Category Archives: Testing Recipes

Cooking in the Baumfylde Kitchen

By Keri Sanburn Behre, Portland State University

I had the opportunity to lead a directed study for a graduating student last summer. The student had been interested in taking my early modern literature class focused on early modern women’s writing, but had not been able to fit it with her schedule. As I was planning a new paleography unit based on Mary Baumfylde’s manuscript for the class at the time, the student agreed to work alongside me as a test subject for the materials I had drafted in addition to other readings and assignments. As I embarked on my task, one of my guiding questions was “What is the value in actually preparing and trying the recipes from this manuscript?” With every task, it became increasingly clear that researching, preparing, and tasting/using these recipes led us to a level of close reading and immersion that would not have been achievable without our material engagement.

Transcription, Gathering, and Planning

Transcribing the recipe “A pultis to allay paines swellings or any anguish” with the goal of actual preparation required a degree of engagement that that the many transcriptions I had previously carried out did not. Understanding the ingredients became less about deciphering the what and more about comprehending the why.

A pultis to allay paines swellings
or any anguish.
Take straroberrie leaves, violett leaves
collumbine leaves, of and blynde nettles
of each a like quantitie, boyle them
in fayre water, and thicken itt
with oatemell and apply itt to
the place grieved as Warme as
you can suffer itt. 

Gerard’s Herbal addresses the topical application of both strawberry and violet leaves. According to that volume, strawberry leaves “taketh away the burning heate in wounds”[1] and violet leaves, “mitigate all kinde of hot inflammations.”[2] Columbine leaves are known for aiding sore throats and sluggish livers, but their topical application is not addressed.[3] And “blynde nettles” are not nettles at all. Gerard refers to them as Archangell, or “dead Nettle,”[4] a term used interchangeably with “blind nettle” for non-stinging nettles. As it turned out, the purple blind nettles, known colloquially as “red henbit,” is a plant very familiar to me, as it grows on the roadsides throughout my neighborhood in spring. This plant is, in fact, part of the mint family and is credited with anti-inflammatory properties both today and in Gerard’s Herbal, and so it makes sense in this poultice recipe.

The oatmeal with which Mary Baumfylde would have been familiar would have likely been “rough oats,” slightly finer than “pinhead oats,” which were cut in half and sifted to remove the floury substance.[5]Steel-cut oats come closest to approximating this texture, so these make the most sense for preparing this recipe. In the early modern period, oats would have been cooked slowly into a porridge using only water and salt.[6] Considering the moderate temperature of cast iron cooktops, this recipe should be done at a relatively low temperature on a gas or electric stove, so “boyle” almost certainly does not refer to rolling boil we think of today, but instead probably means something more proximate to “heat” or “cook.” By the end of my transcription, I had a plan: prepare oatmeal first, then gather all of my herbs fresh in a single morning or afternoon before compounding the poultice. It would be interesting to make a salve with these same herbs to try out the combination in a less perishable way.  

I had my next significant experience of connection with the text in venturing outside, clippers in hand, to seek out the plants I would need. The first two ingredients, strawberry leaves and violet leaves, were easily obtainable in my back yard. As I searched my back yard for the wild violets that I knew grew in the shade of my Japanese Maple tree, though, I began to appreciate the fact that the plants were small in the dryness of the Pacific Northwest late summer. I thought about the early modern women stewarding the herbs that grew nearby their homes and carefully removed only a few leaves from each plant, so as not to cause undue stress and to ensure the continued health of the herbs.

Finding columbine leaves and red henbit proved trickier in late summer: I don’t grow Columbine and couldn’t find “blind nettles” in my neighborhood park where I knew them to grow in other seasons. I could have tried my luck at a garden center, but I thought of the manuscript authors and instead paid a visit to my friend Rebecca and her sprawling forested land while we searched out and (again, carefully) gathered enough columbine leaves to prepare the recipe. Alas, though, it seemed that red henbit had fallen victim to either summer heat or hungry bunnies. I don’t believe seasonal unavailability would have stopped our early modern medicine-makers, so I prepared to carry out my plan without them.

Clockwise, from top-left: wild violet leaves, columbine leaves, strawberry leaves.

My day of gathering was deeply satisfying and connecting, both to the land and plants of my own yard, neighborhood, and my friend’s land, and to the women who wrote and read Mary Baumfylde’s book.

The transcription and planning process for my student, Kynna, was similarly broadening. She chose to prepare the recipe “How to Make Cheese Cakes.”

To Make Cheese Cakes
Take 6 qrts of new milk and one part of cream
Sett it as you do a cheese but in stead of – 
Warming the milk putt in as much hot water
As will make it fitt & when it is com’d brek itt
& pour it in to a Cloth & whey it between
two & when the whey is very well draind
take the curd & breake it with a pound
of fresh butter some mace & a pound of suger,
the yelks of 14 Eggs & whites of 8. Make
Them upon plates in a very good puff past
When they are risen & craterd they are enough.

This recipe is different because the ingredients were all relatively familiar to us: milk, cream, hot water, butter, mace, sugar, and puff pastry. However, there were some immediate procedural questions that Kynna had to understand in order to move forward. The recipe begins by instructing the cook to take the quantities of new milk and cream and “sett it as you do a cheese.” From reading Ruth Goodman’s How to be a Tudoras part of the class, she knew that cheesemaking was part of the daily household routine.[7] . However, it was during one of our early meetings that I guided her to picture something akin to cottage cheese or ricotta (not cheddar) as the product these women were making daily. Kynna observed that the experience made her realize how much rich knowledge the writers of the Baumfylde took for granted, and how much homesteading knowledge has been lost.

Kynna proceeded to research early modern methods for making basic cottage cheese in the library before confidently moving forth with her gathering and preparations. She also did some calculations and downscaled the recipe to 2/3, not having a kettle in her kitchen that could comfortably hold the requisite six quarts of milk and one quart of cream, plus an unknown amount of boiling water to make the cheese curdle. At this point, she expressed some concern over the final line of the recipe: “when they are risen and craterd they are enough.” She wondered whether she would know when they were sufficiently risen and catered, and precisely what “catered” meant, but moved toward her recipe preparation phase with a spirit of adventure nonetheless.

Recipe Preparation

Compounding the poultice at the stove with my 8-year-old son was the quickest and easiest part of my endeavor. First, we chopped the leaves I had gathered and measured one packed tablespoon of each type: strawberry, wild violet, and columbine. The next time I make this recipe I hope to use red henbit as well, and I will probably double the amounts I gather in order to also infuse some oil for a salve.

Next, we measured one cup of water and combined it with the chopped leaves on the stove over medium-low heat.

And then we waited for the heat to slowly bring the liquid to a simmer.

When a simmer was achieved, we added 1 and 1/4 cups of “oatemell.” I used cooked steel cut oats, as discussed above, because this type of porridge would have been on hand as the base for daily porridge in the early modern household.

We mixed these together with the heat still on.

After a few minutes to thicken, we spread the warm mixture thick on brown paper.

And applied it to “the place grieved” (an insect bite on my son’s arm) “as warme as [he could] suffer it.” My patient pronounced the remedy “weird,” but soothing. After a few minutes, some of the redness and itchiness had abated.

I dried a bundle of my carefully obtained columbine leaves in the event that they’re not available next time I want to make this recipe.

In her own kitchen, Kynna made cheese for the first time.

She proceeded to strain the cheese and mix up her cheesecake mix as instructed in the recipe.

She decided to bake them in a variety of pans to see which would best work as the “plates” the recipe calls for, and put them in an oven set to 325 degrees, figuring that by the afternoon (cheesemaking time), and after all the breads were baked, the temperature of the typical early modern oven would be on the lower side.

Kynna let them bake 20 minutes and then checked every three minutes after that, knowing they would finish at different times because of their different sizes. She was delighted when the smallest cake first appeared puffed and pocked with an uneven surface that looked like tiny craters: “risen and cratered.” As each cake took on this appearance, she removed it from the oven and set it to cool.

She explained her relief afterwards: “‘risen and cratered’ sounds vague, but it perfectly describes what it looks like when it’s done.” The cheesecakes came out quite delicious: less sweet than the cheesecakes to which we were both accustomed, but a nice, fluffy texture; creamy; and slightly lemony from the mace.

These experiences have given us both a unique and moving connection to the material culture of the period. I gained an appreciation for the plants I used, the community that brought them to me, the intensive planning and comprehension that goes into even a very simple and seemingly straightforward recipe, and the joy of preparing an old-fashioned remedy that brought some comfort (and levity) to my kiddo. It is notable to me, as someone who has studied the material culture of the period and prepared many recipes in the past, that the process of moving from handwritten manuscript to completed recipe engendered a deeper experience than transcribing one recipe and preparing another, exercises I’ve done many times. Kynna was moved in a similar way, working in her kitchen to comprehend and recreate the intricacies of cheese-making and baking practices that early modern cooks took for granted: “After doing the recipe, I knew I could read the words and trust that, when the time came, I would know what to do.” Our Baumfylde authors and readers were resourceful chemists, healers, and artists. By inhabiting this manuscript, Kynna and I understood and became these things too.

[1]Gerard, The Herbal,998.

[2]Gerard, The Herbal, 852.

[3]Gerard, The Herbal, 1095.

[4]Gerard, The Herbal, 704.

[5]Alan Davidson and Tom Jaine, eds., “oats,” The Oxford Companion to Food, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),550.

[6]Alan Davidson and Tom Jaine, eds., “porridge,” The Oxford Companion to Food, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),625.

[7]Ruth Goodman, How to be a Tudor(New York: Liveright/Norton, 2015),175-181.

 

What Wafers?

ingredients laid out for lemon wafers

These are not vanilla wafers. These are not chocolate wafers. These are, I learned as I read the recipe, a different type of sweet. Might Dawson have been using an alternative definition? The Oxford English Dictionary defines wafers as we would today, describing them as “light, crisp cakes” or, in religious contexts, the Eucharistic host (Wafer, 1.a, 2). Dawson’s wafers lack a crucial wafer ingredient: flour. My sous chef and I forged ahead undaunted, but aware that making candy without a thermometer is challenging. More challenging still was our very un-English weather in North Carolina: 78 degrees, 84 percent humidity, and a falling barometer predicting rain. In short, not great candy making weather.

A few things caught my eye as I re-read: removing the wafers from paper using water, and the utter lack of any guidance in terms of the amount of sugar or lemon juice to be used. In the era of parchment paper, Silpats, and any number of nonstick sprays prying items off the pan is generally evidence of our own lack of preparation. For early cooks, however, options likely would have been more limited. Wetting the “rong side” of the paper to release something on its surface seemed like a practical trick that could be applied in other projects. I took the lack of guidelines for amounts as the chance to cook just using my eyes and the feel of the ingredients as we scooped and stirred.

The sugar left me with just a comparison for guidance- “the thickness of hunny.” In the first attempt, I imagined this as runny honey: my first mistake. The ratio of liquid to sugar was far too high. I cooked the juice of a lemon with sugar combined to the “runny honey” consistency in a small, non-stick pan over medium heat on an electric stove. Since I didn’t consider that this might be referring to a butter mint-style candy wafer, I skipped immediately to candy cooked to the hard ball (read: very clear and crisp) state. It is impossible to make this type of candy without boiling the mixture, so after a quick check of the OED to be sure I wasn’t missing some past definition of boil, I chose to ignore that direction. Perhaps she meant not to let it scorch?

This first attempt was a failure, as with the low amount of sugar, the mixture was a thick syrup and would not harden.

Effort two used the same mix but with longer cooking, this time in a metal spoon over the heat (I took Dawson rather literally here, to my peril!). No crisping and still a syrupy mess.

I decided to massively increase the sugar to more of a crystalized honey texture.

Bingo. The third wafer, also made in the spoon, took on some color and had a toffee-like consistency on the paper. Progress. For the next one, I let it go much longer, taking on a distinct golden color. My hope was to judge it to be at the hard ball stage. It’s possible to do this by putting a bit of the mix into cold water to see if a firm ball forms, but I got a bit distracted at this stage and forgot to check. Instead, knowing it takes a while to reach the appropriate temperature, I just let it boil significantly longer, to good effect. The third wafer was truly a crisp caramel sheet, which could be bent and its paper support pinned to give it a curve. This fourth wafer was so nicely crystalized that it slipped rather easily off the parchment lining, though I did paint some water on the back to help it along. This strategy seems promising with sweet foods.

I’m struck, in retrospect, with how much making this recipe today relies on analogy. Because I didn’t have the wafer candy Lisa used as a referent, I ended up with only my knowledge of grain-based wafers to go on, which was completely unhelpful. Since so much is left to prior knowledge, finding the right contemporary model to bridge this lack of period knowledge was crucial. While what I made was edible, tasty even, I think I’d use Lisa’s technique were I to try them again!

Dawson Cooking in the Smith Household

Assistant number 1, reporting for service. She agreed to have the photos made public.

My assistant stood ready with the tools: the time had come to try the recipe for lemon wafers from Jane Dawson’s book. I opted to use my mother-in-law’s plate warmer and a ceramic bowl in place of the chafing dish and coals.

Interpreting the Recipe

When deciding how to intepret the recipe, I imagined the lemon wafer as a candy–what else could sugar and lemon juice be? But there was a lot of assumed knowledge in Dawon’s recipe. To prepare, I looked at similar candy recipes, such Fanny Farmer’s peppermints in Chafing Dish Possibilities (1914), and Frederick Nutt’s wafers in The Complete Confectioner (1807). I also consulted my mother, who–as a child–had regularly made candies with her mother. I hypothesised two things: (1) the paper in Dawson’s recipe was probably wafer paper, which was widely used in confectionary and medicines and easily purchasable in an early modern urban environment; (2) whatever her ambiguous language, Dawson was probably not holding the spoon over the chafing to cook the mixture, but rather using the spoon as a tool to check thickness and doneness.

Lemon squeezing.

Honey Thick

The assistant squeezed the lemon juice for half a lemon, which came to 2 tbsp. Unfortunately, there was an accidental overturn of the juice. The remaining lemon juice, plus the other half of the lemon came to 2 tbsp. Based on Fanny Farmer’s measurements, I guessed that about 6 tbsp of sugar would be needed. The mix, however, was nowhere near the thickness of raw honey. I added another, which seemed just about right. But as my back was turned, Assistant number 1–a honey connoisseur–took matters into her own hands and added an eighth. She was right: it was a much better honey thickness.

Let it be of the thickness of huney.

The Assistants Go Missing

By 9:30, it was time to start stirring. It went on for quite a while. Assistant number 1 disappeared under the table after stirring for a few minutes. She also snuck a taste and said it tasted like lemon sorbet. I snuck a taste and agreed. Assistant number 2 took over stirring for about 10 minutes, but grew bored. The assistants disappeared to read The Tiger Who Came to Tea. And I was left alone to the tedious stirring. And more tedious stirring. Every now and then, I observed that the sugar was a little more melted and the mixture a tiny bit thicker. I also decided that turning a bowl to stir was as much to keep me awake as it was to ensure even mixing. But it was a slow business; clearly the warming plate was not as hot as a chafing dish over coals. Dawson’s insistence to ‘let it not boil

The long stir.

Touch

And then about a half-hour into stirring, everything happened quickly! The mixture suddenly thickened. It was stiff, sticking to the spoon. On touching the spoon, it was ‘crisp on the side of the spoon’ — as in starting to solidify. It is less visible to the eye than it was to the touch.

Till it is crisp on the side of the spoon.

Making Wafers

For the next step, I had precut a couple squares of wafer paper. ‘4 Square’ was an early modern way of describing a rectangle with four equal sides (i.e. a square), but just in case the four was significant, I cut two pieces 4×4 inches. Although I used only half the recipe, there was too much in the bowl for only two pieces of paper. Assistant 2 was recruited back into action to cut similar sized pieces.

Things were chaotic at this point. Fanny Farmer notes that you need to work rapidly to drop the candies from the tip of the spoon onto buttered paper. Frederick Nutt does not mention speed, but describes putting spoonfuls onto the wafer papers and covering the sheets all over. As Assistant 2 sliced more papers, I tried to drop the wafers. The goal of spreading the mixture all over the paper was a bit optimistic, as the wafers hardened quickly once dropped.


When itt is melted Spred it on a paper out 4 Square.

Lessons learned:

  • Did I let it cook slightly too long?
  • Was I not working quickly enough?
  • Did I have too much in the spoon?

I suspect that it is a combination of them. There was too much in the spoon, as I had underestimated how quickly I’d need to spread it–and how far one spoonful would actually go. It is also possible that it remained too long on the heat when I stopped to take pictures of the crisping on the spoon!


then pin two Corners together that it may bend like other wafers

The next step was to pin two corners together to give the wafer some shape. Thinly spread wafers would be pretty, but mine were a bit chunky.

Dawson then instructs us to let the wafers dry. Many of Frederick Nutt’s recipes, however, call for the wafers to be put in a hot stove for a day to curl and to harden. I divided the wafers in half: half to dry naturally and half in a warm stove. Leaving the stove on all day is not an option for me, so I decided to treat three wafers like meringues. I thought this was probably a bad idea, being that the wafers are just sugar and juice. Still, I figured I could pull them out quickly when needed.

Assistant 1, however, required some immediate attention. By the time I made it back to the stove, the kitchen smelled delicious, but all that remained of the wafers was a pile of toffee-esque goo. There were at least three remaining. By 1:00 p.m., they were already hardening, but the bottoms were still a bit soft. When lightly shifting the paper, it looked like a lot of wafer was sticking.

Some of the dissolving paper.

Dawon’s final instruction was to ‘wett th​e​ rong side of the papers with watter’ to remove the paper. With wafer paper, this works very well. Sponging the paper helps to dissolve it or at least loosen it from the wafer, ensuring that the wafers (with luck) retain their shape!

The results!

But what would you eat these with? They taste a bit like the fizzy sour sugar on gummies, or (as Assistant 1 put it) candied pineapple. Food historian Ivan Day discusses wafers in ‘The Art of Confectionery’ (http://www.historicfood.com/TheArtofConfectionery.pdf), suggesting that they were likely intended to be served with ices (p. 26)–which sounds like a fine flavour pairing! We’ll be having ours with strawberry ice cream.

Conclusions

This recipe, which can be done with a small, portable heat source is a great one for the classroom–or as Hillary Nunn put it on Twitter, ‘Dorm-room Dawson’. Students can discuss the significance of producing a small quantity using a small heat source; the method of production certainly fits with Amanda Herbert’s description of women using moveable candy stoves to make small amounts of confectionary in their bedrooms (pp. 83-84).  From start to finish, one batch could be made within an hour–even if it would not be ready for tasting that day.

The recipe also depends on assumed knowledge. Perhaps it could be done by holding one spoon at a time over the heat, but it would be time-consuming–and stirring plays an important role in similar confectionary recipes. Dawson’s insistence to ‘let it not boyle’ also doesn’t make much sense for a single spoon, but does when dealing with an entire bowl. For the paper, I would strongly advise using wafer-paper, which was commonly used for confectionary and dissolves with water, which is important when dealing with delicate wafers. At the very least, buttered greaseproof paper to prevent sticking might be a reasonable substitute, especially if you decided to make small wafers more akin to flat candies.

The sensory and measurement aspects of the recipe are also intriguing. What is the thickness of honey? How warm is a chafing dish of coals? What is crisp on the side of the spoon? Using water to remove the paper also makes a lot more sense when you work with wafer paper, which dissolves, unlike other types of paper. When it comes to measurement, paper size is also important. 4×4 inches is about right–anything larger will create a much larger wafer that falls apart easily and anything too small will make a stubby candy. Dawson is also specific in how to wrap the wafer: pin the two corners together, not sides.

Without filling in the gaps of assumed knowledge, Dawson’s recipe would be very difficult to follow. The results were also mixed. In my mind’s eye, I envisioned a thin, crispy wafer, curled at the edges. That was the one that broke most easily when removing the paper. Fortunately, even broken wafers can also serve a useful purpose as ice cream topping! The smaller (or even broken) wafers, also suit the modern palate better, as the sugar can be overpowering. They are not beautiful, but the small ones are easier to handle and hold their shape best.

Would I make them again? Definitely! I’d cook it on the stove top at home the next time, but the recipe’s portability makes it a useful one for classroom demonstration. It is an easy taste of the past to sample and would be especially fine during summer. Assistant number 1, in any case, has already asked to have them again.

Modified Instructions

Take the juice of half a lemon (2 tbsp) and add to it 8 tbsp of sugar. It should be the thickness of raw honey. Mix together over a heat source. Keep stirring, but do not let it boil. After a while, it will begin to thicken and stick to the spoon. It should be on the verge of becoming solid and will be clumpy. And it will, if you touch the side of the spoon, even feel slightly crispy!  Work quickly to drop the mixture on the papers. Fold corner to corner, so it looks like a taco shell inside. Pin together. Let set.

If using very low heat, such as a plate warmer, it will take more time to cook–perhaps half an hour. It will go very quickly on a stove top.

If half a lemon makes at least six thicker wafers (two good-sized and four smaller ones), I would expect a yield of at least twelve for the full recipe–especially if the wafers were spread a bit more thinly. Have at least twenty pieces of 4×4 inch paper ready, just in case it yields more.

Jane Dawson Cook-Along

During the transcribathon, the Medical Heritage Library came up with a genius idea: would we do a Jane Dawson Cook Along? The answer to that is a resounding YES!

So, here’s what we’re going to do. Over the next week (22-30 September), some members of the EMROC Steering Committee will try out this recipe for Lemon Wafers.

Take duble refined Suger beatt & dryed & sifted and mix with
it Juce of a lemmon let it be of the thickness of huney & take some
of it in a Spoone & heatd it over a chafin-dish of coles till it be
crisp on th​e​ side of the spoone let it not boyle: when itt is melted
Spred it on a paper out 4 Square: & then pin two Corners together
that it may bend like other wafers; & so lett it dry when you take
them of wett th​e​ rong side of the papers with watter

Jane Dawson, V.b.14, p. 47.

Our assignment will be to take notes of how we decide to interpret the recipe, the ingredients we select, the modern tools we use, the weather conditions (temperature, wind, barometric pressure), the altitude… and anything else that might be relevant in how our recipe turns out. We’ll also taste test (of course!). You can follow our experiments on Twitter as we do them (#EMROCcooks), though we’ll also do an easy-to-read round-up for you afterwards.

Would you like to be involved in the Jane Dawson Cook Along?

We’d LOVE for you to join in. There are three ways to participate in our cook along over the next week:

  • try the same recipe for lemon wafers;
  • test out another one of Dawson’s recipes that intrigues you (full book here);
  • join in the discussion of the EMROC community’s cooking experiments.

Let us know about your kitchen project on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, blog comments, or e-mail (lisa.smith@essex.ac.uk). Our hashtag for all Dawson Cook-Along projects will be #EMROCcooks.

We can’t wait to see what you cook up!