Friday, March 27, 2015

Puff Pastry




            With its complexity and amazing flavor, puff pastry has captivated the pallets of all who have tried it.  From its creation, puff pastry has graced the tables of kings and rulers.  It was on the shelves of high end bakeries.  Today, we take for granted the accessibility of this one time luxury.  In this blog, I would like to look at three things: the origin of puff pastry, the techniques to make it, and what it was used for in the 18th century.  
 


 

            The origin of puff pastry isn’t clearly recorded, as is the case with many different foods.  There is one myth that the famous painter, Claude Gelee, was making bread one day in the 17th century for his sick father and came across the method of folding butter into bread.  But actually there are several references to puff pastry before his time.  Puff pastry most likely evolved from the Middle Eastern phyllo dough.  Phyllo moved through the Middle East, around the Mediterranean and into Muslim Spain.  From here, either the Germans or the French added butter and the intricate folding process.  The first accepted reference to puff pastry comes from France in the 14th century.  The reference given is called “gâteau feuilleté” which means, “Cake Laminated”.  The record does not, however, mention how it was made.  The first reference to it that I can find actually named puff pastry is in 1549.  It comes from a menu in honor of Catherine de Medici’s coronation and lists “Quarante plats de petits feuilletage” or “forty little plates of puff pastries”. 


 

            The process of making puff pastry varies to this day.  The overall process starts with a simple dough mixture of water, butter and flour.  Much like a simple pie crust, you take your flour and cut in cold butter.  You then add cold water until it becomes a stiff paste.  In the modern kitchen, you would put this in the refrigerator and let it chill for 12 hours.  In the 18th century, they would have immediately rolled out the paste into a rectangle.  Then you put a layer of butter in the middle of the puff pastry rectangle.  You then fold it like a business letter and then in half.  Today, you put this back in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to firm up and continue rolling it out the same way that you had done the first time. Back then they would have simply kept rolling it.

 
The Ball of Dough

The Layer of Butter

The Dough Folded

 
In the 18th century, it is likely the upper classes who were making puff pastry could afford marble pastry boards. This would have been ideal for puff pastry because the marble stays 20 degrees below the outside temperature.  The differences in puff pastry come from additives and ingredient measures.  For example, Hannah Glasse calls for no egg to be added to her puff pastry dough but Amelia Simmons calls for the whites of eggs to be used.  It is the same way with measurements. Hannah Glasse calls for a peck of flour and half a pound of butter to be used whereas Amelia Simmons calls for 1 pound of butter and 2 pounds of flour. You can play around with the recipe to some degree as long as you keep the layers of butter and flour.  The science behind what makes puff pastry work is the many layers you create by folding the pastry several times.  You create layers of dough and butter which when heated, causes the butter to steam and make the pastry rise.
Puff Pastry Recipe
Hannah Glasse
"The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy"
1774

Amelia Simmons
"American Cookery"
1796
 

 

              Since its creation, puff pastry has been used for multiple dishes.  Louis XI, who ruled France from 1461 to 1483, was said to have a favorite puff pastry recipe of marzipan baked in puff pastry which would be a very decadent treat.  In the 18th century, we have recipes for fish baked in puff pastry, pears or raspberry jam wrapped in pastry and boiled or baked like a pie pastry.  With its complexity and time consuming preparation, it is unlikely that the lower classes were enjoying puff pastry in the 18th century.  Instead, the well-equipped upper class kitchens, with their full time staff or slave cooks, were likely the only ones enjoying this treat.
 
 
'Croaker En Croûte'
Croaker En Croûte
Fish Wrapped in Puff Pastry
To Fry or Bake Mushrooms in Paste
 
 
 
 
 
For some 18th century puff pastry recipes take a look at these from Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Foodways.
 
 
 
            To prepare for this blog, this was my first attempt to make puff pastry.  While my family told me how good it tasted and the photos definitely show the ‘puff’ and layers of dough, I can honestly say that I am very thankful for packaged puff pastry.  With the convenience of packaged, prepared puff pastry so readily available in the grocery store, most people do not understand the work that it takes to make it on your own.  And this is one of the great examples of what I love about the historical cooking…we’ve come a long way.  Whether you enjoy homemade or packaged, sweet or savory, I think we can all agree that puff pastry is a treat that we all love.
 

           

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Ramen, Reshte and Rigatoni


Whether it’s Ramen from Japan, Reshte from Afghanistan or Rigatoni from Italy, pasta is universally loved by all cultures today.  Whether eaten alone as a noodle dish or combined with other ingredients to make a pasta dish, this simple item can satisfy by itself or with many flavor combinations.  In the 18th century, the popularity of noodles is debatable.  We have several recipes for it in period cookbooks but no real reference to its regular consumption outside of Italy or China.   

 

The story that you may have heard about Marco Polo bringing pasta from China to Italy is a complete myth.  Because many people did not have access to an oven, noodles are one of many dishes created by necessity since using an oven wasn’t necessary in their preparation.  Some of the other examples of culinary dishes that did not require oven use are dumplings, boiled puddings and sausage.  The earliest record of noodles comes from China.  Then, records show movement westward from China to Arab Lands.  From there, merchants most likely helped them spread through Europe.  The first reference to pasta in Italy is around the 1st century B.C. and is a reference to a fried, thin dough called “lagana”.  Later in the 5th century, another recipe for “lagana” calls for you to layer noodles and meat, a possible forerunner to modern day lasagna. 





 Making and Drying Pasta
Mid 15th Century
from Tacuinum Sanitatis

In the 14th and 15th centuries, dried pastas grew in popularity due to ease of storage.  In the 18th century, we have recipes for dried thin pasta.  These thin, egg noodles were called “vermicelli” and recipes for them can be found in Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery” and Mary Randolph’s “The Virginia Housewife”.  Hannah Glasse calls for a mixture of eggs and water to be rolled out as thinly as possible.  This is then to be dried in the sun or by the fire and when drying is complete, it is to be cut with a very sharp knife into pieces.  There are two recipes I have found that call for a noodle like this.  The first is a vermicelli soup that is made by putting vermicelli in a broth and boiling it.  It is then served with a piece of toast on top.  The second is a vermicelli pudding where you bake the vermicelli in custard.  It is very unlikely that the poor class of the American Colonies made their own noodles, if they were consuming noodles at all.  The main consumers of noodles in the 18th century were the upper middle class and the gentry.

 
Hannah Glasse's Vermicelli Recipe
 
 
Vermicelli Soup
Hannah Glasse
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
 

The other pasta commonly recorded in 18th century cookbooks was macaroni.  Piped macaroni to the 18th century what truffles and caviar are to most of us today…out of reach due to the high cost.  Italy managed to keep how they made macaroni a secret.  For anyone else to enjoy macaroni or other extruded pasta, it had to be exported from Italy which made the price extremely high.  Only the very rich could afford macaroni or any dish made out of it.  Lord Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia, is recorded to have bought 20 pounds of macaroni when he was in office.  Macaroni pudding and Macaroni soup are the only recipes I have found in cookbooks using this expensive commodity.  Sometimes just called macaroni, it was made by layering macaroni noodles, butter and cheese.  It was then baked in the oven. This dish, that we now enjoy and call macaroni and cheese, was quite literally the very definition of high fashion and extravagance.  Macaroni was a term, in the 18th century, that was also used to describe the proper fashion of the day. And when the British wrote a variation of the song “Yankee Doodle” and said “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni”, they were actually insulting Colonial American fashion.  Thomas Jefferson himself had a particular taste for macaroni, bringing cases of macaroni back with him from France to enjoy at his home in Virginia.  We know that he was interested in the process of making extruded pasta and have the benefit of his drawings that lay out the mechanics for a macaroni press. 
 
Thomas Jefferson's Drawing of a Macaroni Press
Library of Congress
 

"The best maccaroni in Italy is made with a particular sort of flour called Semola, in Naples: but in almost every shop a different sort of flour is commonly used; for, provided the flour be of a good quality, & not ground extremely fine, it will always do very well. a paste is made with flour, water & less yeast than is used for making bread. this paste is then put, by little at a time, vir. about 5. or 6. tb each time into a round iron box ABC. the under part of which is perforated with holes, through which the paste, when pressed by the screw DEF, comes out, and forms the Maccaroni g.g.g. which, when sufficiently long, are cut & spread to dry. the screw is turned by a lever inserted into the hole K, of which there are 4. or 6. it is evident that on turning the screw one way, the cylindrical part F. which fits the iron box or mortar perfectly well, must press upon the paste and must force it out of the holes. LIM is a strong wooden frame, properly fastened to the wall, floor, and ceiling of the room."



Thomas Jefferson
A Modern Plastic Macaroni Mould

          Macaroni Soup
          Hannah Glasse
               The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
 
Macaroni and Cheese Recipe
Mary Randolph
The Virginia Housewife
 

To me, it is interesting to study the food staples that have been around for centuries, and pasta has claimed its place as a culinary staple.  Its neutral flavor and versatility has elevated it from low class Chinese comfort food to high class culinary fair.  Whether you’re a starving college student eating ramen or a patron at a Michelin star restaurant, pasta is and will always be one of the many food loved by all.