In article >,
Kate Dicey > wrote:

> David Friedman wrote:
> > In article >,
> > Kate Dicey > wrote:
> >
> >
> >>JP Coane wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Please tell me this site is a joke.
> >>
> >>Why should it be a joke? The recipes are all genuine (if a little
> >>ordinary). The history bit is rather too well condensed to remain
> >>really accurate, but if you look at a few food histories, it has the
> >>bones of truth in there.
> >>
> >>Here in the UK steamed and boiled suet and other puddings, both sweet
> >>and savoury, are a tradition that go back to the Dark Ages and beyond.
> >
> >
> > Unless you are talking about Apicius, I don't think we know much about
> > recipes in the UK earlier than the early medieval (aka "Dark Ages")
> > period.
> >
> > The page says:
> >
> > "Christmas puddings originated as a fourteenth century 'porridge' called
> > frumenty. They were made of cereal, breadcrumbs, mutton and beef with
> > raisins, wines, prunes, currants and spices. they were stuffed in
> > sausage skins, enclosed in a pastry and baked."
>
> As I pointed out, the history is rather too well condensed to be accurate...
> >
> > 1. Frumenty, at least the recipes I am familiar with, isn't made of
> > "mutton and beef," it is served with the meat.
>
> It was frequently made with stock from meat bones. In their book Pleyn
> Delit Hieatt and Butler give an excellent recipe, both in the original
> and a modern version.

That isn't what "made of mutton and beef" means, however.

> > 2. So far as I know it didn't have breadcrumbs
>
> But may things were thickened with breadcrumbs, both savoury and sweet.

The page asserts that frumenty was. If there is no evidence for that,
then it shouldn't make the assertion. Lots of things in modern America
are commonly eaten with ketchup. And lots aren't.

> Don't discount it as a later addition, or as a filler if there was
> spare stale bread about and not enough cereal grains... Eeking things
> out with breadcrumbs is an old tradition.

Asserting an ingredient was present when you have no reason to believe
it was, on the basis that for all we know it could have been, isn't good
scholarship--condensed or otherwise.

> > 3. Nor prunes and currants
>
> These were a later development. By mediaeval times it was quite common
> to include dried fruits and spices in meat dishes that contained both
> meat and grains.

Since frumenty wasn't a meat dish, I don't see the relevance. The
question isn't whether they used dried fruits and spices but whether
(particular) dried fruits were in frumenty.

> > 4. But did have eggs and milk (or almond milk)
>
> Not always.

The page lists a variety of ingredients that, so far as we know, weren't
in frumenty, it omits ingredients that we know at least sometimes were,
and you still think it's reliable?

> > 5. And wasn't stuffed in a sausage skin, enclosed in a pastry and baked.
>
> But it might have been cooked in a leather bag...

The page didn't say "might have been."

> >
> > "It was eaten as a fasting dish before the Chrismas festivities."
> >
> > Not if it was made out of mutton and beef, as the page just (mistakenly)
> > asserted.
>
> There's no reason to suppose that there were not fasting versions made
> with plain water or using only the broth from bones cooked before the
> fasting started.

The page asserted that it was made with meat. It also asserted that it
was a fasting dish.

> > So far as I know, the link between frumenty and Christmas pudding is
> > invented--does anyone here have evidence for it?

> Like most things in cooking it's more likely to be a long slow
> development that took several hundred years than and went in several
> directions than something for which there is a direct link.

And yet the page asserts the link.

> There's some interesting archaeological evidence for some cooking and
> food preparation methods discussed in A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food
> Processing and Consumption by Ann Hagen.

I know--but I'm not sure of the relevance to this discussion.
Anglo-Saxon is "early medieval aka dark ages." So dark ages and beyond
has to be earlier than that.

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