgeous Muiredach <muiredach at bmee.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef/chicken stock; white vs.. brown

At 09:44 AM 12/11/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>Since we're getting this straight.  Could someone please list the
>definitions and differences between stock, consomm=E9, broth, etc.,
>please? Maybe list recipes/techniques for each?

If you refer to my previous post, you'll get technique for stocks.

A broth, as I understand it, is usualy a "less refined" stock, that usualy
doesnt' have as much of the nutrients / fatty stuff that you'd have in a
stock.  Perhaps cooked less, with less time.  But someone may have a better
answer to that.

consomme (e accent aigu) is *white* beef stock (unless you're making veal
consomme, or chicken consomme, or or or).  Once it's cooled down, you mix
ground meat (type of meat depends on type of consomme) with chopped
aromatic elements (what you call "veggies"), and egg white.  Mix the whole
thing real well, and slowly bring to a boil.  CONTROL THE HEAT, let
simmer.  it will slowly form a crust a the top.  You want to keep a couple
"chimneys" for the bubbles to get out, but do not touch the crust
otherwise.  cook for a couple or three hours, and remove liquid carefully
out.  You have consomme.  Don't let a sweetie or manager come in and stir
the thing as it crusts, as it'll ruin it.

>Recipes I've used have "stock" in the title and include vegetables among
>the ingredients.

Yes, stock does include vegetables.  Typically onions, celery and
carrots.  Classically leaks, but...  These are considered aromatic elements

>What do you call it if you simmer it down to a syrup? (after taking out
>the solids)

Glaze.

>Note: Do caution your partner (if not a cook) that the mess is not
>eatable, and to not turn the fire off.

Hehehehe.

I had an apprentice once whom I asked to strain the turkey stock we were
making...  He ditched the liquid, kept the solids.  I was not impressed,
but then, I hadn't been really clear about it...  <sigh>

>Please share how you make vegetarian stock, broth or whatever we're
>calling it. Many thanks!

I'd consider it more a broth than a stock, but...  I'd just throw in
carrots, celery, onions, perhaps leaks, parsley, fresh thyme, perhaps
garlic, "otherstuff", and let it cook a short while.

Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd
Clan of Odds
Shire of Forthcastle, Meridies
mka Nicolas Steenhout

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:50:42 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Somewhat OOP Portable Soup Question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Apr 11, 2007, at 1:39 PM, silverr0se at aol.com wrote:

> My previous comments on bacon notwithstanding, I am trying to take
> more control over what foods I am putting in my body.
>
> To this end, I have pulled the the Portable Soup recipe out of the
> Lewis & Clark cookbook, thinking to use it to replace the cup-of-
> noodles i normally eat for breakfast. I am not up to coffee 1st
> thing in the morning, so the hot broth from the c-o-n works great
> for me. c-o-n, along with other commercial dry soups have a lot of
> salt and other stuff I wouldn't mind getting rid of if a tasty
> substitute can be found.
>
> Portable Soup, for those who don't have the L&C cookbook, is
> essentally de-fatted, hyper-reduced stock that does not need to be
> refrigeratated. L&C started their 1803 expedition with about 800
> pounds of it.
>
> But while the book gives the recipe for making it, it does not give
> instructions for re-constituting it. Before I go thru about 3 days
> of boiling oxtails, I would like to know how much the final product
> yields.
>
> Has anyone made it and/or does anyone know the PS/water ratio?

The modern standard wisdom on this is that if you were making regular
soup/stock, you get approximately one quart per pound of meat and
bones, perhaps minus some reduction (ideally, not much because you're
not supposed to be boiling this stuff at a full, rolling boil). IOW,
you start with that much water and end up with something reasonably
approaching that amount. So, if your recipe calls for five pounds of
oxtails, it should make, in theory, something like five quarts of
soup, which you then reduce to whatever volume it becomes, but then
reconstitute to something, once again, close to five quarts. If
there's not a lot of salt to concentrate, you might want to
reconstitute with less water to make it stronger, but this would
probably be a pretty good rule of thumb, as they say.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:10:03 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Somewhat OOP Portable Soup Question
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

"Portable soup" was being used by the British Navy around 1750, when ships
carried 50 pounds of the stuff for every 100 men.  The stuff has a
paste-like consistency and I suspect 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon in a cup of
water for a broth-like consistency (roughly the reconstitution of bullion)
is what you're looking for.

Lewis and Clark only had 193 pounds of portable soup, prepared by Francois
Baillet, a Philadelphia cook, for the Purveyor of Public Supplies at a cost
of $289.50.  The reciept for the concentrate can be found in the National
Archives.  Most of it was eaten between September 14 and September 20, 1805
at Killed Colt Camp in the Bitterroots according to the Journals.

Bear

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:15:17 -0400
From: Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Somewhat OOP Portable Soup Question
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> "Portable soup" was being used by the British Navy around 1750, when ships
> carried 50 pounds of the stuff for every 100 men.  The stuff has a
> paste-like consistency and I suspect 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon in a cup of
> water for a broth-like consistency (roughly the reconstitution of bullion)
> is what you're looking for.

Note: Accorting to Jennifer Stead in "Necessities and Luxuries" in
_Waste Not, Want Not_ there is a recipe dated 1694 for portable soup;
H.G. Muller, "Industrial Food Preservation" in the same volume, a cake
of portable soup made in 1771 was analyzed in 1938 and "the soup had
shown no marked change in 160 years."
-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 

Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:46:16 -0500 (CDT)
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 100 tips for Frugal Feasts
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> 1) Make your own broth from suitable feast ingredients-appropriate
> bone/skin/fat/peels.

Curiously, we use paste 'base' at home and for feasts. At $5.99-$7.99 a
pint, and only a few spoonfuls needed to make the difference between
veggies in water and soup, we find it saves us significant cost in  making
soups and stews for lunches. A pint lasts us about a half year! We get
Minor's Chicken and Beef base from B.J.'s; I need to find a source for
Minor's ham flavor.

I collect ham bones for stock from events we've done and use it for soup.
If you cook the ham for the dayboard ahead of time, you can cut it off the
bone. Dump the bones in water in a crockpot overnight and you get amazing
soup base for something like pea or lentil soup. I float some ham cubes or
pork neck bones, which are very cheap, in the soup to make it clear it's a
meat dish.

I'd suggest that making your own vegetable broth is really the only way to
go for SCA purposes: i've not found a vegetable broth that completely
avoids tomato, pepper, and/or potato.
-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa

Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:54:05 +1200
From: Antonia Calvo <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] kitchen tips
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Oh, another tip is that some prepared goods are better and cheaper than 
what you can make yourself.  For example, I have access to a supplier 
that makes high-quality unsalted meat stocks and sells in semi-bulk 
packs a very moderate price, so I nearly always buy rather than make.
-- 
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:14:09 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcarrollmann at gmail.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

I just came home from the Top Quality Food Market with 5 pounds of
beef shin bones.  They are now roasting in the oven to prepare them
for stock.  I've never made beef stock before -- chicken, yes, but not
beef -- and I notice that most of the recipes online call for tomato
in some form or other among the stock ingredients.

That made me realize that I don't recall seeing any period
instructions for broth-making.  Thinking about Spanish cuisine -- the
form of period cooking that I know best -- I recall seeing recipes
that mention "pot broth".  That would presumably be the liquid left
over from boiling some meat or other.  However, that's a separate
thing from the more common "meat broth" and "chicken broth".

So, how did our ancestors make their stocks and broths?  And what
flavorings (if any) did they add in lieu of tomato paste?

Pondering soup on a cold and snowy evening...
-- 
Brighid ni Chiarain
My NEW email is rcarrollmann at gmail.com

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:08:37 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

There are these:

This is an excerpt from *Le Menagier de Paris*
(France, 1393 - Janet Hinson, trans.)
The original source can be found at David Friedman's website 
<http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Menagier/Menagier.html>

Subtle Broth from England. Take cooked peeled sweet chestnuts, and as 
many or more hard-boiled egg yolks and pork liver: grind all together, 
mix with warm water, then put through a sieve; then grind ginger, 
cinnamon, clove, grain, long pepper, galingale and saffron to give it 
color and set to boil together.

Veal Broth. Do not wash nor parboil, half cook it on the spit or on the 
grill, then cut it in pieces and fry in fat with a great quantity of 
onions cooked beforehand: then take lightly browned bread or untoasted 
bread crumbs, as otherwise it would be too brown for veal broth; (they 
say that this lightly browned bread is good for hare broth.) And let 
this bread be moistened with beef stock and a little wine or water left 
from cooking peas, and while it is moistening, grind ginger, cinnamon, 
clove, grain of Paradise, and saffron mainly for coloring it yellow, and 
mix with verjuice, wine and vinegar, then grind your bread and put 
through the sieve: and add your spices, and the sieved bread, to the 
cauldron, and put it all on to boil together; and it should be more 
yellow than brown, sharp with vinegar, and full of spices. - And note 
that it needs lots of saffron, and try not to add cloves or cinnamon, as 
they will redden it.

Also a hare broth.

Broth with Meat Strips is made in haste at a supper where there are more 
people than expected. For ten bowls, take twenty strips of the cold meat 
from dinner and from the leg of beef; and let the strips be small like 
slices of bacon, and fry them in fat on the fire on the griddle.

Item, have the yolks of six eggs and a little white wine, and beat them 
together until you are tired, then put with meat stock and old verjuice, 
not new, for it will turn: and boil it all without the meat; and then 
arrange in the bowls, and in each bowl two strips of meat. Some put the 
broth in the bowls, and on a dish, before four people, five meat slices 
and some broth with them; and this is for when there are more people and 
less meat.

Saracen Broth. Skin the eel and cut in little chunks, then sprinkle with 
ground salt and fry in oil; then grind ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain, 
galingale, long pepper and saffron to give color, and verjuice, and boil 
all together with the eels which will make the liaison of themselves.

Le Menagier has some others.

Johnnae

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:25:13 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jan 10, 2009, at 6:14 PM, Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:
<<< I just came home from the Top Quality Food Market with 5 pounds of
beef shin bones.  They are now roasting in the oven to prepare them
for stock.  I've never made beef stock before -- chicken, yes, but not
beef -- and I notice that most of the recipes online call for tomato
in some form or other among the stock ingredients. >>>

For a brown beef or veal stock, the tomato enhances the color, and,  
possibly, brightens the flavor and lightens the texture of such  
stocks, which can be heavy after the long cooking required. I'm not  
aware of any particular medieval interest in browning bones just to  
get brown stock, but I suppose the bones of roast meats could have  
added color, even if it was sort of incidental.

<<< That made me realize that I don't recall seeing any period
instructions for broth-making.  Thinking about Spanish cuisine -- the
form of period cooking that I know best -- I recall seeing recipes
that mention "pot broth".  That would presumably be the liquid left
over from boiling some meat or other. >>>

Yes, what the French would call boullion. Could this also (or rather,  
as an alternative interpretation) be the ubiquitous medieval, generic,  
never-ending stockpot used for boiling any large joint?

<<< However, that's a separate
thing from the more common "meat broth" and "chicken broth". >>>

Maybe one is a by-product of the boiling of meat, and the other  
specifically made for the broth?

<<< So, how did our ancestors make their stocks and broths?  And what
flavorings (if any) did they add in lieu of tomato paste? >>>

Red wine and mushrooms turn up in late 18th and early 19th century  
recipes for brown stocks and sauces, at around the same time tomatoes  
are entering the mainstream European culinary repertoire. I don't  
think there's a huge body of evidence to suggest that brown stocks as  
we know them are much older than the practice of adding tomatoes to  
them.

I seem to recall La Varenne providing some stock recipes. I'll see if  
I can dig it out and check later...

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:55:27 +1300
From: Antonia Calvo <ladyadele at paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
<<< Red wine and mushrooms turn up in late 18th and early 19th century 
recipes for brown stocks and sauces, at around the same time tomatoes 
are entering the mainstream European culinary repertoire. I don't 
think there's a huge body of evidence to suggest that brown stocks as 
we know them are much older than the practice of adding tomatoes to them. >>>

Rumpolt calls for "braune Br?he" (brown broth) in some of his recipes and "ein braune Br?he/ die du von einem Braten hast abgegossen/" ([I think] a brown stock that you have got from a roast).
-- 
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo 

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:00:16 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jan 10, 2009, at 9:55 PM, Antonia Calvo wrote:
<<< Rumpolt calls for "braune Br?he" (brown broth) in some of his  
recipes and "ein braune Br?he/ die
du von einem Braten hast abgegossen/" ([I think] a brown stock that  
you have got from a roast). >>>

That sounds about right, as a translation. I'm just not sure how  
widespread such a practice would have been.

It's really interesting, though, that for so many hundreds of years  
some form of pottage was on virtually every table, but stock as we  
know it doesn't seem to become the all-important "fond du cuisine"   
until the 18th century or so...

Adamantius (thinking about looking it up in La Varenne but dreading a  
lot of typing)

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:16:25 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

<<< Rumpolt calls for "braune Br?he" (brown broth) in some of his recipes
and "ein braune Br?he/ die
du von einem Braten hast abgegossen/" ([I think] a brown stock that you
have got from a roast).
-- 
Antonia di Benedetto Calvo >>>

Try "has drained from."  It's a compound verb consisting of the adverb "ab" 
(from) and a form of the verb "giessen" (to pour, spill, flow, etc).

Bear 

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:39:28 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

I checked the Concordance of English Recipes and there are a page and a half
of recipes that have either a title indicating broth or something to
do with broth as in "for henne in brothe" or "roo broth."

Johnnae

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:41:45 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jan 11, 2009, at 9:25 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
<<< I checked the Concordance of English Recipes
and there are a page and a half
of recipes that have either a title indicating broth or something to
do with broth as in "for henne in brothe" or "roo broth."
Something to go through when I have a spare moment.

Johnnae >>>

"Roo broth?"  Roux, perhaps?  I don't have time to chase it at the  
moment, but that does look interesting.
========

Roe, as in roebuck, I believe.

The trouble is that the broths Johnnae mentions are mostly finished  
soups -- in the non-English sources these would have names translated  
into English, often by people like Scully, as brewets, to distinguish  
them from what we think of as broths.

"Potion" gets such an undeservedly bad rap these days ;-)

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:37:47 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] La Varenne's stocks...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Okay, in response to Brighid's question and also in counterpoint to  
some of the comments on Rumpolt connected therewith, I went and dug  
out my copy of Scully's translation of La Varenne's Cuisinier  
Francoise and Patisser Francoise, and La Varenne has some interesting  
things to say.

Unfortunately, between my vision having grown a little less sharp than  
it was a year ago, and this beautiful new keyboard that looks lovely  
but requires perfectly vertical keystrokes that aren't made too  
quickly for the keyboard to register without simply ignoring them and  
dropping letters, I'm not up to transcribing or even scanning, OCR and  
correcting three or four pages on the subject, but I can give a digest  
easily enough.

In general, we're still not taking meaty bones and aromatic  
vegetables, browning them (or not, in the case of white stocks) adding  
water, and then wine, a tomato product, etc.

La Varenne essentially describes two processes in multiple instances,  
and mixes and matches aspects of the two techniques for different  
situations.

He starts with boullion, which is, as might be expected, the juice  
left over from simmering meat in water or water and wine. More or less  
what most medieval cooks were doing. He uses boullion a fair amount in  
sauces and soups.

He also uses boullion to make stock, or at least this is how Scully  
translates it. In general I trust Scully, but when I don't have the  
original French, how can I be sure?

La Varenne instructs us to take cooked meat, squeeze the juices out  
with a press (this was still being done with cooked, carved duck  
carcasses in the 19th century to make the famous canard au sang -- I  
know of at least one list member who apparently actually owns a duck  
press, but it certainly ain't me). He says the juice of a boiled joint  
is more copious, but less rich, than the juice of a roast joint. He  
then instructs us, should this be insufficient juice for our needs, to  
remoisten the joint with boullion, let it steep a bit, and squeeze it  
again. Repeat as needed.

He also says we can take meat, pack it into a jar, wide-mouthed  
bottle, or narrow-mouthed pot, and, I think, top it off with boullion,  
then seal it with a piece of dough and some parchment tied over the  
top, and then cook the container in another pot of water for several  
hours.

This method is still being used into the 20th century (and possibly  
beyond) to make what the English and the Irish call "beef tea" to feed  
to the sick. I think that when La Varenne is not using this version of  
stock to make a sauce, he's feeding it to the sick, elderly, and  
generally infirm, as well.

He also includes a recipe for mushroom stock, which involves recooking  
boullion with the bruised, unattractive culls from your mushroom  
supply, plus the usual modernish aromatic suspects such as the onion  
stuck with cloves, which later gets removed and discarded, etc.

It's worth remembering that La Varenne is roughly contemporary with  
Kenelm Digby, but pretty much marks the starting point for French  
cuisine taking over the culinary world, so to speak. We're starting to  
see sauces thickened with roux (no, he didn't invent it, but he uses  
it more than Welser and Rumpolt), we're starting to see some basic  
modular preparations being prepared in quantity (things like puff  
pastry, roux, mixtures that suspiciously resemble mirepoix and  
duxelles, etc.) to plug in as ingredients in other recipes. Evidently  
we've got a little longer to wait to see stock being made and used in  
this way, at least in France. The hundred years after La Varenne's  
death (give or take ten) would see the birth of Careme, who pretty  
much takes the modern age of European cookery by the hand and drags it  
into the light...

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:04:32 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jan 11, 2009, at 9:25 AM, Terry Decker wrote:
<<< "Roo broth?"  Roux, perhaps?  I don't have time to chase it at the 
moment, but that does look interesting.>>>

Roo as in Roe as in according to OED:
"A small species of deer (/Capreolus capr?a/, formerly /Cervus 
capreolus/) inhabiting various parts of Europe and Asia; a deer 
belonging to this species.
*1575* Turberv. /Venerie/ 241 The tayle of Harte, Bucke, Rowe, or any 
other Deare, is to be called the Syngle."

While I have OED open let's see:
"Broth to prepare by boiling, make a decoction: see brew it says." A 
quotation dated around 1000 AD is the earliest.

*"C. 1400* Maundev. xxiii. 250 Non other potages but the brothe of the 
flesche."

Interesting-- Also "Loosely applied to various boiled, brewed, or 
decocted liquors"

[The Middle English Dictionary can of course be searched by anyone these 
days, so everyone can look up
the MED entries themselves and see all the quotations that deal with 
cookery.]

Oh I agree about matching term to recipe in the Concordance. That's why 
it's a project for another day. Take the Concordance and the sources
and go through them all and see what they say. Someplace between the 
13th and 15th centuries there might be something. It could well be that with the boiling rooms going full blast in the palace kitchens the need for instructions or recipes for broth or stock were never needed. Brears does a good section on this in All the King's Cooks.

Johnnae

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:15:54 EST
From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Beef stock
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

t.d.decker at att.net writes:
<<"Roo broth?"  Roux, perhaps?  I don't have time to chase it at the moment, 
but that does look interesting.>>

No, it's a 14th century English (I think) soup using meat from roe deer.  
It's very yummy.  I remember the base is half wine and half water; I remember 
there being onions and pepper in it, and the sauce is to be thickened with blood, but I can't remember the recipe because I don't get venison often enough to make it very much.

Brangwayna Morgan
Shire of Silver Rylle, East Kingdom
Lancaster, PA

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