September 4, 2014

Diana Mellon
"Excellente moustarde," BnF Ms Fr 640

~three historical research questions~ [see September 5 and 9 below for recipe reconstruction notes]

1. what is the immediate context for these ingredients? the following make other appearances within this same manuscript:

moustarde
113v sand casting
“Having the water in your dish, add the sand and not the other way around [by adding the water to the sand], and adjust it with such attentiveness that, while mixing it vigorously and wetting it quickly with a wooden spoon, it does not become thicker than mustard. And in such a way cast [i.e., pour] first the clearest part, as is always at the top, by shaking it a little higher in your mold.”

89v white glassmakers’ sand mixed with ammonia salt
“You must grind it very finely on a porphyry with gummed water or pure water, then apply a thick coat (as thick as mustard or a little bit thicker) over the medal, which has already been lightly rubbed with oil, walnut oil or, even better, aspic oil.”

121v casting in silver [animals—mold material]
“And stir it with your palette so that it all becomes like a thick sauce or light mustard.”

• observation: mustard seems to have had a relatively thick texture that would have been generally familiar to the intended reader, as it is used as a standard for density in this manuscript

girofle
46r for the teeth, some sulphur oil
“Sulphur oil bites and is corrosive, but it is softens by the clove oil [lhuile] and rose honey.”

47r for teeth
“It is true that it has a bad smell but you can add some rosat honey and cinnamon or clove oil.”

71r sweet and burned wine
“When the wine is enough burned, heat it a bit more and add a few cloves and enough sugar.”

• observation: clove, sometimes along with cinnamon, honey and/or sugar, seems to have been used by this author to sweeten or improve taste

2. what might the tools used for our recipe have looked like?

some equipment ideas from Bartolomeo Scappi’s culinary treatise Opera (1570):
https://archive.org/details/operavenetiascap00scap

Screen Shot 2014-09-04 at 11.50.23 PM.png

"passano sapori" (the flavors pass through?)

• are the two figures on the right straining something through cloth?
• this might help us with our recipe's instructions to "passe tout par lestamine" or "pass everything through a cloth strainer"

Screen Shot 2014-09-04 at 11.53.24 PM.png

"grata noci moschiate" (nutmeg grater?)

• could there have been a grater like this one for cinnamon and other spices?
• our recipe didn't specify the form of the cinnamon and clove it calls for, but comparison to other usages of these ingredients suggests they should be ground

"A.T., practitioner in physicke," author of _A rich store-house or treasury for the diseased..., 1596 (EEBO), writing on a poultice and plaster with mustard seeds, mentions a “Mustard Querne” as something to grind in
http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99853291

BnF Ms Fr 640, 90v on potters’ clay: “Grind it in a mustard mill with water, [and] it will become as fine as possible.”


3. what was the larger social, political and religious context of this recipe?

Ch. de Robillard de Beaurepaire, Cahiers des États de Normandie sous le règne de Henri IV. Tome 2 (1602-1609, but this volume is more recent) (GALLICA)
describes a 1606 declaration regulating professional “moutardiers” in the area near Rouen on pages 283 and 284:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/Search?adva=1&adv=1&tri=&t_relation=cb341030166&q=moutardiers+cahiers

Screen Shot 2014-09-05 at 12.26.02 AM.png

[jump in text]

Screen Shot 2014-09-05 at 12.24.17 AM.png

these regulations happened in response to this problem (p 282):

Screen Shot 2014-09-05 at 12.30.28 AM.png

see also religious connotations: Matthew 12:31-32 (the parable of the mustard seed and the yeast)

_

September 5, 2014

Diana Mellon
"Excellente moustarde," BnF Ms Fr 640
Trial 1, with Yijun Wang

our ingredients and tools, and why:

• yellow mustard seeds are a bit easier to grind than black mustard seeds, and both were available in medieval Europe
• cinnamon sticks
• cloves
• bread - we chose a "natural" commercial whole wheat loaf... what kind of bread would have been used for this recipe? perhaps old bread, since it is thrown away in the end? what was bread like in 16th-century France? it is difficult to understand how much the type of bread used matters in this particular recipe
• wine - other recipes call for must, or grape juice which has not yet been fermented, which we could not obtain in time, so we chose a 2012 wine from the Bordeaux region, which was producing wine in the 16th century
• oven - gas oven... how much does this matter? drying the bread over wood would definitely lend a smoky flavor, but how much would translate to the mustard once the bread is strained out?
• mortar & pestle - decided on this common grinding tool and found an inexpensive one made of green marble... nevertheless, it was so hard to grind the mustard seeds! we had to take only a small portion at a time, or perhaps they used a better grinding device?
• cheesecloth - 100% cotton cheesecloth with no dyes or additives, perhaps thinner than a "tamis" cloth, which might have been used by our author... a "tamis" cloth was usually made of wool and is thicker than a cheesecloth - a "tamis" according to Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (London, 1611) can be made of "haire"

outcomes:

• grinding the mustard seeds in the mortar is extremely tiring! was there another way?
• our end result is not particularly appetizing: it's pungent and watery, and the seeds and wine don't seem to have gelled together.
  • one taste and we don't want any more!
• what to eat this with?

thoughts on reconstruction, so far:

• it seems there is a balance to find between reconstructing precisely the historic conditions, tools, ingredients, knowledge base, and frame of mind, on the one hand, and retaining common sense and the capacity to find the swiftest solution, which craftsmen in the past most likely also had! for example: should we fret over finding the specific type of bread which would have been used in this recipe, or was any old bread on hand used, since it seems to be in the recipe for texture and is ultimately strained out?
• conducting the recipe in real time allows smells, colors and textures to unfold in sequence in a way I could not have imagined. for example, the ground spices' aromas are suddenly activated more than they were when the spices were whole. then, the addition of red wine amplifies, joins and sweetens these strong scents. both of us stood there saying, "it smells soooo goood!" to each other at this step in the process, which was a big change from our interaction with the stubborn and tiny mustard seeds as we tried, frustrated, to grind them finely in the mortar.

what to try next time:

• let's see if we can make this watery mustard soup come together... here are some ideas:
  • let the bread soak longer in wine, so the wine takes up more of its yeasty texture
  • grind the mustard seeds more finely, so that they become muddy when wet with wine and create a thicker paste
  • use fewer mustard seeds, so the taste isn't as strong, and so we are physically capable of grinding them!
  • use a bit less wine, to make it less liquid?

_

September 8, 2014

Diana Mellon
"Excellente moustarde," BnF Ms Fr 640
Trial 2, with Yijun Wang & Michelle Lee

modifications from our first attempt:

• using 1/2 cup less wine
• letting spices and bread soak in wine for 20 minutes instead of 0 minutes
• the bread is older now, so a bit stiffer, though we will "dry" it in the oven for the same amount of time
• trying to grind the mustard seeds more, and now sifting them through a metal sieve to catch husks and make end product finer
• doing a trial with an electric spice grinder (for the mustard seeds), just for comparison

results:

• the bread/spice/wine mixture is somehow extremely difficult to strain through the cheesecloth, even though we are only straining through one layer of cheesecloth rather than two (last time)... why is this the case? is it because we let the mixture absorb into the bread longer?
• as a result of this much thicker paste, what is strained through the cheesecloth is much more pasty and less liquid than last time. in fact, the texture resembles mustard as we know it today. the difficulty of squeezing the mixture through the cheesecloth does not seem right, though--we are able to extract only very little from the mixture
• our final product has a good texture but is extremely small in quantity.
• we end up using only a small portion of the ground mustard seeds, and the taste is still very strong
• overall, our final mustard is still rather unpleasant to eat! must is sweeter than fully fermented red wine, so perhaps this would have lent sweetness to the mustard? we try mixing honey into the mustard and it tastes much better. we would recommend adding honey or sugar since must is not readily available!

excellente moustarde.pptx