Medieval/Renaissance Geek...Runs in the Family

My Grandmother died a few years back and among other things I inherited a cookbook focused on medieval cooking and feasting. Now her sister, my Great Aunt, died just before Easter and as momentos from her estate I picked three brass rubbings that she and Grandma made from Medieval English burial monuments and this absolutely humongous cookie mold. I think the Ren. Geek blood skipped a generation with my Mom, but I look forward to keeping the family tradition alive. :)

And I'll be using this mold at our next Feast!

Turnip Tart

We've been looking to medieval France for recipes for our Barony's upcoming feast and so I've been experimenting:

To make tarts of turnips.

Take turnips, & put them to roast over the fire, when well cooked cut into long, small slices like one chops tripe, then take four ounces of soft, fat cheese, three raw eggs mixed with the cheese, a quarter ounce of cinnamon, two ounces of sugar, a little pepper, four ounces of melted butter, a little rose water, & make tarts like the others, & serve so.

The above is a rough translation of "Ouverture de Cuisine" based on this transcription by Thomas Gloning et. al. And is used with permission, to wit:

© 2006, 2011, 2012 Daniel Myers - This electronic document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes as long as the copyright and this notice are included.

(The entire document may be found by clicking on the recipe, above, or typing the address into your browser.:  http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ouverture.html)


The first time I made this tart I bought the biggest turnips I could find. It turned out that just one of them filled two pie shells so this time I went for turnips of a more average size so, of course, it turned out I needed two of them for one pie! I'd say bake a couple more than you think you'll need.

My measured version:

Two small turnips, 3 ounces grated Parmesan cheese, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup half and half, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp sugar, sprinkle with pepper, dot with butter (about 2 tsp) bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

As you can see I drastically changed the proportions of some of the ingredients, and moved much of the fat content from butter to half and half. I omitted the rose water only because I had none. I'll try adding it as soon as I have some in-house.

I find this tart to be a wonderful, slightly sweet savory tart with a subtle hint of cinnamon that really works. Very tasty!





Step One: Peel the turnips





Step Two: Bake In a closed damp environment

I wrapped them together in tin-foil and added a little bit of water to keep them from drying out, closed it up and into the oven they went!




Bake until soft. In this case they baked at 350 for an hour. Cool.


Step Three: "Cut into long thin slices like one cuts tripe"

I have never eaten or handled tripe (that adventure is still in my future) so this instruction was a bit of a stumper. I decided that intestines are tubes so it wouldn't be very thick, and they are probably something that needs to be cut into smallish pieces. This is all guess-work, but I decided to cut them in a sort of super-super-super-sized julienne, slices of the entire turnip about 3/8th inches wide, then crosscut into strips about twice that size.





Step Four: Arrange turnip in prepared pie crust

I swirled them into an even layer filling the unbaked pie crust. I gave the crust a nifty crenelated edge too.





Step Five: mix together eggs, cheese, half and half, cinnamon, and sugar, pour into filled pie shell. Sprinkle with pepper, dot with butter and bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes





And voila!

These...Are Not Potatoes

I've been starting to make my own recipes based on Medieval and Renaisssance period cook books which sometimes leads to interesting dilemmas like "what could I do with these baked turnips I have left over from *way* overestimating how many turnips I would need to make turnip tart?"

Todays answer? Fried Turnips!

Yes, they are as yummy as they look. :)