Tagged ‘flour’

Another May pie

May 15th, 2013 by KM Wall

Prunes are very sexy. William Shakespeare says so. More then once, so it must be true.

 

Prunus domestica - ordinary plum, the fruit that, when dried, is a prune.

Prunus domestica – ordinary plum, the fruit that, when dried, is a prune.

“THE USE OF PLUMS”

“The great Damaske or Damson Plummes are dryed in France in great quantities, and are brought to us here [London] in Hogs-heads, and other great vessels, and are those Prunes that are usually sold at the Grocers, under the name of Damaske Prunes: the blacke Bulleis are also these (being dryed in the same manner) that they call French Prunes, and by their tartnesse are thought to binde, as the other, being sweet, to loosen the body.”

John Parkinson, Paridisum in Sole, 1629, p.573.

”There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.”says Falstaff  in Henry IV, First Part, act 3, sc 3, l 12-3. Is he talking about fruit, the fruit that is (reputed) to be often served in brothels and there associated with ill-repute? Or is stewed another way to say inebriated? Or is the analogy merely to a lumped thing?

Prune - not stewed

Prune – not stewed

 

A Pruen Tart

Take of the fairest damaske pruens you can get, and put them in a cleane pipkin with faire water, suger, vnbruised cinamon, and a branch or two of Rosemarie; and if you have bread to bake, stew them in the ouen with your bread; if otherwise, stew them on the fire: when they are stewed, then bruise them all to mash in their sirrop, and straine them into a cleane dish; then boyle it ouer againe with suger, sinamon, and rosewater till it bee as thicke as Marmalad; then set it to coole, then make a reasonable tuffe paste with fine flower, water, and a little butter, and rowle it out very thin; then having patterns of paper cut in diuers proportions, as Beasts, Birds, Armes, Knots, Flowers, and such like; lay the patterns on the paste, and so cut them accordingly; then with your fingers pinch vp the edges of the paste, and set the worke in good proportion: then prick it well all ouer for rising, and set it on a cleane sheete of large paper, and so set it into the Oven, and bake it hard: then draw it, and set it by to coole: …..then against the time of services comes, take off the cofection of pruens before rehearsed, and with your knife, or a spoone fill the coffin according to the thickness of the verge: then strow it ouer all with caraway comfets, and pricke long comfets vpright in it, and so taking the paper from the bottome, serve it on a plate in a dish or charger, according to the bignesse of the tarte, and at the seconde course, and this carrieth the colour blacke. .

- 1623.  Gervase Markham. Covntry Contentments or The  English Huswife. p. 108

 

 

Pretty pre-prune plums

Pretty pre-prune plums

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Creative Cheate I

February 27th, 2013 by KM Wall

Bramer - sacks to the mill

Before bread there is flour; before flour there is the mill; before the mill there is grain.

Sacks to the Mill!

Markham’s  cheat bread, redacted

1 # leaven in salt

Soooo – how do you get leaven (which is another name for a starter) if you don’t have some left from the last batch because, just maybe, this is your FIRST batch?

Punt. Hence, Creative Cheate.

I’ve tried lots of different things. Essentially you want a mixture of water and flour and yeast that will help your bread rise give it good  sourdough qualities – it’s not just for flavor, but alterations in the pH that improve keeping time, etc.

My latest?  1 bottle of beer (any kind); 1 Tablespoon of yeast or a packet (I buy it by the pound, so I’m not sure how many teaspoons are in the packet, but close enough for this)


2 Q H2O
flour for dough:
2# each corn, rye, wheat
OR 3# corn, 3# wheat

1TBL yeast
salt

Dissolve starter in 3 Q H20 ; Add 3# flour (I like to start with corn – the longer it soaks, the better it is)
Cover and fridge overnight
Next morning
Add salt to taste (1 tsp/# – the starter adds some)
The yeast
The rest of the flour
Form into rough dough
Let sit at least 10 minutes and then knead until as smooth as a babies bottom
Let rise in clean greased bowl (with cover – flour and towel – to keep crust from forming on top)
Knock down and cut into 8 – 2# loaves and 1# new starter
Mould loaves, let rise
Bake 500° convection oven 1/2  hour ; put oven to 350 and keep in for another half hour. It will sound hollow when knocked on bottom. It smells different, too, but I’m not in your kitchen to tell you when.
Cool on racks
Cover with towel or freeze.

And what if you don’t need this much bread? The saga continues……

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Moulding cheates and other bread words

January 24th, 2013 by KM Wall

BREAD GLOSSERY

BARLEY – a type of grain

Ears of barley (a/k/a 'barleycorn')

BARM – the yeast that settles to the bottom of beer while brewing

BATTER – mixture of flour and water – thinner then a paste

BOLTED – sifted; put through a bolting cloth or seive

Sieve

 

CHEATE – of a golden color; flour not thoroughly sifted, some bran still included in the flour
CORN – grain – all grains -not just maize

FLOUR – the ‘flower’ of the grain – the best part, separate from the chaff and the bran

KIMMEL – a vessel, like a tub or large bowl. NOTE: Not to be confused with Kimmel Bread,which is a rye bread with caraway seeds. Probably from the Yiddish borrowing the German Kümmel (caraway) as kimmel to mean caraway. Not be confused with Jimmy Kimmel, who is a comedian and neither a loaf of bread, a tub, nor a caraway seed.

Caraway seeds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JImmy Kimmel

KNEAD – To work the dough; to pound the dough.First Known Use: before 12th century

LEAVEN Middle English levain, from Anglo-French levein, from Vulgar Latin *levamen, from Latin levare to raise (as in  lever) First Known Use: 14th century

LIQUOR  – simply the liquid, not necessarily alcohol

LOAF  -  a mass – the finished  bread

MANCHET – a type of bread; finer then cheat
MEAL 1: the usually coarsely ground and unbolted seeds of a cereal grass or pulse; especially : cornmeal
2 : a product resembling seed meal especially in particle size or texture
Origin of MEAL: Middle English mele, from Old English melu; akin to Old High German melo meal, Latin molere to grind, Greek mylē mill
First Known Use: before 12th century

MOULD – to shape – this isn’t the nasty mildew cousin
OVEN

Oven

RYE -

Rye

SOUR DOUGH – also know as a lump of leavan – a piece of the bread dough held out to start the next batch. Sometimes held in flour and sometimes held in salt.
SOUR PASTE – same as a sourdough, but with more water
STRAIN -
TROUGH -  Middle English, from Old English trog; akin to Old High German trog trough, Old English trēow tree, wood; a wooden vessel

TUB Middle English tubbe, from Middle Dutch; akin to Middle Low German tubbe tub;    a wide low vessel originally formed with wooden staves, round bottom, and hoops

WHEAT

Wheat

YEAST Middle English yest, from Old English gist; akin to Old High German jesen, gesen to ferment, Greek zein to boil…the feremnting substance that rises to the top of beer and ale

Beer brewing bubbles...the yeastie beasties

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Cheate Bread

January 23rd, 2013 by KM Wall

Pieter de Hooch - Boy Bringing Bread

Of baking cheat bread

“To bake the best cheat bread, which is also simply of wheat only, you shall, after your meal is dressed and bolted through a more coarse bolter than was used for your manchets, and put also into a clean tub, trough, or kimmel, take a sour leaven, that is piece of such leaven saved from a former batch, and well filled with salt, and so laid up to sour, and this sour leaven you shall break into small pieces into warm water, and then strain it; which done, make a deep hollow hole, as was before said, in the midst of your flour, and therein pour your strained liquor; then with your hand mix some part of the flour therewith, till the liquor be as thick as pancake batter, then cover it all over with meal, and so let all that lie that night; the next morning stir it, and all the rest of the meal well together, and with a little more warm water, barm, and salt to season it with, bring it to a perfect leaven, stiff and firm; then knead it, break it, and tread it, as was before said in the manchets, and so mould it up in reasonable big loaves, and then bake it with and indifferent good heat: and thus according to these two examples before showed, you may bake any bread leavened or unleavened whatsoever, whether it be simple corn, as wheat or rye of itself, or compound grain as wheat and rye, or wheat, rye, and barley, or rye and barley, or any other mixed white corn; only, because rye is a little stronger grain than wheat, it shall be good for you to put to your water a little hotter than you did to your wheat.”

- Gervase Markham, The English Housewife, (1617). Best ed. p. 210.

 

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Idolatry in a crust

December 20th, 2012 by KM Wall

A modern mince pie

Mincemeat, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, was in fact, minced meat. Usually beef, sometime mutton, occasionally veal. Not just the meaty bits we now buy – sometimes tongue as well. But meat alone isn’t mincemeat. It also had copious amounts of raisins (a/k/a ‘raisins of the sunne’) and currents and sometimes dates and prunes, as well as generous amounts of spices and sugar. The weight of the dried fruit might equal or exceed the weight of the meat, and in the 1620 the raisins were much more expensive per ounce then the meat was.
Suet isn’t something we cook much with any more, but fat is another component of the mince pie. The fat is what makes it rich. During the 1700′s butter starts to come in as the fat of choice, and by the 20th century seems to be more common.
If I were making this mincemeat at home (and I have) I would take three pounds of beef, one to one and a half pounds of butter, three pounds of dried fruit, all cut small and well mixed (and be grateful that I don’t have to pick stems off the raisins and take the stones out of them) with some orange peel (two or three oranges worth – well washed, preferably organically grown oranges). Salt, pepper, cloves (this can be strong – not too much) and mace (or nutmeg if you have that – they have a very similar flavor profile). Put it into pastry – you can use pie pans if you want, sprinkle more sugar on top and bake them in your oven.
If you want to risk idolatry, make little rectangle pies and have them symbolize the manger where the Christ child was born. If you don’t want to fall into idolatry, make little rectangle pies just because they’re fun. You could even use frozen puff pastry and ‘let your soul delight in fatness’. And if you want to be thoroughly superstitious, go out on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas to a different house and eat a mince pie in each one to have good luck for each of the twelve months in the year ahead.

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Secret Life of Beets:Lumdardy Tarts Revisited

December 10th, 2012 by KM Wall

So, back to Lumdardy tarts…..

If beets are as likely the leafy green, what is a lumdardy? Years later, even after an update and revision and going on-line, the closest the OED gets to Lumdardy is Lumbard – is this a case of close enough?

lumbard

4.Cookery. [ellipt.: see B. 2.] Some kind of dish or culinary preparation. Obs.

1657REEVEGod’s Plea 130 The Hoga’s, and Olies, and Lumbards of these times.

Not terribly descriptive….but there’s more:

2.Cookery. In certain AF. names of dishes as leche lumbard (see LEACHn.1 2); frutour lumbard [frutour = FRITTER]; rys lumbard [F. ris sweetbread]. Also in lombard pie (see LUMBER-PIE).

?c1390 [see LEACHn.1 2]. c1430Two Cookery-bks. 35 Leche lumbarde. 1452Reliq. Ant. I. 88 Frutour lumbert..Lesshe lumbert. 1466-7Durh. Acct. Rolls (Surtees) 91 Et in 2 lib. dell powderlomberd empt. de eodem, 3s. 3d. 14..Anc. Cookery in Househ. Ord. (1790) 438 Rys Lumbarde.Leche Lumbarde.

So on to Lumber-pie…

Lumber-pie

Also lumbar-pie. [See LOMBARDa. 2.]

A savoury pie made of meat or fish and eggs.

1656 MARNETTÈ Perf. Cook II. 1 To make a Lumbar Pye. Take three pound of Mutton [etc.]. 1663 in Jupp Acc. Carpenters’ Comp. (1848) 206 It is..ordered..that the provision be as followeth; vizt..Roast Turkey, Lumberpie, Capon, Custurd, and codling tart. 1688R. HOLMEArmoury III. 83/1 Lumber pie, made of Flesh or Fish minced and made in Balls..with Eggs..and so Baked in a Pye with Butter. 1694MOTTEUXRabelais (1737) IV. lix. 243 Lumber-Pyes, with hot Sauce. 17..E. SMITHCompl. House wife (1750) 150 To make a Lumber pye. Take a pound and a half of veal, &c. 1849W. H. AINSWORTHLanc. Witches III. ix, There were lumbar pies, marrow pies, quince pies [etc.].

Still unclear, but….one never knows what causes light to dawn over Marblehead….

Hit the books – check. Now it’s time to get back into the kitchen.

So, beets as a leafy green – check . Grated bread still seems to be breadcrumbs – check.

Cheese – what would cheese be????

One named cheese that comes up from time to time is variations of ‘Parmysent‘ – Parmesan? The same cheese I would shake over my spaghetti and meatballs at school lunch? The same cheese I now buy in wedges and save the rinds to add to my pasta fazoole? It would fit the pattern of the so-called ‘Old Cheese‘ that is also sometimes mentioned.

This combination of Swiss Chard, breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese sounds vague familiar…what does it remind me of?

Lets cut some beets and go back to the kitchen…..

Beets, cut November 30th...

 

How to make Lumbardy Tarts

Take beets, chop them small, and to them put grated bread and cheese, and mingle them wel in the chopping.  Take a few corrans, and a dishe of sweet butter, and melt it.  Then stir al these in the butter, together with three yolkes of egges, sinamon, ginger, and sugar, and make your tart as large as you will, and fill it with the stuffe, bake it, and serve it in.

1588. The Good Huswifes Handemaide

 

And now my translation:

 

One bunch swiss chard

Breadcrumbs (plain)

Grated Parmesan cheese

Currants or raisins

Butter

3 egg yolks

cinnamon

ginger

sugar

 

Pastry for a top and bottom for a 9 or 10 inch pie.

Wash and dry the Swiss chard carefully. Pull of any sad or buggy bits. Cut off the stems and save for a side dish. Chop the leafy parts very small, nothing larger then ½ square.

Melt 2 – 4 tablespoons of butter; when somewhat cool beat the 3 egg yolks. Toss the butter/egg yolk mix with the chopped Swiss chard. Add enough breadcrumbs so sop up all the liquid (two or three handfuls – it depends on the size of your eggs and the how juicy the Swiss chard). Add enough grated cheese to make it smell good (it depends on how strong your cheese and how much you like it). Add a handful of raisins. If you like things sweet add one or two more handfuls. Mix together ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ginger and ½ teaspoon sugar. Mix everything all together. Smell it and decide – more cinnamon? More ginger? Make it good!

Put this lovely stuff in a pastry lined pie pan and cover with a top crust. Cut some vents for the steam to escape. Bake in a 375 oven for ½ hour. Turn down the heat to 350 until it is done – the pastry should be golden brown-tan and the filling should be a darker, denser green and it should smell wonderful.

Cool on a rack. Serve at room temperature.

 

Jan Steen - The Fat Kitchen (notice the woman eating the pie with her fingers!)

The minute the cheese and the Swiss Chard were mixed together it hit me – tortellini. It smelled like tortellini. If the cinnamon and ginger  were nutmeg….Could Lumdary Tart be a giant early modern English tortellini? Oh, the mysteries of of food. Oh, the power of smell to invoke memory.

Here in Plymouth now, talk  of tortellini  means  it must be getting close to Christmas…..and so it is.

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Custard Pie

November 24th, 2012 by KM Wall
Medieval pie baker on wheels (c. 1465-1475)

To bake a Custarde or Dowset
To bake an excellent Custard or Dowset; you shall take good store of egges, and putting away one quarter of the whites, beate them exceeding well in a bason, and then mixe with them the sweetest and thickest creame you can get, for if it be any thing thinne, the Custard will be wheyish; then season it with salt, sugar, cinamon, cloves, mace, and a little Nutmegge; which done raise your coffins of good tough wheate paste, being the second sort before spoke of, and if you please raise it in pretty workes, or angular formes, which you may doe by fixing the upper part of the crust to the nether with the yelks of egges: then when the coffins are ready, strow the bottomes a good thicknesse over with Currants and Sugar; then set them into the Oven, and fill them up with the confection before blended and so drawing them, adorne all the toppes with Carraway Cumfrets, and the slices of Dates prickt right up, and so serve them up to the table.

 -Gervase Markham, The English Housewife

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A Apple Pie

November 4th, 2012 by KM Wall

Clara Peters - Apples, Pears, Squirrel

FOR A 17TH CENTURY KITCHEN

PASTE(1):
“…yn take a quart of fine flower, & put ye rest of ye butter to it in little bits, with 4 or 5 spoonfulls of faire water, make ye paste of it & when it is well mingled beat it on a table & soe roule (2) it out.”
- Martha Washington’s Book of Cookery. Karen Hess, ed. pp130-1

A PIPPIN(3) TART
Take pippins of the fairest, and pare them, and then divide them just in the halves, and take out the cores clean: then, having rolled out the coffin (4) flat, and raised up a small verge of an inch or more high, lay in the pippins with the hollow side downward, as close to one another as may be: then lay here and there a clove, and here and there a whole stick of cinnamon, and a little bit of butter; then cover all clean over with sugar, and so cover the coffin, and bake it according to the manner of tarts; and, when it is baked, then draw it out, and, having boiled butter and rose-water together, anoint all the lid over therewith, and then scrape or strew on it a good store of sugar, and so set it in the oven again, and after serve it up.

[1] pastry; [2] roll; [3] A little apple; [4] the pastry case of the pie
- Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife.(1615/1623) Michael Best, ed. McGill-Queen’s Press: Montreal. 1986.

FOR A 21ST CENTURY KITCHEN

PASTRY:
2 cups all purpose FLOUR
6 ounces (1 ½ sticks) BUTTER
½ teaspoon SALT
1 teaspoons SUGAR
6 tablespoon cold WATER

The high butter content in this pastry is going to make it rich and flavorful, and lets you handle it a much more then 21st century  pie crust. This is fearless pie pastry! You really can’t handle it too much. It will be so meltingly tender instead of merely flaky.

Mix flour with salt and sugar. Work butter in until it’s crumbly. Add water and mix and mash until it holds together. Add a little more it it’s not holding together, but not too much. When it forms into a great big ball, divide into two parts, one larger then the other – one one-third and the other two-thirds.

Shape into 2 disks, cover with plastic wrap or put into a plastic bag so it doesn’t dry out and let it sit in the fridge for at least 10 minutes and up to overnight.

Meanwhile, make up the filling:

APPLE PIE:

1 POUND APPLES (about 3 medium size one)
1 tablespoon SUGAR
½ – 1 ½ teaspoon CINNAMON
1 teaspoon BUTTER
1 teaspoon butter, melted and 1 teaspoon sugar for the topping
Cut the apples into quarter, peel and core.

Sprinkle a dusting of flour on your work surface. Take the pastry out of the fridge and remove the larger disk from it’s wrapping. This is going to be the bottom of your pie. Put some flour on your hands  and dust your rolling pin. Swack the pastry disk with your rolling pin a few times. Roll it out to be and inch or two larger then your pie plate. Roll the pastry unto your rolling pin and transfer it to the pie plate. The high butter content in this pastry is going to make it rich and flavorful; it will be so meltingly tender

Put your cut apples in, round bumpy sided up. Sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar and dot with the butter. This is a flattest tart style pie, not one of the sky high variety.

Remove the smaller pastry disk from it’s plastic, put on your floured surface and swack and roll some more for the upper crust, or lid. Remember, the flour keeps things from sticking, so you should only need a dusting! Cut slits in the pastry, roll around your pin and transfer to the top of the apples.

Roll the edges of the bottom crust to meet the top crust and crimp and seal all around. The edges can be resting inside the pan, right on top of the apples.

Bake at 375 for 45-50 minutes – it’ll smell great and be a lovely golden color. Take out of the oven, brush on the melted butter, sprinkle with rest of the sugar and put back into the oven. SHUT THE OVEN OFF. Leave the pie in the warm oven for at least 10 minutes or through supper so you can eat it warm for dessert.

OR make the pie up, pastry and apples and spice and wrap tightly in a foil and then plastic. Freeze for up two months.

TO BAKE A FROZEN PIE
Heat your oven to 475.
Unwrap the pie. Put the frozen pie in the hot oven. Bake for 20 minutes and then lower the heat to 350 for another thirty minutes. Again, don’t the timer rule you – use your senses! Does it smell done, is the pastry golden brown, not pale? (Of course, if your oven’s hotter, take it out sooner) Then brush the top with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and put back into the shut off but still warm oven…

Apple Pie is good alone (Apple Pie is GREAT alone) and good for breakfast but also good with ice cream or whipped cream or sharp cheddar or…what do you like with apple pie?

Enjoy!

Pieter de Hooch - A Woman Peeling Apples

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Autumn in New England: It’s for the BIRDS

October 2nd, 2012 by KM Wall

 

Of the Birds and Fowls Both of the Land and Water.

The princely eagle, and soaring hawk,
Whom in their unknown ways there’s none can chalk:
The humbird for some queen’s rich cage more fit,
Than in the vacant wilderness to sit.
The swift-winged swallow sweeping to and fro,
As swift as arrow from Tartarian bow.
When as Aurora’s infant day new springs,
There the morning mounting lark her sweet lays sings.
The harmonious thrush, swift pigeon, turtledove,
Who to her mate doth ever the constant prove.
The turkey-pheasant, heathcock, partridge rare,
The carrion-tearing crow, and hurtful stare,
The long-lived raven, the ominous screech-owl,
Who tells, as old wives say, diasters foul.
The drowsy madge that leaves her day day-loved nest,
And loves to rove when day-birds be at rest;
The eel-murthering hearn, and greedy cormorant,
That near the creeks in Moorish marshes haunt.
The bellowing bittern, the long-legged crane,
Presaging winters hard, and dearth of grain.
The silver swan that tunes her mournful breath,
To sing the dirge of her approaching death.
The tatling oldwives, and the cackling geese,
The fearfull gull that shuns the murthering piece.
The strong winged mallard, with the nible teal,
And ill-shaped loon who his harsh notes doth squeal.
There widgins, sheldrakes, and humilities,
Snites, doppers, sea-larks, in whole millions flee.
- 1634. William Wood. New Englands Prospect. p. 48-9, Vaughn ed.

Perceive:

“…I will show you a description of the fowls of the air, as most proper in the ordinary course. And first of the Swan, because she is the biggest of all the fowls of that country. There are of them in Merrimac River and other parts of the country, great store of them at the seasons of the year.

“The flesh is not much desired of the inhabitants, but the skins may be accompted a commodity, fit for diverse uses, both for feathers and quills.”

- 1637 Morton, T.  New English Canaan, Dempsey ed.p.62.

Swans

“There be likewise many swans which frequent the fresh ponds and rivers, seldom consorting themselves with ducks and geese. These be very good meat: the price of one is six shillings.”

- Wood, W.  New Englands Prospect.. 52

 

Swimming swan

Identify:

The native swan (now known as the whistling swan or the Tundra swan: Cygnus columbianus) should not to be confused with more newly introduced Mute Swan – that the one with the little ball on their orange beak:

Mute Swan - orange beak -not native in New England

 

Although, when they’re feeding, it’s hard to tell them apart.

Eat:

To Bake all manner of Sea-Fowl, as Swan, Whopper, to be eaten cold.

Take a swan, bone, parboil, and lard it with great lard, two ounces of pepper, three of nutmeg, and four of salt, season the fowl, and lay it in the pye, with a good store of butter, strew a few whole cloves on the rest of the seasoning, lay on large sheets of lard over it, and good store of butter: then close it up in a rye-paste or meal course boulted, and make up with boiling liquor, and make it up stiff: or you may bake them to eat hot, only give them half the seasoning.

In place of baking any of these fowls in pyes, you may bake them in earthen pans or pots, for to be preserved cold, they will keep the longer.

In the same manner you may bake all sorts of wild geese, tame geese, bran-geese, muscovia ducks, gulls, shovellers, herns, bitterns, curlews, heath-cocks, teals, ollines, ruffes, brewes, pewits, mews, sea-pies, dap-chickens, strents, dotterils, knots, gravelins, ox-eyes, red shanks, & c.

-            1678(4th ed) Robert May. The Accomplist Cook. p. 124. Falconwood Press ed.:1992.

Swan pie - all dressed up

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Cheesecake

July 16th, 2012 by Carolyn

When you hear the extraordinary word CHEESECAKE, a lot of us think about New York Cheesecake with strawberries on top or a chocolate drizzle, or this place:

 

 

 

 

Yes… that place, the one where you eat until you hate yourself, and then you get 3 more slices for the way home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You read that right, the way home. Apparently our cheesecake loving roots go way back, here in the Colonial Foodways Dept. we have quite a few 17th century cheesecake recipes, including this one…

 

 

 

To make Cheesecakes.

Take 6 quarts of stroakings or new milke & whey it with runnet as for an ordinary cheese, then put it in a streyner & hang it on a pin or else press it with 2 pound weight. then break it very small with your hands or run it through a sive, then put to it 7 or 8 eggs well beaten, 3 quarters of a pound of currans, half a pound of sugar, a nutmeg grated or some cloves & mace beaten, 2 or 3 spoonfuls of rosewater, a little salt. then take a quart of cream, & when it boyl thicken it with grated bread & boyle it very well as thick as for an hasty pudding. then take it from the fire & stir therein halfe a pound of fresh butter, then let it stand until it be almost cold, & then mingle it with your curd very well; then fill your coffins of paste & when they are ready to set into the oven scrape on them some sugar & sprinkle on some rosewater with a feather. If you love good store of currans in them, you may put in a whole pound, & a little sack If you please. & soe bake them.

-Hess, Karen. Martha Washington’s Book of Cookery. C 106.

 

This is very different from the “traditional” New York Cheesecake, but still absolutely delicious. According to Robert May in his book, The Accomplisht Cook, in 1685, these images below are how you could form your cheesecakes. No pie plates here, they would either be free-form pies, or they would have used a pie mold.

 

 

Being the daredevil I am, I chose the triangular option, because when making 17th century cheesecake why would you do it the old boring circle way? Next we need a special occasion to make this, because a treat like this would have been rare in 1627 New Plimoth. Thankfully Mary Warren and Robert Bartlett got married this past Saturday!

Here’s what it looked like coming out of the modern oven….

 

 

Our sources say that once presented and shown off you cut it up in lozenges sized pieces and eat!

 

Those square pieces on their plates are the delectable cheesecake. Photo Courtesy of Miriam Rosenblum

Here's Martha getting her cheesecake fix. Photo Courtesy of Miriam Rosenblum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A great time was had, and all had good belly cheer.

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