quote:

---

Originally posted by Ron M:
Thought I'd throw a cooking question out there for you AM (and Gwen!).I've found a few period recipies for leavened breads, but none for the unleavened variety.One would think that this type of bread would be quick and easy to produce in large numbers while on campaign.Also, would "Trenchers" fall into this catagory?

---

what makes bread in your mind? there's recipes for flour and liquid, baked, usually as a coffyn or pie crust like object (and not always considered edible), but also as "pasta" like objects.

I know of no examples in the 14th and 15th century cookbooks for crackers or hardtack like objects. Doesnt mean they're not there, just that I've never seen any...

also, there's a real dearth of documented medieval bread recipes. Its my opinion (only my opinion, based on conclusions I drew from the primary source cookbooks I've read) that in the middle ages, the professional bakers were not the same people as your professional cooks (the strict guild structure supports this, as with the joiners vs the carpenters).

The cookbooks we have for the 14th and 15th century are almost exclusively written by professional cusiniers, the guys who run kitchens for Dukes and Kings and such.

le Menagier (1395 Paris, a minor knight, they think) clearly states that bread is to be bought in such and such quanitites for so many diners (ie it wasnt being made in the house, it was bought).

if my logic holds true, there WOULDNT be a lot of documented bread recipes, leavened or not, in the cookbooks as such things were not the pervue of the professional cuisiniers who were writing the books.

if you're looking for cheap foodstuffs that is used for the masses, etc, I would suggest looking at rolls and inventories for soldiers, etc. Unfortunately most of my info comes from household books, etc where they had ready access to yummy yeasty bread at the baker down the block .

I'm afraid this doesnt help you much..maybe Gwen knows more?

--AM, who's got very fond memories of walking to the bakery downstairs from her Paris apartment and getting warm bread for breakfast, and again in the evening .

--------------------

trenchers were large loaves that were cut with special knives by highly trained guys. They were spongy enough to soak up juices and so could be saved for breakfast, or for the generous souls given to the poor as alms.

Since they're in loaf form, and spongy enough to soak up juices, etc, one assumes they would would be levened, though we dont seem to have any extant recipes for this type of bread.

hope this helps!
--AM

--------------------

I'm also going to assume that Ron knows the difference between a bread-like object and a cracker-like object, so he knows the recipes he's looking at are for the former and not the latter. For my own curiosity, how would you classify "waffres", AM? They're more cracker-like than bread-like, don't you think?

Anyway, I have nothing to make me believe bread was baked on campaign, and everything to make me believe it was purchased locally by scourers attached to the army. It looks to me as if there was no bread to be had, the army went without.

The only time I can think of fancy and specialty/ labor intensive cooking and baking being done in the field was at the Field of Cloth of Gold.....and that's Henry showing off to the French, which is hardly the normal course of events. The tantalizing glimpses we see of camp cookery in Schilling and the Mittelauterliches Hausbuch depict a rude shed with a big fire underneath a cauldron. It looks to me like Army rations haven't progressed much in 500 years, and I think the concept of SOS is a very old one.....

As for trenchers, (as opposed to the sops the SOS would have been spooned over) anything I've read is that they were a type of purpose baked bread that was allowed to sit for 3 days prior to use. Beyond that, I'm inclined to think that the use of trenchers was not universal, that it was something the upper classes did. It is my understanding that trenchers were not meant to be eaten by the people using them, they were usually collected and distributed as alms to the needy.

Based on the pictures of middle and lower class folks I've looked at, it looks like they ate their much simpler meals out of a shallow plate/bowl.

I'm intensely interested in the role of scourers, and would love to hear more if anyone has anything to add.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ginevra:
For my own curiosity, how would you classify "waffres", AM? They're more cracker-like than bread-like, don't you think?
Gwen

---

waffres/wafers are always cooked on a wafer/waffle iron. If memory serves, some even contain yeast, and most (all?) contain sugar.

The couple times I've made them in camp from reconstructed recipes they turned out like the waffle cone stuff you get with your ice cream cone (like pizzelles, which some people will buy to use as waffres for feasts etc).

I like the ones flavored with cinnamon and a bit of rosewater .

--AM

--------------------

I think I need to get me one of those wafer irons. The fritters are wildly popular, I imagine waffres would be equally popular. Where would I find one?

Gwen

Edit: It seems I no longer have the option of deleting messages, so I can't delete this and repost under my name. Sorry to confuse, but I am not Jeff.

John, if you start making wafer irons, I want one too!

the ones at the Cluny are indeed spectacular. I got some photos. Some of the irons appear to be for the Host (the "cookie" as my gramma called it ), but some are big rectangles with the arms of burgundy, etc. on them.

My wafer iron is a modern one. Appears to be of cast iron or aluminium? (but wouldnt that melt?). I got it as a gift, but I've seen them in catelogs like Sweet Celebrations (http://www.sweetc.com/). the paper catelog has about four different versions.

mine is round, and has non-descript squiggly geometric designs. They often have 18-19th century scandanavian patterns, or like the french gauffrettes, look like little thin waffles.

you can see an old picture of me using mine in camp at http://www.liripipe.com/maisnie/Playing.htm

hope this helps!
--AM

--------------------

Can I look at that catalog when I come to see you AM?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ginevra:
OK, now that I saw that picture, I must have one!!!!!! I can always perfect my waffre making technique with a modern one so I'll be ready to roll when the repro one gets done.

Can I look at that catalog when I come to see you AM?

Gwen

---

you betcha! hell, we can even make wafers on the stove if you like (I've been meaning to play with the recipe and actually write it down this time).

--AM, who's best friend is coming into town in just two weeks! hooray!

--------------------

--------------------

AM, I think waffre making while I am there is a fine idea! Sounds like just the sort of thing for Friday night while we're hanging around not doing much.

Jenn- If I can find one for me, I'll buy a second one and give it to you as a 12th Night present. Then you can perfect your wafre making technique too!

--AM, who likes her wafers with spiced wine and "snow" (whipped cream). yum!

--------------------

No problem! I thought I'd pose the question about unleavened bread because I've always been interested in baking bread for some strange reason.I've found lots of references for "flat breads", mostly from the Middle East and India (which are pretty tasty, by the way).Besides, when you do get that waffle iron, I'm sure my stomach (and waistline) will benefit from it!

--------------------

My primary interest in unleavened bread has been in biscuit (what we moderns call hardtack). Some of the things I have found while researching biscuit:

Froissart mentions Scots soldiers making oatcakes in the 15th Century. "… Ilz gettent de celle clere paste sus ceste chaude piece et en font un petit tourtel a maniere dunt oublie de beguine …" They place this thin paste on their hot stone and make a little torte like an oublie of beguine. An oublie is defined in a French/English dictionary from 1611 as being: Oublie: [f.] [A Wafer cake; such a one especially as is sweetened onely with honie; also, the thinne past that serues for the bottomes of Tartes, and March-panes.]

A recipe for Prince-Bisket published in 1609 follows:
Prince-Bisket (Hugh Platt p. 14/94): Take one pound of very fine flower, and one pound of fine sugar, and eight egges, and two spoonfuls of Rose water, and one ounce of Carroway seeds, and beat it all to batter one whole houre: for the more you beat it, the better your bread is: then bake it in coffins, of white plate, being basted with a little butter before you put in your batter, and so keep it.

Cato's De Agricultura contains a recipe for must rolls, a redacted version of which follows:
MUSTACEI (= Must Rolls)
(Cato: de agricultura, 121)

Ingredients:
------------
500g wheat flour
300ml grape juice (or young wine)
2 tblsp anise seeds
2 tblsp cumin seeds
100g lard
50g grated cheese (sheep's cheese would be best)
ca. 20 bay leaves

Instructions:
-------------
Pour some must over the flour, add anise and cumin seeds, the lard and
cheese. Work it together until you have a reasonable dough. Form
rolls, then put one bay leaf under each of them.

Bake 30-35 minutes at 180 deg C.

In Al Andalus we find a recipe for K'ak:
Recipe for Ka'k (Biscotti)
Take a mudd, by Abu Hafs's measure, of fine white wheat flour or of good semolina, and mix it with half a ratl of oil. It is good for traveling, and does not crumble, and he who wishes may eat it immediately. Put a ratl of oil or more for the mentioned mudd, and in that manner the baked taste is like that of walnut marzipan (jauzinaq) and so forth.[176]

The Preparation of Ka'k
Moisten fine white flour or semolina, according to the aforementioned rule, with oil or clarified butter, and it is more delicious and keeps better with oil, because clarified butter, when kept long, smells and becomes bitter. Pour in hot water little by little, and knead it until it is dry, and continue kneading it until it is supple and ripe, so that when a piece of it is taken and stretched [or possibly rolled] out, the stretching does not break it; and he who wishes may put in a bit of yeast, or leave it out. Then take of peeled almonds [p. 67, recto] and sugar equal parts, and the sugar could be more than the almonds; pound this until it is like a dough, and put it in a bowl. Add spikenard and cloves in the necessary amounts, and a little mastic, and some camphor dissolved in rosewater. Knead the filling with this until it is mixed; then grease a stone work surface with oil, and make a ka'k on it with the dough, and bury the filling inside it, in equal amounts. Then clear a place in the oven, far from the fire, and place the ka'k in it on a clean slab, and leave it until it is done and ready. Take it out and make various shapes from the ka'k dough, like what is called khushkalân in Bougie. The khushkalâ n is another kind of dish, which will be mentioned after this. Make filled qursas (round flat loaves), small and large, and forms of birds, gazelles and the like.[177]
From An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century, trans. Charles Perry

Le Menagiere de Paris offers us several recipes for wafers. One of these recipes follows:

"The fourth method is flour made into a paste with water, salt and wine without either eggs or cheese."
Le Menagiere de Paris (14th Century)
[Obviously this particular recipe appealed to me for it's resemblance to a cracker or biscuilt recipe. But this recipe is meant, so it seems, to be cooked in a frying pan, not an oven.]

Washington Irving, in his translation of "Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada" (pg. 71) offers the following: "...the army had no supply of baked bread; and, in the hurry of encampment there was no time to erect furnaces. Cakes were therefore hastily made and baked on the coals, and for two days the troops were supplied in this irregular manner.

Additionaly, there is a late 16th Century document in the British Public Records Office (PRO) archive which is a deposition related to a lawsuit brought against the supplier of biscuit to a British expedition to the Indies. I haven't seen the document yet but hope to obtain a copy sometime later this year.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ginevra:
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing myself when Friedrich said he wanted one too. They might even be able to replicate them from good pictures and dimensions. I'll talk to Jeff about it. We may have 4 people here who want them, but we may be the only 4 people in the WORLD who want 'em!

Gwen

---

Put me down for one!

--------------------

Joseph