Shakespeare's Kitchen (17 page)

Authors: Francine Segan

BOOK: Shakespeare's Kitchen

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Salt was an important seasoning in Elizabethan times because of its ability to both enhance flavor and preserve food. As the word
salacious
suggests, salt was thought to stimulate the appetite and libido.

In the Middle Ages, part of a man’s pay could be given in salt, leading to the expression “worth his salt.”
Salary,
from the Latin
salarium,
literally means salt money.

Salt was expensive in the Middle Ages, so placing a salt dispenser near a guest was a sign of respect from the host. The lower a guest’s rank the farther he was seated from the salt, giving rise to the expression “below the salt,” meaning inferior.

Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse,
manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,
liberality, and such like, the spice and salt
that season a man?

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA,
1.2

Crab with Capers and Garlic

SERVES 4

Why, then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

AS YOU LIKE IT,
4.1

T
HE SUBTLE ADVICE
in the original recipe to “rub the shells with a clove or two of garlick” prompted me to try what is surely one of the best Elizabethan crab dishes.

Crab was a popular and inexpensive food in England at that time and was even prescribed medicinally; for example, the shells were “burnt to ashes” as a remedy for “the biting of mad-dogs.”

8 ounces crabmeat

¼ cup white wine

1 tablespoon port wine vinegar

⅛ teaspoon dried thyme

3 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs

1 large egg white, beaten well

1 rounded tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained

⅛ teaspoon ground mace

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

1 garlic clove, finely minced

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1.
Combine the crabmeat, wine, vinegar, thyme, bread crumbs, egg white, capers, and mace in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper.

2.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Cook the garlic and olive oil over low heat for 1 minute, or until warm. Brush the oil mixture into 4 tart molds or cleaned crab shells and fill with the crab mixture. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Turn on the broiler and broil the crab for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the top is light golden brown.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To stew Crabs otherways

Being boil’d take the meat out of the shells, and put it in a pipkin with some claret wine, and wine vinegar, minced tyme, pepper, grated bread, salt, the yolks of two or three hard eggs strained or minced very small, some sweet butter, capers, and some large mace; stew it finely, rub the shells with a clove or two of garlick, and dish them as is shown before.

THE ACCOMPLISHT COOK,
1660

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To rost a Carpe or Tench with a pudding in his bellie

Take the Rones of a Pike and choppe them verie small, then put in grated bread, two or three Egs, Currants, Dates, Suger, Sinemome and Ginger, and Mace, Pepper and salt, and put it in his bellie, and put him on a Broche, and make Sweet sawce with Barberies, or Lemmons minced, and put into the Sweete sawce and then put it on the Carpe when you serve him up.

THE GOOD HUSWIFES JEWELL,
1587

Grilled Bass with Fennel

SERVES 4

S
HAKESPEARE WAS CLEARLY
familiar with the classic Renaissance pairing of fish and fennel, as he refers to it in
King Henry IV.
The ancient Romans introduced fennel into England. It was eaten raw in salads or cooked in pottages, meat, and fish dishes. It was so popular that Gerard, a sixteenth-century botanist, didn’t even include a detailed description of it in his botany book. “It is so well known amongst us, that it were but lost labour to describe the same.”

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup thinly sliced fennel

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

¼ teaspoon fennel seeds

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

2 bass fillets, halved (about 8 ounces each)

4 lemon wedges

1.
Heat the olive oil in a small sauté pan and add the fennel. Cover and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the fennel is softened. Add ¼ cup of the parsley and the fennel seeds and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and keep warm while the bass is cooking.

2.
Preheat the grill or broiler. Season the bass with salt and pepper and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until firm.

3.
Place a bass fillet in the center of each plate and top with some of the fennel mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon parsley and place a lemon wedge on each plate.

Red Snapper with Caviar

SERVES 4

… The play, I remember, pleased not the million;
’twas caviare to the general …

HAMLET,
2.2

C
AVIAR WAS A
rare and exotic delicacy in the 1500s, and as Shakespeare points out in
Hamlet,
the general public did not appreciate it. The original recipe calls for “rones” or roe, but I have substituted caviar, which is available year-round. The tantalizing “sweet sawce” can be served in a hollow lemon half for a festive touch.

4 small red snapper or trout, head on (12 to 14 ounces each)

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

12 dates, minced

¼ cup finely grated fresh ginger

8 ounces caviar

8 ounces fresh red currants or barberries (do not substitute dried currants)

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1.
Preheat the broiler or grill. Brush the snapper inside and out with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Combine the dates and ginger and gently fold in the caviar. Spoon the mixture into the cavity of the snapper. Broil or grill the fish for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, or until the flesh is firm and opaque.

2.
Place the currants, sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Purée until smooth.

3.
Place a snapper in the center of each plate and serve the sauce in a small dish or hollow lemon half.

Sautéed Trout with Wine and Herbs

SERVES 4

… Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.

TWELFTH NIGHT,
2.5

A
POPULAR EXPRESSION IN
Shakespeare’s day, “as found as a trout,” meaning to be caught red-handed, came from the fact that trout are so easily caught.

The original recipe advised the reader to substitute water mixed with vinegar and sugar if wine was not available, a clue to the quality of the wine in England during Shakespeare’s lifetime! Most English wine was imported from southern Europe in porous wooden casks that absorbed odors and impurities during the long ocean voyage.

4 trout, cleaned and boned

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

½ cup flour

½ cup plus 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

¼ teaspoon dried savory

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

4 small sprigs of rosemary

2 garlic cloves, crushed

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup white wine

8 lemon wedges

1.
Sprinkle the trout inside and out with salt and pepper and dredge in the flour. Combine ½ cup of the parsley, the savory, and thyme in a small bowl. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of the herbs and 1 rosemary sprig inside each trout.

2.
Cook the garlic in the olive oil in a large sauté pan over low heat for 1 minute. Remove the garlic and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the trout, and cook for 2 minutes on each side, or until browned and crispy. Pour ½ cup of the wine over the trout and cook for 2 minutes, or until the wine evaporates. Carefully turn over the trout, add the remaining ½ cup of wine, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the wine evaporates.

3.
Place the trout on a serving platter and sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper and arrange the lemon wedges around the platter.

Flounder with Dried Plums

SERVES 4

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember:
and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

HAMLET,
4.5

A
HANDFULL OF ROSEMARIE”
is called for in the original recipe. Rosemary was a favorite herb of the time, a symbol of remembrance at funerals and weddings. Cookbooks even advised putting the leaves under the mattress to prevent “evil dreams,” washing with it to keep your “face fair and the breath sweet,” and placing it with woolen clothing and furs to keep them fresh.

1 cup white wine

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

½ teaspoon dried rosemary

½ teaspoon dried thyme

¼ teaspoon dried marjoram

¼ teaspoon dried savory

2 large whole mace (or ⅛ teaspoon ground mace)

2 tablespoons currants

8 dried plums, thinly sliced

4 flounder fillets (about 6 ounces each)

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

1 tablespoon cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 tablespoon verjuice

1.
Place the wine, brown sugar, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, savory, mace, currants, and plums in a sauté pan. Simmer, mashing the plums occasionally with a fork, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until some of the wine evaporates and the plums begin to dissolve.

2.
Season the flounder with salt and pepper, place on top of the sauce, and cook for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, cover, and let stand for 1 to 2 minutes more, or until the fish is firm and opaque. Remove the flounder from the pan and keep warm.

3.
Cook the pan sauce over high heat for 3 minutes, or until thickened. Add the butter and verjuice and whisk until emulsified.

4.
Place a flounder fillet in the center of each plate and spoon the sauce over the fish.

Lobster with Pistachio Stuffing and Seville Orange Butter

SERVES 4

L
OBSTER MEAT WAS
served delicately cut and placed on bread “sippets” or minced and put back into the shell. The original recipe calls for the raw lobster meat to be taken out of the shell, which is not an easy thing to do. In this version the lobster is kept whole and the remaining “hash” ingredients are added as a pistachio stuffing with a tart Seville orange butter sauce.