Historical Culinary Reconstruction

Name: Carl Garris
Date and Time:

[[#x-Breadmaking and Breadmolding-2017.[September].[27] - 2017.[October].[2]]]2017.[September].[17]

10 am - 1 pm
Location: Apartment at 121st and Broadway
Subject: Historical Culinary Reconstruction


First, Reut and I selected a seventeenth-century custard recipe and acquired the ingredients: almonds, eggs, heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract (substituted for rosewater, due to a misunderstanding of its modern use as a culinary agent).

We educed the recipe by half so that we wouldn't produce more custard than we could cook in our oven.
We boiled a pot of water and then added a pound of almonds to the boiling water. We let it remain there for 1 minute
We strained the almonds into the bowl. Reut then peeled them while I did photography. The intensive element of this labor reinforced the luxury of the custard dish to us.
Even more so, we were impressed by the difficult to beating the almonds by hand. Not having a hammer an pestle, we attempted using household implements including a can and bowl, but our attempts to beat the almonds by hand was a failure
In the interest of producing an edible product, we decided to use a modern foox processor to beat the almonds for five minutes, stopping every minute to add 1/5 of our pound of almonds to the processor. We added 1 tea spoon of vanilla extract which surprisingly served to make the almonds break down more easily. We beat for three minutes then added another tea spoon of vanilla extract. We separated egg whites from yolks in a bowl and then added one quart of heavy cream. By hand, we mixed them together, then added 1/2 pound of sugar and mixed that together by hand. We strained it into a bowl using a strainer and then cooked it for thirty minutes on 350 (which we used for a mild heat--likely a mistake, but the custard still turned out edible).

For those coming after us, it is worth noting that the word "pottle" can mean both a unit of measurement as well as a small pot. Go with whatever makes sense in context.

If I were to do this experiment again, I would use actual rosewater instead of vanilla extract. I would be curious to see if rosewater aided in the grinding process like the vanilla extract did.