Tag Archives: Chewits

EVERY DISH HAS A PAST II

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HALL TAVERN COOK-OFF

Recap – Sunday night we had a meet-and-greet at a wonderful local tavern for those who traveled far to Sandra Oliver’s workshop in Deerfield. The next day was all work and Sandy led the pack through a course on recipe research.

After several days it was time to head over to Hall Tavern and put our research to use. Claire had purchased all our ingredients and we were off and running, in many directions, finding pots and pans, spices and flour. It was a busy scene.

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I had eggs to boil, forced meatballs to make, chicken to partially fry, herbs and spices to put together and gravy to make. Then on to the coffin, and that is where the disaster began. I had all the right amounts and began working the pastry. Barbara Blumenthal was at the same table making a crust for an apple pie. I’m not sure who said it first but it looked like I was making a sand castle. The rye flour would not absorb the liquid it was like grains of sand. I pushed, beat, and molded and it continued to fall apart. I added more hot water and butter and it almost worked. I rolled it out and it cracked every time I tried to raise the pye. Well, I was determined not to let this stop me from making my coffin. Into the wastebasket it went. I got a bag of unbleached flour and started all over. As I’m working the new batch, Sandy comes over to see what might have happened. She grabbed a handful of the first pastry out of the garbage and put it in a bowl and played with it.

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Sure enough she likened it to rye grain and not flour at all. I was happy to know it was not just me who thought that. So I hurried along so the coffin would cook in time for the meal.

I raised a quick pastry wall and stuffed it with all the filling and on to a peel to be placed directly on the floor in the bake oven along with the apple pie and the gingerbread.

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It took about one and a half hours to bake the coffin hard. Sandie and I worked together to retrieve it from the oven and I cut the top to reveal a well-cooked coffin that tasted as good as it looked.4

With all hands busy, it was hard to get photographs of everyone. However, I did manage to get some. Here we have Barbara working on the apples for the pie with Sandy looking on and Mary Lou making her gingerbread.6-copy

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Here we see Elyse, who made a wonderful salmon soup, and Terri, who made a wilted salad of bacon and spinach.9jpg

Bill made a Tharîda with Lamb and Spinach, Moist Cheese and Butter, Don who spent time showing us some of his rare cookbooks at the workshop made a stuffed pudding that I want the receipt for.8-jpg

 

Erica made scotch collops and they were not Scottish at all we learned. Fiona made sugarplum that danced in our mouths with joy.7-copy

I wish I had more pictures of the other cooks and their food; however one can’t be everywhere, although we sometimes try.

As a side note, the wonderful copper pots and some of the other equipment were donated to Historic Deerfield by a friend of mine, Paul, I know he is smiling knowing that we put them to task and they worked to our advantage in making the food come out grand. Thanks, Paul. I also would be remiss if I forget to thank Julie, who fed us three meals a day in splendid fashion. What a wonderful ending to a great workshop. I know each time I research a receipt in the future I will think back on this great group of food historians and triumphing over a challenge.

Sandie

EVERY DISH HAS A PAST

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WITH SANDRA OLIVER

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What a fun, challenging, and educational workshop. Sharing several days with some of the top food historians and a few enthusiastic novices, we all had something to share as we progressed with our chosen receipt. Sandy, Historic Deerfield, and participants all brought receipt books from very early to modern times. It was hard not to want to look at them all. However, we each had a mission, and mine was to research Hot Water Paste to make coffins. First we all made a list of keywords that we could use in looking up things in the Oxford English Dictionary and several others that were at hand.

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My keywords were, hot water paste, raised pye, great pye, coffin, hot water crust, paste pye and standing crust. I found that I could go back as far as 13th century if I wanted too, however, I thought I’d narrow this down a bit. I started in 1596 with Thomas Dawson’s chewits and went on to an 1880 book by Agnes Marshall. Of the ten receipts the majority were in the narrative, with a few short sentences listing ingredients in copious amounts, the three that were scientific gave measurements in cups, tablespoons and pinches, as a list, and then directions on the process. Proportions depended largely on the size of the coffin, or raised pie that was being made. All most all called for three items, hot water, flour and some type of fat. Butter was used over lard and only one receipt used suet. The flour differed in the type of pye being made, rye for a high stiff crust and fine flour for smaller pies. Three of the receipts used eggs and one used saffron. Few tools were needed to make the crust, a pot to boil water and a board to mix everything on. Very few had any instructions at all and Ann Wilson who wrote Food and Drink in Britain said of making dough “Pastry making was one of the crafts which medieval cooks or house wife’s had to learn by hearsay” I would add, by practice also.

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Once made into a coffin, standing pye or whatever you might call it, it then needed to be filled. Now this brings me to the wonderful history that I found regarding coffins being made as far back as the 14th century in France, most notably in the context of court banquets. They were not always filled with food. Sometimes they were filled after baking as an Illusion food, called a Sotellties. These were served between courses as an entertainment. The cook book Epulario published in 1598 mentions baking a coffin then stuffing it with frogs and or birds to pop out as they cut the top crust. Does four and twenty blackbirds ring any bells?

They were also made as wedding gifts and for traveling to picnics. No medieval feast would be without a Great Pye containing whole legs of venison or beef, swan, peacock or other foods laden with rich spices, herbs and eggs. All made with a very stiff paste. In 1785 Abigail Adams who was in France wrote a letter to Lucy Cranch relating the customs there. “Religion of the country requires an abundance of feasting. The day before, it is customary to make a large paste pie” So hot paste had a long run in cookery book and feast days. Raised by hand or with the use of a wooden mold if you happen to have one. It was not until the late 1880s that they were made inside a form to hold their shape.

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Agnes Marshall’s Cookery Book (London: 1880).

Back to the 17th and 18th centuries- whether or not the coffin was eaten after the content was gone is unclear. The cookery book “Good Housewife handmaid for the kitchen” published in 1596 states “but ye must take heed ye not put too many yolks of eggs for if you do it will make it drie and not pleasant in eating.” Sounds like they did eat the crust.

Yet, look at the picture by Pieter Claesz; you see a coffin with the content spooned out and crust on top.

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However, Willem  Claesz Heda paints his with it cut much like a pie wedge today. So was the crust consumed or discarded? Was it taken to the kitchen for the cooks or passed out at the door for the peasants. I have not seen any primary source confirming either way.still_life_of_food_and_drink_o_hi

So with the research completed on our chosen receipts each participant took 15 minutes to share their findings. Then it was off to the Hall Tavern to try our hand at cooking them. I chose Robert May’s 1685 receipt for my paste and filling. And my next blog will include my disaster and triumph in raising a coffin.

Once again I thank Sandy for a wonderful workshop, and am also appreciative of all the participants who were so generous in sharing their knowledge. As my roommate for the workshop mentioned later, “We came for the food and left with all these wonderful folks in our pockets.”

Until next week,

Sandie

OPEN HEARTH COOKING CLASSES

There are still opening for the up-coming classes for April – May

Look for them in the gray box on the right side of the site –

Hope you can join us

Sandie

OPEN HEARTH COOKING CLASSES

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I have just posted my up-coming classes for April – May

Look for them in the gray box on the right side of the site –

OPEN HEARTH COOKING CLASSES

Hope you can join us

Sandie

THEY HAD LEFTOVERS, TOO

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Most families were served the traditional turkey for Thanksgiving and made turkey sandwiches, soup and other meals with the leftovers. We cooked an 11-pound goose for three people so we, too, had leftovers. Several days later, I was going through the freezer I found an assortment of puff pastry dough balls that must have been left over from some other baking day. The refrigerator came up with mushrooms, candied orange peels, chestnuts that I had boiled and peeled, whole cranberries, squash, part of a parsnip, and, of course, goose with gravy. The cupboard had the spices and I wanted to incorporate all of this for dinner.

Robert May, “THE ACCOMPLISH COOK, “came to mind and I thought why not try a chewit. Chewits are small, handheld pies. He uses a stiff paste of flour, butter and eggs so the chewits will stand high. This is the same receipt I use for my coffins. Having leftover puff pastry, I decided I’d use that and see what the results would be. I gathered all the ingredients on my cutting board.

The dough was frozen so I put it in a plastic bag and then into some warm water to thaw out. Okay! We are straying a bit from the 18th Century, however, this is leftovers, and I need to clean out the fridge and freezer. While the dough thawed, I cut up the goose meat, chestnuts, mushrooms, and grated the spices.

Next I started pinching the dough to make a bowl shape with high sides. Then I mixed the goose with the cut mushrooms and chestnut mixture and added the cranberries and orange peels.

The chewits need a lid, so I rolled small dough balls and then stretched them to fit. In went the filling.

I added leftover goose gravy and wet the edge of the chewit with a beaten egg so the lid would stick.

I pinched the edges together and rolled them in and pinched again to seal in the mixture. I must have had two differently-made puff pastries as only two of the chewits came out nice and high.

Having read somewhere about wrapping parchment paper around chewits, I decided to try it on the nice tall ones. Then off to the fireplace with the whole lot, and into the bake kettle.

I took the squash and parsnip that were left over and put those by the fire with a bit of water first, then oil and spices, for a side dish. Every 15 minutes I turned the covered bake kettle for a more even heat.

Now several interesting things happened. Not surprisingly the chewits without the parchment paper spread out, puffed and browned as expected. The papered ones were tall and not browned on the sides yet not raw dough either. I only put gravy in the non-papered ones, so this might be a reason they were not as high. I think I should have papered those instead. We only ate two of them and I must say they were tasty leftovers. And the other two were sent to my daughter’s house for her lunch.

All in all, it was an experiment using leftovers as they did in Robert Mays’ time and using what I had on hand. Next year I will do them again and will use the stiffer crust and bake them in a bake oven.

Hope all your leftovers were delicious!!

Sandie

PS. The next blog I promise to keep with the 18th Century way of the colonial table.      However sometimes a cook just has to have fun!