Scully on veggies and esp. green pottages

[bunnyjadwiga]

Ok, Scully (Early French Cookery) quotes from Viander of Taillevent to explain the relative paucity of vegetable recipes. That quote also gives us a reason to use a free hand in making boiled pottages/porees:

...But vegetables were undoubtedly eaten, in quantity and variety.
Even such a work as the Viander of Taillevent, destined as it was for the kitchens of the royalty and aristocracy of France, mentiones (albeit briefly) dishes made from vegetables. And this mention has a clearly condescending tone. At the very end of his list of substantial dishes Taillevent adds a paragraph that he heads, somewhat dismissively, "Other lesser pottages":

Other lesser pottages, such as stewed chard, cabbage, turnip greens, leeks. . . plain shallot pottage, pease, frenched beans, mashed beans, sieved beans, or beans in the shell . . . women are experts with these and anyone knows how to do them; and as for tripe, which I have not put in my recipe book, it is common knowledge how it is to be prepared. [My italics.]

When Taillevent writes that the preparation of tripe is such "common knowledge" that it does not need a recipe, and even, says he, women can handle the making of stewed chard-- presumably because it is a perfectly normal procedure-- we have to assume that vegetables in one form or other were more or less commonplace on the dinner tables of the late Middle Ages.

Now, here I have to point out that I'm not sure what tripe has to do with the vegetable discussion, but is clear that boiled pottages of vegetables and cooked greens were something 'anyone knows' how to do in Taillevent's world. So we can safely assume that if we find mention of boiling a green, we can make a mess of boiled greens with it, I believe.

I believe that the term 'poree' is the French equivalent of pottage, so we can take Scully's notes on 'porees' in Le Menagier

While few actual recipes for vegetables are included in most of the recipe collections, the Menagier de Paris,, with his typical encyclopedic thoroughness, has roughly drafted a section on vegetables and provides some direction regarding the proper procedures for cooking them.
Undoubtedly plain boiled vegetables were served, but a popular alternative appears to have been vegetables prepared as a poree, that is stewed or pureed, with the addition of a thickener as necessary. Virtually any vegetable in medieval times couild have been cooked in this manner. However, three types of poree are mentioned specificially in the Menagier.

1. Poree blanche, a White Poree: a variety of white vegetables may enter this, including the white part of leeks, the white stems and veins of chard, beans, peas, onions and shallots.


2. Poree verte or Green Poree: chard leaves or other green leafy vegetables such as spinach or brussels sprouts, garden cress or water cress, were used for this poree.


3. Poiree noire, or Black Poree: the Menagier lists no specific vegetables here: presumably any of the above could be used. The dark color appears to have come from the cooking process, during which the frying of the vegetable in bacon fat or beef grease produced a characteristic hue. The finished dish had pieces of cooked bacon or lardons on top.

The cooking process for poree was similar in all cases, but the ingedients used to cook the vegetables varied as to whether it was a meat day or a fish (lean) day. The vegetable was culled, washed, and cut into smaller pieces (with occasional exceptions). If it was an old or tough vegetable it was first parboiled; otherwise it was cooked in a meat bouillon or in milk (on lean days in almond milk or water), then chopped finely or mashed, fried in beef or pork fat or butter (in oil on lean days), and served. Bread crumbs, oatmeal or almond milk functioned as a thickening agent if needed. (p. 256)

The black poree sounds very similar to De Nola's various treatments for vegetables (cebollada of onions, chopped spinach, gourds, etc.)

I don't agree with Scully that blenderizing is always necessary for a poree; chopping into bite-size or dice-size pieces works well for most vegetables.

Also, on a lean day, pea broth or the water that cabbage or fish was cooked in could be used.

see: Scully, D. Eleanor and Terence. Early French Cookery: Sources, history, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations. (Ann Arbor: Univerwsity of Michigan Press, 2002.