Medieval recipes: otter, cat, hedgehog

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sequoia

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 11:25 am

http://medievalcookery.com/oddities.html

Fox

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 11:41 am

Wonderful hedgehog recipes! Maybe someone could come up with a kosher substitute -- kind of like the "shrimp" and "crab" made of whitefish!

Personally, I think I'd prefer my hedgehogs en brochette, but that's just me. The tip on getting them to unroll is useful, though!

Iymnok

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 11:41 am

To make a Chicken be Served Roasted was the best!

sequoia

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 11:48 am

It's interesting they didn't consider the otter to be a mammal. I guess they thought, if it lives in water, it's in the fish category (suitable for Lent).

FranticFrummie

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 11:54 am

"bury cat for a day and a night"

No wonder the average life span was 35 years!

studying_torah

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 12:05 pm

I once got a cookbook from the library that had a recipe for bear!
I guess if someone hunts, it would be useful, but I was still surprised when I first read it

bigsis144

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 2:02 pm

Even the Joy of Cooking, a relatively recent cookbook, has recipes for squirrel (and directions for skinning one!). I was reading through a copy at my mother-in-laws house and found it together with the recipes for rabbit and other wild game.

Beavers and muskrats also counted as "fish":

Quote:

So in the 17th century, the Bishop of Quebec approached his superiors in the Church and asked whether his flock would be permitted to eat beaver meat on Fridays during Lent, despite the fact that meat-eating was forbidden. Since the semi-aquatic rodent was a skilled swimmer, the Church declared that the beaver was a fish. Being a fish, beaver barbeques were permitted throughout Lent. Problem solved!
The Church, by the way, also classified another semi-aquatic rodent, the capybara, as a fish for dietary purposes. The critter, the largest rodent in the world, is commonly eaten during Lent in Venezuela. "It's delicious," one restaurant owner told the New York Sun in 2005. "I know it's a rat, but it tastes really good."

http://blogs.scientificamerica.....fish/

Last edited by bigsis144 on Tue, Mar 15 2016, 2:05 pm; edited 1 time in total

Chayalle

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 2:05 pm

bigsis144 wrote:

Even the Joy of Cooking, a relatively recent cookbook, has recipes for squirrel (and directions for skinning one!).

Not funny. Some time ago we had trouble with squirrels in the attic. I was talking to a coworker who lives out in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and he was like "Are they Kosher? Cuz I'd tell you to go up there with a shotgun...Squirrel soup is actually quite delicious..."

bigsis144

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 2:09 pm

Chayalle wrote:

When I was on the Neve campus for seminary, one of the women from another one of the schools on campus used to visit my dorm frequently. She was a giyores from the Louisiana Bayou, and I don't know how much she was pulling my leg when she told a rip-roaring story about how when she returned home to visit her family they told her they'd cooked up a gator just for her!

And apparently, kangaroo meat is sold in supermarkets in Australia, and exported to Russia as well. They're just giant herbivores...

Chayalle

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 2:12 pm

Interesting about discarding the head of the cat, as those who eat the brain will lose their senses and judgement. A take-off of Kasha L'shikcha? Because the gemarrah says something about not eating the brain of an animal.

anon for this

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 3:08 pm

Chayalle wrote:

Not eating brains is also a good way to avoid Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (mad cow disease).

studying_torah

Tue, Mar 15 2016, 10:54 pm

I think it was the joy of cooking with the bear recipes!

Kugglegirl

Wed, Mar 16 2016, 12:33 am

Well, of the odd instructions, I find these

"Source [Le Ménagier de Paris, J. Hinson (trans.)]:
Platter: butter, none because it is a meat day. Item, cherries, none, because none could be found; and so no platter."

to make perfect sense for a Jewish home-- if "Platter" might be the condiments that go out by the table, can you imagine some balebasta leaving these instructions for the cook or the maid who was to set out the meal?

& if one has the type of Ameila Bedeila helper who you must spell it all out for, well, yes, you do have to mention, if none of these items, also do not put out the platter.

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