Today,
or rather, this night in Britain it is “Guy Fawkes’ Night.” The night was the
theme of yesterday’s post, in which I gave you links to previous stories
inspired by the events of “Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot” in 1605. It occurred to me that none of the recipes
from these posts actually came from the time of Guy Fawkes and his
co-conspirators, so I am going to redress that today.
I
have chosen some delights from Sir Hugh Plat’s Delightes for ladies: to adorn their persons, tables, closets, and
distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters, published in
1602.
Keeping
of Pomegranats.
Make
choice of such Pomgranates as are sound and not prickt as they tearme it, lap
them over thinly with wax, hang them upon naales, where they may touch nothing,
in some cupboard or closet in your bedchamber, wher you keep a continual fire,
and every 3 or 4 daies turn the undersides uppermost, & therefore you must
so hang them in packthread, that they may have a bowe knot at either end. This
way Pomgranates have been kept fresh till whitsontide.
To
boyle Pigeons with rice.
Boyle
them in mutton broath, putting sweete hearbes in their bellies, then take a
little Rice and boyle it in Creame, with a little whole mace, season it with
sugar, lay it thick upon their breasts, wringing also the juice of a Lemmon
upon them, and so serve them.
To
make a Polonian sawsedge.
Take
the fillets of an hog, chop them verie small, with a handfull of red sage,
season it hot with Ginger and pepper, and them put it into a great sheepes gut,
then let it lie three nights in brine, then boyle it and hang it up in a
chimney where fire is usually kept, and these sawsedges will last one whole
yeare. They are good for sallades, or to garnish boyled meats, or to make one
relish a cup of wine.
3 comments:
Excellent to see how far back the polony (red polony, Bath polony) goes. Countless recipes for these in the English lexicon and they all differ somewhat except usually a red colour is wanted. The story I've read all these years is it is a corruption of Bologna (for its famous sausage), but who knows..
Gary
Yes, that' whatI understood about the name too - there have been some truly awful incarnations of "Colony" have they not?
And the same applies to "Saveloys" from Cervelas.
I've never had a polony but I like saveloys! It's one of those humble-but-decent little dishes that one hopes will never disappear although perennially unfashionable. (My issue is they never seem hot enough, even when all the caffs have the microwave). A saveloy, with its tissue paper and English ketchup, is part of England for me, it goes with bitter beer, Cadbury chocolate, rain and railway arches, museums.
Gary
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