Poulpette à l’Italienne

Add a drop of Peau d’Espagne to either a bit of warm, freshly brewed tea or spirits and pour over dried Grapes of Corinth to plump them up. Make a farce of finely chopped meat to which you add grated Parmesan, pinions and your plumped raisins and any leftover liquid. Mix well and shape into flat, boat shaped poulpettes [meatballs]; flour and brown in butter. Arrange in a baking dish and pour over a coulis of Partridge [I used browned chicken broth and used it to deglaze the fond from the pan used to brown the poulpettes]. Bake until hot and bubbly and serve immediately.

The Peau d’Espagne will embue your kitchen with aromas redolent of eastern bazaars—heady and delicious!* * * * *
Poulpette à l’Italienne.
Vous faites une farce cuite à l'ordinaire, point trop fine, & liée d'œufs, de bon goût; vous mettez dedans Parmesan rapé, pignons, raisins de Corinthe entiers; vous mélez bien le tout, & vous roulez vos Poulpettes comme des croquettes, mais plates, & le farinez; vous avez une tourtiere, vous mettez du beurre dedans, & le faites fondre, & arrangez les Poulpettes dedans, & les faites cuire des deux côtés vous faites un bord au plat de la même farce, & le faites cuire; & étant cuit, vous arrangez vos Poulpettes dedans, & vous avez un appareil de peau d'Espagne à l'ordinaire avec un coulis de Perdrix passé à l'Italienne, vous plissez votre plat & les mettez prendre au four, étant cuits, servez chaud; une demie heure au four.

Le Cuisinier Gascon. A Amsterdam. 1740, p.29.

Peau d'Espagne

Peau d’Espagne is a combination of flower and spice oils that is used to impregnate leather with scent. To further enhance the exotic smell, civet (cat musk) and grain musk (obtained from the wild deer whose grain [gland] you see here) are added to gum (tragacanth) mucilage which is used to secure two pieces of leather together under pressure. The resulting Spanish Leather is then used to scent writing paper, ladies gloves & linens—the scent is reputed to last for years. However, the peau d’Espagne can also be used to add flavor to meat dishes.

In the kitchen, use a drop of oil in a carrier oil, such as olive, poured over a dish at the last minute prior to serving, much as one does orange or rose flower water—the heat of the dish will waft a delightfully exotic aroma. Or it can be added to warm tea or spirits used to plump up dried fruit before its inclusion in a receipt.

To scent one’s body, perhaps, is its best use today …

«This fragrance lingers on everything it touches like a rugged kiss from a cowboy soaked in campfire smoke and saddle leather sweat. It smells like the sexiest man you've ever seen in your life, taking a hot outdoor bath in a tin tub, smeared with sweet shaving lather and dust, steaming on a cold high-desert morning.»

«More specifically, according to Havelock Ellis:
“Peau d'Espagne may be mentioned as a highly complex and luxurious perfume, often the favorite scent of sensuous persons, which really owes a large part of its potency to the presence of the crude animal sexual odors of musk and civet. It consists of wash-leather steeped in ottos of neroli, rose, santal, lavender, verbena, bergamot, cloves, and cinnamon, subsequently smeared with civet and musk. It is said by some, probably with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of all perfumes that which most nearly approaches the odor of a woman's skin; whether it also suggests the odor of leather is not so clear”.»

«1355. Peau d'Espagne, or Spanish Skin, is merely highly-perfumed leather. Take of oil of rose, neroli, and santal, each 1/2 ounce; oil of lavender, verbena, bergamot, each 1/4 ounce; oil of cloves and cinnamon, each 2 drachms; in this dissolve 2 ounces gum benzoin. In this steep good pieces of waste leather for a day or two, and dry it over a line. Prepare a paste by rubbing in a mortar, 1 drachm of civet with 1 drachm of grain musk, and enough gum-tragacanth mucilage to give a proper consistence. The leather is cut up into pieces about 4 inches square; two of these are pasted together with the above paste, placed between 2 pieces of paper, weighted or pressed until dry. It may then be inclosed in silk or satin. It gives off its odor for years; is much used for perfuming paper, envelopes, etc.; for which purpose 1 or 2 pieces of the perfumed leather, kept in the drawer or desk containing the paper, will impart to it a fine and durable perfume.»
Encyclopedia Of Practical Receipts And Processes, by William B. Dick.

Receipt de Cuisine:
Used in Poulpette à l’Italienne – Italian Meatballs

Exotic Ingredients - Their Receipts & Lores

Today, with our often times bland tastebud experiences, the idea of eating a dish with exotic ingredients, e.g., tastes that we associate with perfumery, may seem off-putting. With this post, I will be creating a sidebar to include exotic ingredients, their receipts for manufacture, lore and links to 18thC recipes in which they were included.

Greens of Summer

In my bowl are greens with sometimes funny names--pigweed, lamb's quarters, corn salat, dandelion, chickories. With them I can make stewed pot herbs, fresh salad, fried greens for inclusion in an omelette, a sandwich. Some can be brewed as tisanes.

Estragon - Tarragon

Estragon: plante potagere, d’un goût âcre & aromatique qu’on emploie en cuisine, & les sommités, sur-tout les plus tendres, dans les fournitures des salades.

OBSERVATION MÉDECINALE.
Cette plante fournit un assaisonnement fort sain; elle augmente l’appetit, facilite la digestion, préserve les humeurs de putridité, ou la corrige; fait périr les vers; est legérement apéritive & calmante.

Tarragon: plant potagere, of a bitter & aromatic taste which one employs in kitchen, & the buds, especially most tender, in the supplies of salads.

MEDICINAL OBSERVATION.
This plant provides an extremely healthy seasoning; it increases the appetite, facilitates digestion, preserves moods of putridity, or corrects it [acid tisane]; purges worms; is slightly apéritive & calming.* * * * *
Dictionnaire Portatif de Cuisine, d'Office, et de Distillation. Chez Vincent, Paris 1767, p. 263.* * * * *

«An old French remedy for insomnia and hyperactivity that's been tried with pretty good success is tarragon tea. Tarragon tea is used for tough insomnia. Just steep 1-1/2 tsp. of the dried, cut herb in 1-3/4 cups boiling water, covered and away from the heat, for 40 minutes. Prepare about an hour before retiring, then strain and drink the tea while it's still lukewarm.

The best way to take tarragon for digestive-related problems is in the form of a homemade vinegar, 1 tbsp. before each meal. To make tarragon vinegar, fill a wide-mouthed fruit jar with the freshly gathered leaves, picked just before the herb flowers, on a dry day. Pick the leaves off the stalks and dry a little on a flat cookie sheet lined with foil in a low-set oven.

Medicinal uses - A simple infusion of tarragon leaves has been used to stimulate the appetite, relieve flatulence and colic, regulate menstruation, alleviate the pain of arthritis and rheumatism and gout, and expel worms from the body. The fresh leaf or root, applied to aching teeth, cuts, or sores, is said to act as a local anesthetic.

Culinary uses - Tarragon is essential in the making of Béarnaise sauce, hollandaise sauce, Montpellier butter, sauce tartare, salad dressings and vinaigrettes. It is always included in French fines herbes mixtures.

Use tarragon leaves to flavor fish, shellfish, poultry, meat dishes, particularly veal, creamy soups, omelets, quiche, and delectable oeufs en gelee, as well as spinach and mushroom dishes. As it takes but a few minutes' cooking time to release tarragon's flavor, add the leaves when your dish is just about ready to serve.»

Cited from: Herbs 2000

Spinage-pan-pie.

A Spinage-pan-pie.
Take Spinage-leaves, and scald them in Water, or else stew them in an earthen Pot, with half a Glass of white Wine, to take away their Crudity. As soon as the Wine is consum’d, let the Spinage be drain’d, and chopt very small, season’d with a little Salt, Cinnamon, Sugar, Lemmon-peel, two Macaroons* (Macarons) and sweet Butter. Them let them be put into fine Paste, and cover’d with Slips of cut Pastry-work; adding some Sugar and Orange-flower (water), as it is serving up to Table.

The court & country cook, faithfully translated out of French into English by J. K. A. J. Churchill, London, 1702, p. 261.* * * * **A tablespoon of flour mixed with the sugar will work well if you have no macarons. Because of the flavor achieved from the macaron (usually ground almonds or other nutmeats), add a grating of nutmeg or a drop of almond oil.

Again, we usually don't think of spinach with sugar, but this is delicious, either for dessert or as a side dish.

Tisane - an herbal brew

The Tisane Seller, Françoise DuParc

On this day of protest, I bring you a medicinal brew, a tisane*, used in place of that once heavily taxed tea.

«You are cordially invited to An Independence Tea Party.

On October 25, 1774, fifty-one ladies of Edenton, North Carolina, were called together by Penelope Barker and met in the home of Elizabeth King to express their indignation over the newly imposed British tax on tea. The ladies vowed (while sipping tea made from raspberry leaves) that: "We, the ladies of Edenton, do hereby solemnly engage not to conform to the Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea."»

* * * * *Invitation quoted from The Military Wives' Cookbook, Carolyn Quick Tillery. Cumberland House Publishing, Nashville, TN, 2008, p. 5.

*[Middle English tisane, peeled barley, barley water, from Old French, from Latin ptisana, tisana, from Greek ptisanē, from ptissein, to crush.]

As Those Tea Parties Brew …

Detail, Lady Taking Tea, Chardin


Back in 1773, the powers that be imposed an unpopular tax on tea. The colonists, already seething with rebellion over taxation without representation, dumped a boatload of the stuff into Boston Harbor in protest.

Today it appears that we have not learned the lessons of history--our leaders are once again heaping unfair taxes upon us--so it's time once again to proclaim liberty!

Tourte of franchipanne

Take the fairest flowre you can get, and allay it with whites of eggs. Presently take the twelfth part of your paste, and spread it untill you may see through it. Butter your plate or tourte pan, spread this first sheet, dress it up, butter it at the top, and do the same to the number of six. Then put what cream you will, and make the top as the bottom to the number of six sheets. Bake your tourte leasurely, After it is baked, besprinkle it with water of flowers, sugar it well and serve.
You must have a care to work up your paste as soon as it is made, because it drieth up sooner than you are aware, and when it is dry, it is unusefull, because your sheets must be as thin as cobwebs, therefore you must choose a moist place.* * * * *The French Cook, François Pierre La Varenne, Englished in 1653, p. 200.

Basically this is describing using phyllo dough, and the adjuration to work it in a moist place is imperative. Thaw your dough in the fridge and place your 12 sheets of dough between waxed paper with a moist towel laid over the top. Remove one sheet at a time and recover the rest immediately. Lay your dough in a pan and brush with melted butter, one layer at a time.
Prepare a mixture of 5 oz of pounded almonds, 4 oz of sugar and 2 eggs. Pour into your pan and cover with 6 more layers of dough brushed with melted butter. You could also use beurre cream or a cream cheese mixture with sugar and eggs.
Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes; then reduce temperature to 400°F and bake for 10-20 minutes more until golden brown and a broom straw inserted in the center comes out clean.
Removed from oven and sprinkle with orange or rose flower water and a sprinkle of sugar. Cool, slice and serve.

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine …

It seems the way to a man's heart has always been through his stomach. If the lady who supplies the bread and honeyed wine is also good in other wifely arts, so much the better.

Here is a plate of barley bread & goat cheese with honey, served with that infamous Pramnian wine in honor of Novel Food, an event celebrating food immortalized in prose or poetry, and a dish that Circe served Odysseus, hoping to tempt him to stay.

While my Homer eschewed the wine, he thoroughly enjoyed the honeyed cheese and barley bread baked on the griddle. He liked it so much, he has requested that I bake them again for Days of Unleavened Bread.

Barley Bread.
Take leftover mashed potatoes or other root vegetable, add a little milk and enough barley flour to make a soft dough--adjust taste with more salt if needed. Stir or knead, cover and allow to rest for about an hour.

Heat griddle to medium heat. Prepare several pats of butter or clarified butter to grease griddle.

Roll out dough, cut into circles, squares or triangles and fry on both sides on buttered griddle. Adding a cover to the griddle will help with baking the bread all the way through. The vegetables in the dough help the dough stay fresh and moist.

Serve with butter, cheese, jam or honey.