I am currently preparing to cook a Byzantine dinner party for folks meeting up in New Orleans before Gulf Wars this spring. March 2009
Having not made anything since the Emmaus Faire Cooks Challenge more than five years ago, I thought it sounded like a good idea.
Tadziki and Raw Vegetables Marks
see Emmaus Fair Veggie list
OR Hard Cheese (Which kinds?) with White Bread Marks (Flavours pg 180)
Chicken Soufflé with Scallops Aphraton Flavours Also Marks
Lentils Marks (pg142) quotation from Anthimus
Baked Quinces or Apples wrapped in Dough Marks 147 and elsewhere
OR more investigation into "spoon sweets"
OR Fritters and honey
OR Sesame Sweetmeats
Wine, water and a soft beverage.. Dalby Siren "Flavoured soft drinks were by no means unknown under the Roman Empire....But it is in Byzantine times that sources such as Hierophilus Dietary Calendar indicate the frequent use of such concoctions."
"In Anthimus, 'What is called in Greek afrutum ande in Latin Spumeus is made from chicken and egg white. Lots of eggs white must be used so that the afrutum becomes foamy. It should be arranged in a mound in a shallow casserole with a previously prepared gravy and diluted fish sauce underneath. Then the casserole is set over the charcoal and the afrutum is cooked in the steam of the sauce. The casserole is in placed in the middle of the serving dish, and a little wine and honey poured over it. It is eaten with a spoon or a small ladle. I often add to this recipe some good fish or even some sea scallops, because they are extremely tasty and particularly plentiful around where I live. From clean scallops are made "snow balls."'
Marks redaction 4 is without the scallops redaction 5 is with.
A soufflé is a very light dish as far as I understand them. A look into The Joy of Cooking (pg 230-231) reveals a recipe for a chicken soufflé and a meat or fish soufflé and an oyster soufflé. I will experiment with Mark's redaction with scallops combined with what looks like a good match from those within Joy.
"...Most authors indicate that meats were to be served lukewarm, by preference." (pg 27) See for specific meat cooking methods.
"Anthimus provides more specific cooking methods for different types of meat...Adult pigs are boiled or roasted, but suckling pigs should be roasted in the oven in a sauce." (pg 27-28)
"It is clear that boiling and roasting were the preferred methods for cooking most meats and these techniques were used of the entire Byzantine era." (pg 29)
Pork Redaction pg 97-98
| 3-4 lbs Pork roast | 1 C pork Broth | 1/2 C red wine |
| 1/4 t pepper | 1/8 t spikenard | 1/4 t cinnamon |
| 1 t sesame seeds | pan drippings |
Paraphrased......Roast the pork. Combine the other ingredients (holding the seeds) and heat until reduced by 1/3. Add the sesame seeds, stir and pour of sliced meat. Marks notes that this is a spicy and aromatic sauce.
"'Suckling pigs are very good and suitable stewed. Or served in a sauce after roasting in an over (so long as the heat is not high enough to burn them: they should be as baked); the sauce is a simple honey vinegar, made on the spot, two parts honey to one part vinegar. Or, cooked in an earthenware pot; in that case the meat is dipped in this sauce as it is eaten.' Anthimus Letter on Diet 13 "
"Where classical cooks had wrapped food in pickled fig leaves, it seems that in late Roman or early Byzantine times that stuffed vine leaves were use din similar recipes, thus becoming the parents of modern dolmádhes. (pg 190) Possible stuffed grape leaves for the menu.....
"Saffron was certainly used in Byzantine cookery" (pg 190) cinnamon, sugar, vinegar, honey, pepper, penny royal, cumin, caraway salt, cheese, olives, onions (pg 196)
soft, fresh cheese, dry/hard cheese, fried cheese. "Fresh cheese is the best...but with a flavour somewhat sweet and moderately salty. It should be consumed with honey" (pg 45 Seth and Anthimus)
"Koukoule mentions cheese only as an appetizer, eaten with bread." (pg 46)
Types: feta
"Fried cheese, although mentioned by several authors, is never described in enough detail to allow us to determine how it was made. Oribasious does describe a, 'mixture of broad bean meal, water, olive oil, marrow, bees-wax, and cheese, especially toasted cheese." (pg 46)
'fruit, muscat wine and fine biscuit'
There were two types of grape varieties providing favorite sweet wines of the medieval Aegean.
Vinum muscatos is still widely grown in the Mediterranean. Muscat wines
Monembasiós French: malvoisie English: malmsey was a typical sweet grape in Crete
Reinstated wine, retsina, was popular. Classical Greeks drank wine mixed half strength with water (89). There are that by the middle Byzantine period neat began to be attractive. By the 16th century it become considered 'bad to put water into...wine."
Mead held high status Beer was also known but it is not clear if it was familiar in Constantinople.
Instructions and recipes beginning on page 171
'they have white bread...mouse after their sesame sweetmeat...second helpings of fritters with honey...spoon sweets'
Beef ~ stewed, boiled and served with a sauce
Pork ~ suckling pigs are suitable stewed or served in sauce after roasting
Rabbit ~ young with a sweet sauce
Dried meat: Apokti cured loin of pork
Smoked sausage ~ check on any mention of meat elsewhere
Soufflé: Aphraton ~ chicken and egg white often scallops or fine fish was added
©2009 Apollonia
Voss Last Updated:
Monday, 26. January 2009
Email:ApolloniaNOSPAMvoss@comcast.net