Tema:

BUFFET DINING WITH WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A Twelfth Night Feast

Sherry, Ale, Red Wine, Cider

A simple salad of turnips

A sallet of lemmons

A dish of sweet potatoes

Watercress with Roasted Parsnips

A minc’t pie

Almond Saffron Chicken in Bread

Roast Leg/Fillet of Lamb with Mint-Caper Sauce

Citrus Tarts

An almond pudding

A SIMPLE SALAD OF TURNIPS

Your simple Sallets are ... Turnips, pilled and served up simply.

Gervase Markham, The English Hus-wife

THE WORKING VERSION:

½ pound fresh young turnips Ice water

Peel the turnips with a potato peeler and slice them very thin crosswise. Chill in ice water for half an hour before serving.

Dr. Boorde also approved of raw turnips. If eaten in moderate amounts, he said, "it doth provoke a good apetyde;" and he added, "boyled and eaten with flesshe [meat] they augmenteth the sede of man."

A DISH OF SWEET POTATOES

HOW TO STEW POTATOES

Boyle or roast your Potatoes very tender, and blanch [peal] them; cut them into thin slices, put them into a dish or slewing pan, put to them three or f oure Pippins sliced thin, a good quantity of beaten Ginger and Cynamon, herjuice, Sugar and Butter; stew these together an hour very softly; dish them being stewed enough, putting to them Butter and Yerjuice beat together, anti stick it full of green Sucket or Orrengado, or some such liquid sweet-meat; sippit it and scrape Sugar on it, and serve it up hut to the Table.

Joseph Cooper, Theflrtof Cookery Refin'dandllugmenlrrl

THE WORKING VERSION:

½ pounds sweet potatoes	4 tablespoons butter, diced
1 pound tart cooking apples	1/3 cup white wine vinegar
5 tablespoons brown sugar	¼ cup candied orange peel, diced
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger

Bake the potatoes in their skins for thirty minutes at 400"F. Peel them and cut them into thin slices. Core and peel the apples and slice them thin.

Mix three tablespoons of the sugar with the cinnamon anti ginger. Butter a casserole with one tablespoon of the butter and put a layer of sliced apples into it. Sprinkle a little of the sugarspice mixture and bits of the diced butter over them. Cover with a layer of sliced potatoes, sprinkle them with some of the sugarspice mixture and dot with butter. Continue layering apples and potatoes as above until all are in the casserole.

Pour the wine vinegar over the top and sprinkle with the remaining; two tablespoons of sugar. Cover and bake at 3so"F for forty minutes, or until the potatoes and apples are tender. Dot the dish with the candied orange peel and serve hot.

Few cookbooks gave recipes for preparing sweet potatoes other than as desserts and sweetmeats. They were made into confections similar to the fruit pastes that were so popular, and used for pies. Robert May, however, used sweet potatoes in one of his "grand" salads.

John Gerard, the herbalist, grew them in his garden on the outskirts of London, and he described them as "like unto the roots of Peonies, or rather of the white Asphodill." The plants, he said, were called "Skyrrets of Peru" by some people, and were "ordinarie and common meate among the Spaniards, Italians, Indians, and many other nations." He does not doubt that they are nourishing but finds them somewhat "windie." They were used mainly for making sweetmeats, he said, but were occasionally "roasted in the embers" and sometimes eaten dipped in wine. "Others to give them greater grace in eating, do boile them with prunes and so eate them: likewise others dress them (being first roasted) with oile, vinegar, and salt, every man according to his owne taste and liking."

TO MAKE A SALLET OF LEMMONS

Cut out the slices o f the peel o f the Lemmons long Waies, a quarter of an inch one piece from an-other, and then slice the lemon very thin, and lay in a dish Crosst, and the peels about the Lemmons, and scrape a good deale o f sugar upon them, and so serve them.

Thomas Dawson, The good huswife.s Jewell

THE WORKING VERSION:

4 large, firm lemons

4 to 8 tablespoons sugar, according to your taste

Wash and dry the lemons and remove the stem ends. Cut out narrow strips of the peel, half an inch apart, lengthwise, and reserve. Slice the lemons as close to paper thin as you can and remove the seeds.

Arrange the slices on a flat serving dish in the shape of an X, sprinkle four tablespoons of sugar over them, and garnish with the reserved peel. If you prefer a sweeter flavor, pass the remaining sugar separately when serving.

The membrane in lemons can be unpleasantly bitter as well as tough. If you wish, you may cut out the sections of the fruit instead of slicing the lemon. Arrange the sections as a sunburst with the slices of peel between the sections of lemon.

This dish is not as curious as it looks at first glance. Grapefruit are often as sour as lemons, yet we find them refreshing in salads. Lemons had been known in England since the days of the crusaders, who brought them back from Palestine. By the end of the sixteenth century, lemon trees were appearing in noblemen's gardens and greenhouses. William Harrison assures us that he had seen them growing there. As imported lemons became more available and cheaper, their juice was often used instead of vinegar as a sauce for fish and for some meats. They were regularly purchased for sauce for the dinners of the Court of the Star Chamber.

Sugar was "scraped" onto the lemons because it came in solid cones. Sugar refining was not very advanced and much sugar was of inferior quality. The best sugar, that is, the whitest, was reserved for salads such as this and for sweetmeats and fine cakes.

A sixteenth-century woodcut shows a street vendor of lemons and oranges carrying her wares in a basket and calling:

Fine sevil [Seville] oranges, fine lemons, fine; Round, sound, and tender, inside and rine,

One pin's prick their virtue show;

They-ve liquor by their weight, you may know.

TO MAKE AN ALMOND PUDDING

Take a pound of almond paste, some grated bisket-bread, cream, rose-water, yolks o f eggs, beaten cinamon, ginger, nutmeg, some bo.ild currans, pi.staches, and musk, boil it in a napkin, and serve it in a dish with beaten butter, stick it with some muskedines or wafers, and scraping sugar.

Robert May, The llccomplisht Cook

THE WORKING VERSION:

½ cup almond paste	¼	teaspoon ginger
3 egg yolks	¼	teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups light cream	I	drop essence of musk
½ cup crushed Holland rusks	¼	cup currants, parboiled
or zwieback	I	tablespoon pistachio nuts,
2 tablespoons sugar		chopped
2 tablespoons rose water	3	tablespoons unsalted
¼ teaspoon cinnamon		butter

´

If the almond paste seems stiff, rub it through the mediumlarge holes of a grater into your mixing bowl. Beat the egg yolks and cream together, add the rusk crumbs, and set aside for five minutes to soften the crumbs. Add this to the almond paste and stir until blended.

Add one tablespoon of the sugar and one tablespoon of the rose water, the flavorings, the currants, and the chopped pistachios, and stir until blended. Butter a one-quart mold and spoon the mixture into it. Cover the mold tightly-if your mold does not have a lid, make one of either aluminum foil or cooking parchment fastened tightly with rubber bands.

Steam the pudding for one hour over simmering water-if you don't have a steamer, you can make one by setting a small cake tin upside down in a deep saucepan with a lid; or use a pressure cooker without the pressure gauge. When the pudding is done, turn it out onto a heated serving dish, cover, and keep warm over a pan of hot water.

Melt the rest of the butter with the remaining rose water and sugar in a small saucepan, beating until the mixture begins to thicken. Pour the sauce over the pudding and serve.

Like other cooks of his day, Robert May believed in garnishing just about everything he sent in to the table. The garnishes he suggested detract from, rather than add to, the pudding, but if you want to garnish it, stick some small butter wafers into the sides. And if you prefer your desserts sweet, sprinkle a little sugar over the pudding.

Puddings, both sweet and savory, were everyday affairs. But puddings such as this one were likely to find their way only to the tables of the rich. Almonds, while not rare-they were grown in parts of England-were expensive, and musk was both rare and expensive.

A MINC’T PIE

Take a Legg of Mutton, and cut the best o f the flesh from the bone, and parboyl it well: Then put to it three pound of the best Mutton suet, and shred it very small; then spread it abroad, and season it with Salt, Cloves, and Mace: Then put in good store o f Currants, great Raisins, and Prunes clean washed, and picked, a few Dates sliced, and some Orange pills sliced; then being all well mixt together, put it into a Coffin, or into divers Coffins, and so bake them; flnd when they are served up, open the lids and strow store of Sugar on the Top of the meat, and upon the Lid. flnd in this sort, you may also bake Beef or Veal, only the Beef would not be parboyl'd and the Veal will ask a double quantity o f Suet.

Gervase Markham, The English Hus-wife

THE WORKING VERSION:

½	pound boned leg of lamb	½ teaspoon cloves
	or mutton
1	medium navel orange	THE PASTRY
1	cup currants	2 cups sifted unbleached
¼	pound ground beef suet	flour
2	dates, minced	1 teaspoon salt
8	prunes, seeded and	¾ cup cold butter
	minced	½ cup cold water (ap
1½	cups seedless raisins	proximately)
½	cup brown sugar	1 egg, separated
¼	teaspoon salt
1	teaspoon mace	2 tablespoons sugar-to
		glaze the pie

Parboil the meat for five minutes, then mince or grind it. Peel off the thin outer skin of the orange and slice the peel into slivers. Parboil the orange peel with the currants for five minutes and drain.

Combine all of the filling ingredients until well mixed. Cover and set aside for several hours so that the flavors blend.

Make the pastry according to directions given on page 3I. Flour your work surface and turn the pastry dough out onto it. Divide the dough into two pieces, one a bit larger than the other for the bottom crust. Pat the larger piece into a rectangle and roll it out to fit a rectangular baking dish six inches by nine inches. Fit the sheet of pastry into the baking dish and roll out the top crust.

Spoon the filling into the pie, spreading it evenly. Cover with the top crust and seal the edges with a fork dipped in cold water. Trim off any surplus dough with a knife, punch fork holes in the top of the pie, and brush with egg white. Bake at 450° for twenty minutes, then lower the heat to 350° and bake twentyfive minutes longer. Remove the pie from the oven, sprinkle it with the sugar, and return the pie to the oven to glaze for five minutes. Serve slightly warm.

Mincemeat pies were eaten throughout the year, but they were a must at Christmastime. Numerous traditions were connected with them. An old folk saying popular in Shropshire had it that, as the twelve days between Christmas and Twelfth Night were a mirror of the year, the eater would enjoy one happy month in the coming year for each mince pie consumed at a neighbor's house during the holiday period.

Another tradition was the guarding of the great mince pie against theft after it was baked. Robert Herrick has immortalized several of the traditions in The Hesperides:

Drink now the strong Beer, Cut the white loaf here,

The while the meat is a shredding; For the rare Mince-pie

And the Plums stand by

To fill the paste that's a kneading."

And when the pie was baked:

"Come guard this night the Christmas-Pie.

That the Thiefe, though ne'er so slie,

With his Flesh-hooks don't come me

To catch it,

From him, who all alone sits there,

Having his eyes still in his eare,

And a deale of nightly feare

To watch it.

These lines rhymed when Herrick wrote them; it is our pronunciation that has changed. The night is Christmas Eve and the flesh-hooks are the hooks from which meat is hung.

These pies and tarts were the cause of an excited religious controversy that lasted for decades. Because they were baked in rectangular "coffins"-all pie shells were called coffins-religious fanatics, including many churchmen, argued that it was sacrilegious to eat them. Their argument was that the rectangular crust represented Christ's sepulcher, and the spice in the filling, the gifts of the Magi. Religious tracts fulminated against the innocent pies, but the effort to forbid their eating was a lost cause with both clergy and laity.

Watercress with Roasted Parsnips

If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it ...

TWELFTH NIGHT, 1.1

Parsnips, brought to England by the Ancient Romans, were much appreciated for their natural sweetness and, lihe many sweet-tasting foods, were thought to "provoke lust."

Here parsnips pair well with the slightly bitter flavor of the watercress.

^1/ 2 cup almond oil
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
¾ teaspoon salt

Dash of freshly milled black pepper

1 teaspoon light brown sugar

2 parsnips
2 bunches of watercress
2 tablespoons chopped mint leaves
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

1. Whisk together the almond oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and brown sugar in a small bowl.

2. Preheat the oven to 400°F Peel the parsnips and slice ¹/a inch thick. Place the slices on a lightly buttered baking sheet and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, or until tender. Toss the warm parsnips with half of the vinaigrette and arrange the slices around the edges of a serving platter.

3. Toss the watercress, mint, and parsley with the remaining vinaigrette and place in the center of the platter.

Almond Saffron Chicken in Bread

This tasty dish makes it seem as i[' you spent hours in the I~itchen because it fills the air with the wonderful aroma of baked bread. In reality this English version of a French Renaissance classic is quick- to assemble using day-old bakery-bought bread and leftover chicken seasoned with almonds, pistachios, herbs, and spices.

The French pain mollet, meaning soft bread, was misspelled as "pine-molet" in the original recipe.

4 saffron threads

4 ounces almond oil

1 large egg yolk

¹/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons almond paste

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

8 ounces cooked capon meat, shredded

12 almonds, chopped with skins on

2 cups finely chopped assorted fresh herbs and greens

(such as sorrel, endive, flat-leaf parsley, baby spinach, or mint)

1/ 8 teaspoon dried marjoram 1/ 8 teaspoon dried sage

Pinch of cinnamon

¹/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1/4 cup currants

2 tablespoons ground pistachios

1 round loaf of day-old French sourdough country bread (about 10 inches in diameter)

1 tablespoon butter, softened

1. Soak the saffron threads in the almond oil for 30 minutes.

2. Combine the egg yolk and mustard in a large bowl and slowly whisk in the almond oil until a mayonnaise forms. Whisk in the almond paste, season with salt, and combine with capon and almonds.

3. Place the fresh herbs and greens, marjoram, sage, cinnamon, nutmeg, currants, and pistachios in a bowl and mix well.

4. Preheat the oven to 375°F Quickly put the bread under running water to dampen it. Cut a 4-inch circle in the top of the bread, remove the top circle of crust, and scoop out the soft bread inside the loaf. Spread the herb mixture in an even layer in the bottom and up the sides of the bread, reserving about

1/2 cup for the top. Spoon the capon mixture over the herbs, completely filling the cavity. Spread the reserved herbs over the capon and replace the top crust of the bread. Spread the butter on the bottom of the bread and wrap it tightly in aluminum foil. Bake for 50 minutes.

O R I G I N A L R. E C I P 8 .

Anotffer French' boil'd meat of Pine-molet

Take a manchet of French bread of a day old, chip it and cut a round hole in the top, save the peice whole, and talte out the crumb, then make a composition of a'boild or a rost Capon, minced and stampt with Almond past, muslt,efied bishet bread, yolks o f hard Eggs, and some sweet Herbs chopped fine, some yolh,s of raw Eggs and Saffron, Cinamon, Nutmeg, Currans, Sugar, Salt, Marrow and Pistaches; fill the Loaf, and stop the hole with the piece, and boil it in a clean cloth in a Pipkin, or bake it in an oven ...

THE ACCOMFLISHT COOK, i66o

"Bake it in an oven," as called for in the original recipe, meant cooking in an enclosed hot-air container, a method used as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, beginning in the fifth century a.D: Hot-air cooking, as we do in ovens today, was created in one of three ways: by lighting hot burning wood in an oven and then removing the ashes before placing the food in the oven; by placing food in an inverted pot and lighting a fire on or near the pot; or by building an oven into a structure so that hot air could be conducted around the oven in flues.

Roast Leg/Filé of Lamb with Mint-Caper Sauce

I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away: And I expressly am forbid to touch it. For it engenders choler, planteth anger: And better 'twere that both of us did fast. Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric, Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, 4.1

The Elizabethans subscribed to the ancient Greelts' belief that all substances are compo^,ed of the elements fire, air, water, and earth. "Does not our life consist of four elements?" ashs Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Everything and even everyone was believed to possess some de~ree of cold, hot, moist, or dry qualities. Someone lihe Shakespeare's fiery-tempered Katharina the Shrew would have been considered "hot" and labeled "choleric."

To balance personality, Elizabethans thought that one ought to eat foods that possess qualities opposite to one's own disposition. Petruchio warns l~ate not to eat meat, thought "hot," as it would only exacerbate her already excitable nature.

¹/2 cup chopped endive

¹/2 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

¹/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint

¹/2 cup finely chopped assorted greens (such as sage, watercress, or baby spinach)

¹/2cup dried bread crumbs

1¹/2 tablespoons caraway seeds
1¹/2 tablespoons coriander seeds
¹/4 cup diced Candied Citrus Peel (page 237)
¹/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

6 dates, finely chopped

¹/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons small capers, rinsed and drained

1 large egg
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons verjuice
1/4 cup minced marrow (or butter) Salt and freshly milled black pepper 1 leg of lamb, boned and butterflied (5 to 6 pounds)

1/2cup Renaissance Stock (page 240)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice 1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Zest of 1 orange

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F Combine the endive, parsley, ¹/z cup of the mint, the greens, bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon of the caraway seeds, 1 tablespoon of the coriander seeds, the citrus peel, nutmeg, dates, ¹/2 cup of the capers, the egg, brown sugar, verjuice, and marrow in a large bowl and season with salt

and pepper. Season both sides of the lamb with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into the center of the lamb and tie closed with kitchen string. Place in a baking pan and bake for 1¹/n hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 160°F for medium. Remove the lamb from the pan and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the stock to a boil in a small sauce pan, until reduced by half.

2. Add the orange juice to the baking pan and stir well to loosen the pan drippings. Puree the pan drippings with the Renaissance Stock, the remaining 2 tablespoons of mint, the remaining 2 tablespoons of capers, and the granulated sugar until smooth. Stir in the orange zest and warm in a small saucepan.

3. Place the leg of lamb in the center of a serving platter and spoon the sauce over the lamb. Sprinkle the remaining 1/z tablespoon of caraway and coriander seeds over the lamb and around the platter.

Citrus Tarts

Here's the challenge, read it: I warrant there's vinegar and pepper in't.

TWELFTH NIGHT, 3.4

Doubt your guests will guess that these refreshing tarts contain both pepper and vinegar, two flavors not ordinarily associated with dessert. Peppercorns, popular since the time of ancient Greece and Rome, were often included in sweet dishes in Shakespeare's day. In Medieval times this valuable spice was traded as money. "Peppercorn rent," a legal term for a symbolic or nominal payment, is still used in England today.

4 large navel oranges

3 lemons

2 tablespoons butter

¹/2 teaspoon freshly ground five-color peppercorns

3 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

3 tablespoons sugar

¹/2 cup white wine

2 tablespoons verjuice

1 tablespoon honey

15 ready-made tiny phyllo tart shells (1-inch diameter)

1. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the peel from the oranges and lemons, removing any of the white pith. Soak the peels for 10 minutes in cold water. Drain and coarsely chop the peels.

2. Melt the butter in a medium nonreactive saucepan. Add the chopped peels, peppercorns, ginger, sugar, and wine, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature and stir in the verjuice and honey.

3. Spoon the filling into the tart shells and serve.