Shakespeare's Kitchen (6 page)

Authors: Francine Segan

BOOK: Shakespeare's Kitchen

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In Shakespeare’s time to ensure fresh fish for meals, noblemen built artificial ponds on their estates stocked and maintained by full-time fishermen. The middle classes had to make do with a rain barrel outside the kitchen door to keep their catch fresh.

1 large onion, diced

2 tablespoons butter

8 ounces carp, skinned and diced

½ teaspoon dried rosemary

½ teaspoon dried parsley

½ teaspoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon dried marjoram

½ cup white wine

¼ cup currants

¼ teaspoon ground mace

1 tablespoon sugar

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves

6 slices French bread, about ¼ inch thick

1.
Sauté the onion in 1 tablespoon of the butter in a saucepan over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until golden. Add 4 cups of water, the carp, rosemary, parsley, thyme, and marjoram and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the wine, currants, mace, and sugar, reduce to low heat, and simmer for 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2.
Preheat the broiler. Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and stir in the rosemary leaves. Brush the butter mixture on the bread slices and broil for 1 to 2 minutes, or until golden brown. Roughly cut the bread slices into small croutons.

3.
Ladle the soup into 4 bowls and sprinkle with the croutons.

Almond-Orange Broth

SERVES 4

A
LMONDS, A FAVORITE
ingredient throughout Shakespeare’s time, were ground and mixed with water as a substitute for cow’s milk on days when animal products were prohibited. Here, the subtle flavors of the dried fruits and almonds combine with the broth to make this soup light, aromatic, and exceptionally delicious.

1 quart
Renaissance Stock

¼ teaspoon dried rosemary

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

¼ teaspoon dried hyssop

¼ teaspoon dried marjoram

½ teaspoon ground mace

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon sugar

½ cup finely ground blanched almonds

1 teaspoon rose water

½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

Zest of 1 orange

¼ cup sliced almonds

1.
Combine the Renaissance Stock, rosemary, thyme, hyssop, marjoram, mace, ginger, sugar, and ground almonds in a saucepan and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the rose water and orange juice. Purée until smooth. Warm the soup just prior to serving.

2.
Ladle the soup into 4 bowls and top with the orange zest and sliced almonds.

Blanching, from the French word
blanc
for white, means to remove the bitter skins, and the technique is noted as far back as 1390 in the
Forme of Curie.
The word
almond
also comes from the Old French
almande,
and even
jordan,
a type of almond, comes from the French
jardin,
or garden.

Cauliflower Chowder

SERVES 4 TO 6

V
ERJUICE, THE JUICE
of unripe grapes now available in most gourmet grocers, adds a lovely touch to this velvety, mild chowder. If you plan on making the soup ahead, reserve some of the florets and roast them just before serving so they are crisp. In fact, these slow-roasted cauliflower “croutons” are so irresistibly delicious you might want to buy two heads of cauliflower and make extra!

1 head of cauliflower

Salt

1 large onion, diced

2 tablespoons butter

3½ cups
Renaissance Stock

½ cup sweet sherry

3 whole mace blades (or ⅛ teaspoon ground mace)

1 cup milk

Freshly milled black pepper

1 tablespoon verjuice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1.
Preheat the oven to 250°F. Remove 1 cup of small florets from the cauliflower for the “croutons.” Coarsely chop the remainder and reserve. Sprinkle salt on a nonstick baking pan, add the cup of florets, and bake for 1 hour, or until deep brown and dry. Remove from the pan and discard the salt.

2.
Cook the onion in the butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat for 10 minutes. Add the reserved chopped cauliflower and cook for 5 minutes. Add the Renaissance Stock, sherry, and mace and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove the mace and purée the cauliflower mixture until smooth. Add the milk and simmer over low heat, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. (Use low heat, or the soup will scorch and separate.) Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3.
Ladle the soup into individual bowls and drizzle with a few drops of verjuice. Sprinkle the cauliflower “croutons” and lemon zest over the soup.

Italian Pea Pottage

SERVES 8 TO 10

P
EASE PORRIDGE
in the pot, nine days old” fairly well summarizes the technique of stew preparation in Shakespeare’s day. A thick soup would have been left cooking for days at a time, with new vegetables, stock, and bits of leftover meat continually added. This Italian version contains rich duck meat, a delicious and unusual addition to pea soup.

2 slices thick-cut smoked bacon

1 large red onion, diced

1 quart
Renaissance Stock

1 pound dried green split peas, rinsed

½ teaspoon freshly milled black pepper

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon coarsely crushed aniseed

1 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 cup shredded smoked duck breast

Cook the bacon in a large saucepan over medium heat for 7 to 10 minutes, or until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan, cut into small pieces, and set aside. Add the onion to the pan and cook for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Add the Renaissance Stock, peas, bacon pieces, and 2 cups of water, and simmer for 1 hour, skimming away any impurities that rise to the top. Add the pepper, salt, and aniseed and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the parsley and duck, and serve immediately.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

Pottage in the Italian Fashion

Boil green pease with some strong broth, and interlarded bacon cut into slices; the pease being boiled, put to them some chopped parsley, pepper, anniseed, and strain some of the pease to thicken the broth; give it a walm [warm it] and serve it on sippets, with boiled chickens, pigeons, kids, or lambs-heads, mutton, duck, mallard, or any poultry. Sometimes for variety you may thicken the broth with eggs.

THE ACCOMPLISHT COOK,
1660

Lamb with Sorrel

SERVES 4

T
HIS SOUP,
originally listed as a fertility enhancer, “to strengthen the seed of man or woman,” contained ingredients then thought to be aphrodisiacs. Shakespeare almost certainly knew of this soup, as the recipe is taken from a 1596 cookbook found in old inventories from Stratford-upon-Avon.

1 quart
Renaissance Stock

½ cup diced sweet potato

½ cup sorrel or baby spinach, finely julienned

½ cup finely sliced endive

3 ounces cooked lamb

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

Edible violets (optional)

1.
Bring the Renaissance Stock to a simmer over medium-low heat. Add the sweet potato and simmer for 15 minutes, or until tender. Remove from the heat, add the sorrel, endive, and lamb, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

2.
Top the soup with a few violets, if desired.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To strengthen the seed of man or woman

Take succory, endive, plantin, violet flowers and the leaves, clary, sorrel, or each a handful, with a piece of Mutton, make a good broth, and to eat it evening and morning is special good.

THE TREASURIE OF HIDDEN SECRETS, COMONLIE CALLED THE GOOD HUSWIVES CLOSET OF PROVISIONS,
1633 EDITION OF THE 1596 BOOK

Broth has long been believed to be healthful, and almost every culture seems to have its own version of that universal remedy, chicken soup. In
The Treasurie of Hidden Secrets,
another soup recipe claims to help predict a woman’s fertility. Apparently, if the woman developed a stomachache after drinking the rabbit stew broth, she was deemed able to conceive. Elizabethan cookbooks contained other tests, remedies, and advice on fertility. One, which claimed to be able to make a “barren woman” bear children, included an elaborate recipe recommended to be taken daily, and the recipe ended with the additional advice that “it shall profit and helpe very much, having in the meantime the company of a man!”

Portuguese Renaissance Soup

SERVES 8

A man may break a word with you, sir, and
words are but wind,
Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS,
3.1

T
HE WORD
farts,
as used in the original recipe that inspired this soup, dates back to 1250 and, besides the expected definition of breaking wind, also meant light puff pastry. The English, who traded heavily with Portugal for wine, lemons, oranges, salt, and honey, were very familiar with Portuguese dishes such as this soup of light meat dumplings in broth.

8 ounces ground lamb

2 large eggs

½ cup cream

⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon salt

Dash of freshly milled black pepper

½ teaspoon ground mace

5 pitted dates, finely chopped

¾ cup currants

1½ quarts
Renaissance Stock
, hot

1.
Purée the lamb, eggs, cream, cloves, salt, pepper, mace, dates, and ½ cup of the currants in a food processor until it forms a paste. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

2.
Bring a saucepan of water to a slow simmer. Using 2 spoons, form ¾ teaspoon of the meat into an olive shape. Repeat with the remaining meat. Carefully place a few meatballs at a time into the water and simmer for 4 or 5 minutes, turning occasionally, until they are cooked on all sides. Remove with a slotted spoon and repeat until all the meatballs are cooked.

3.
Place some of the meatballs in the bottom of each bowl. Gently ladle the Renaissance Stock into the bowl, being careful not to pour the stock directly on the meatballs. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup of currants around the stock.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

How to make Farts of Portingale

Take a peece of a leg of Mutton, mince it smal and season it with cloves, Mace, pepper and salt, and Dates minced with currans: then roll it into round rolles, and so into little balles, and so boyle them in a little beefe broth and so serve them foorth.

THE GOOD HUSWIVES HANDMAIDE FOR COOKERIE IN HER KITCHIN,
1588

“Olepotrige” Stew from Renaissance Spain

SERVES 10

A
CCORDING TO
the 1615 recipe, this stew was considered “the onely principall dish of boild meate which is esteemed in al Spaine,” where it was called
olla podrida. Olla
was the Spanish for cook-ing pot and
podrida
meant a spiced stew of various meats. Olla podrida was even mentioned by Cervantes in
Don Quixote.
It was apparently very popular in England, too, as it was included in several cookbooks of the time.

Don’t let the length of the ingredient list prevent you from trying this tasty and easy-to-prepare dish. It goes together with a minimum of fuss and can simmer for hours unattended. The original recipe calls for even more ingredients, and lists over fifteen different meats.