olive-oil-msg - 5/24/13

Olive oil in period. Uses. Processing.

NOTE: See also the files: olives-msg, soap-msg, p-medicine-msg, nuts-msg, cooking-oils-msg, salads-msg, lamps-msg, p-petroleum-msg, fried-foods-msg.

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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:09:09 -0400
From: Daniel Myers <edoard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Recipe from my files
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jul 11, 2007, at 2:38 PM, Vitaliano Vincenzi wrote:

> The only ingredient I question right now is the olive oil, which I know
> was used in period for medicinal purposes, but haven't seen much
> use of it in my readings as a food item.

I don't have anything in the way of medieval bread recipes, but I can
find plenty of examples of medieval culinary use of olive oil.  Here
are some examples:

  From "Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin"

109 If you would prepare a good pike. Cook it sour and salt it well
and if it is large, then take the bones out and press it onto a grate
and lay it after that in a frying pan and pour olive oil over it and
vinegar, then it is ready.

  From "Le Menagier de Paris"

Heads of cabbage, at the end of grape-harvest. And when the head of
this cabbage, which is in the middle, is removed, pull and replant
the cabbage stalk in new ground, and there will come out large
spreading leaves: and a cabbage holds great place, and these are
called Roman cabbages, and eaten in winter; and from the stalks, if
they are replanted, come little cabbages called sprouts which are
eaten with raw herbs and vinegar; and if you have plenty, they should
be well cleaned, washed in hot water, and put to cook whole with a
little water: and then when they are cooked, add salt and oil, and
stir it up thick without water, and put olive oil on in Lent. Then
there are other cabbages known as Easter cabbage because they are
eaten at Easter, but they are sown in August; and when after sowing
they are seen to be of half a foot in height, you pluck them and
replant elsewhere, and they should be frequently watered.

  From "Ouverture de Cuisine"

To whiten olive oil for eating in cream. Make a little serenne, like
one churns butter, a little crane thereunder to take the water out:
then put cold water therein, & rake olive oil that is firm, & churn
like butter: having churned a long time, let it cover the water out,
& add new water two or three times, until you see that the oil is
white: then take it out, & serve on plates.

  From "Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books"
Soupes dorrees. Nym oynons, mynce hem, frie hem in oille de olyue:
nym oynons, boille hem with wyn, tost whit bred, and do it in
dishes / and cast almand mylke theron, and ye wyn and ye oynons
aboue, and gif hit forth.

  From "A Treatise of Portuguese Cuisine"
Partridge Slow Cooked in a Clay Pot. Cut a partially baked partridge
into chunks. In a separate pot, prepare the saute with olive oil or
butter, minced onion, cloves, black pepper and saffron. Dredge the
partridge pieces in the wheat flour, and then arrange in the pan
containing the saute. Take vinegar mixed with water, and add this
mixture to the pot containing the partridge enough to fill it
halfway. Add salt to taste. Cook over low heat.

There are lots of others.

- Doc

Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:08:34 -0700
From: "V A" <phoenissa at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Recipe from my files
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On 7/11/07, Vitaliano Vincenzi <vitaliano at shanelambert.com> wrote:
> The only ingredient I question right now is the olive oil, which I know
> was used in period for medicinal purposes, but haven't seen much  
> use of it in my readings as a food item.

Olive oil was (and has been, for all of recorded history) used prolifically
for many purposes -- medicinal, cosmetic, and culinary -- all along the
Mediterranean.  Of course, the farther north you go in Europe, the harder it
is to cultivate olives, so if olive oil was used in northern Europe, it
would have been (for most of the Middle Ages) a fairly expensive commodity,
since it had to be imported...so if you're looking at, say, 14th-century
English recipes, you wouldn't see a ton of olive oil, but it'd be all  
over the Italian cookbooks of the same period.

Vittoria

Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:48:40 -0400
From: Patrick Levesque <petruvoda at videotron.ca>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bread Recipe from my files
To: "Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>"
	<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Every time oil is called for in a recipe, I pretty much assume olive  
oil.

For medicinal purposes, olea communis (or something like this) refers to
olive oil as well. Do not use the greenish, extra-virgin kind. Use the very
yellow, common oil (as the name indicates). Something about the golden hue
having better medecinal qualities. This I learned at my utter dismay when my
Aureum unguent ended up with a sickly yellow-green color, instead of the
vivid golden yellow it ought to have been :-=)

Petru

Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:26:05 -0400
From: Daniel Myers <edoard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Olive oil (was Re: Bread Recipe from my files)
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Jul 12, 2007, at 2:08 PM, V A wrote:

> Olive oil was (and has been, for all of recorded history) used prolifically
> for many purposes -- medicinal, cosmetic, and culinary -- all along the
> Mediterranean.  Of course, the farther north you go in Europe, the harder it
> is to cultivate olives, so if olive oil was used in northern Europe, it
> would have been (for most of the Middle Ages) a fairly expensive commodity,
> since it had to be imported...so if you're looking at, say, 14th-century
> English recipes, you wouldn't see a ton of olive oil, but it'd be
> all over the Italian cookbooks of the same period.

While olives (or at least olive oil) would have been imported into
northern Europe, I don't believe that they were so rare as to be
hugely expensive.

We already see a substantial use of almonds in 14th century English
cooking, and they also were imported.  They're a substantial
component a large number of meatless-day recipes.  Like almonds,
olive oil keeps and travels well.  As it is a vegetable oil, it is
also suited to meatless-day recipes.  It is quite easy to imagine an
English merchant purchasing many barrels of it each year through an
agent in Italy (where it would be quite cheap).

Professor John H. Munro's article, "Spices and Their Costs in
Medieval Europe" (see link) has demonstrated that the cost of
imported spices was much lower than commonly believed (by my
calculations, about 10 times what we'd pay in the grocery store today
- no where near "worth its weight in gold").

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~munro5/SPICES1.htm

I'll try to find more concrete evidence, but given the above in
connection with the number of recipes I've seen which call for olive
oil (including some that use it for frying), I'm inclined to believe
that while it was more expensive than lard, it was not considered
overly expensive and was commonly used in large quantities by the
middle and upper classes.

- Doc

Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:31:15 -0400
From: Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sweating meat

<<< What does the recipe mean when it says "a few drops of sweet olive oil"?

Is this "regular" olive oil? If so, why would anyone use an olive 
oil that wasn't "sweet"? >>>

<< The book refers to a number of different varieties of olive oil. I 
have not figured out what they correspond to, so just use ordinary 
olive oil for all of them. >>

A modern definition is "olive oil that is late harvest and has a 
sweeter, more ripe flavor is sometimes referred to as "sweet olive 
oil" on restaurant menus, as opposed to an astringent, bitter Tuscan 
style oil. "  This may or may not be what was meant.

Ranvaig

Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:55:36 +0000 (GMT)
From: galefridus at optimum.net
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Olive oil varieties

About a week or so ago, there was a brief mention of types of olive oil -- a believe Cariadoc mentioned it in response to a question, and stated that Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchen lists several varieties of olive oil. 

I though I'd add a bit to the conversation -- I recently stumbled across the multi-volume treatise _Studies in Ancient Technology_, by R.J. Forbes. Volume 3 of this series contains several pages discussing olive oil production in antiquity (pp. 101-104). These pages state that the best oil was derived from the liquid extracted from the first pressing. However, the pulp was saved and subjected to several subsequent pressings, each producing oil of lower quality than the one before. While fairly brief, the discussion was quite interesting -- makes me wish I lived someplace where olives were more easily and cheaply obtained, so I could experiment with pressing my own olive oil.

-- Galefridus

Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:48:11 +1200
From: Glenn Adrian <gadrian at clear.net.nz>
To: 'Cooks within the SCA' <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Olive oil varieties

This is exactly the same in modern olive oil production.  Except that after the first pressing I believe chemicals are likely to be used to increase the amount of oil extracted.  This may do very little for the quality however.

Glenn.

<<< These pages state that the best oil was derived from the liquid extracted from the first pressing. However, the pulp was saved and subjected to several subsequent pressings, each producing oil of lower quality than the one before. 
-- Galefridus >>>

<the end>