MetaFritter:“apple fritter is good hot, but the cold ye [should] not touch"
December 22, 2010 1:23 AM Subscribe
What species of food is 2000 years old, has
evolved copious adaptive variations, and
still tastes delicious as ever?
"On the occasion of the feasts in honor of the god of Libero (called Liberalia), divinity devoted to the fertility of the crops, that took place on the 17th of March, the young Romans used to wear the virile robe therefore entering the civil society.
In the same day, the elderly women, crowned of ivy, named priestesses of Libero, used to prepare and sell in the streets some flour and honey pizza breads called libae or frictilia. Part of them was offered to the divinity while the remaining part was consumed between songs and dances."
ABOUT FRITTERS (from The
Food Timeline [
twitter; great foodbytes] explaining the deeal with
airlinechicken [
previously et al.])
Fritters (aka frytors, frytos) are
deep-fried batters
containing sweet (fruit & nuts) or savory (cheese, fish, vegetables) fillings.
"Apple fritters, strewn with sugar when it was available, were prehaps the best loved, but fritters of skirrets or parsnips were well liked too, because of their natural sweetness. The physicians condemned fritters as indigestible, but they remained irresistable to the layman and appeared regularly in medieval menus, usually as part of the last course. John Russell observed that "apple fritter is good hot, but the cold ye [should] not touch." Herb fritters, the batter aerated with a little yeast, and "fritters of milk" were made from curds and egg whites were two other popular versions."
---Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Ann Wilson [Academy Chicago Publishers:Chicago] 1991 (p. 143) [NOTE: the author is referencing Medieval English cuisine]
Fritter recipes through time:
14th century--- frytour (several recipes with modern redactions)
1803---good fritters, The Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter
1884---fritter batter for oysters, clams or fruit, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D.A. Lincoln
Apple Fritter Poppers
Frytour Blaunched
A Fritur at Hatte Emeles
Frytour of Erbes
Fritter of Milk
Fritter roll
Zucchini fritters,
1,
2,
3,
4
Eggplant fritters,
1,
2,
3
Banana Fritters,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5
Apple Fritter with Custard
Fried dough foods,
1,
2,
around the world (previously).
Friends and Relatives of the Fritter:
Beignet
Buñuelos 1
Carimañola 1,
2
Croquette 1,
2
Cuchifritos
Tempura,
1,
2
Vada 1,
2
Karen Hess
makes this connection between fritters and
french fries:
"The earliest receipt that can unequivocally be identified as calling for the frying of sliced raw potatoes that I have found is one given in La Cuisiniere Republicaine. Among some thirty-five receipts for pommes de terre there is one for '[Pommes de terre] Enfriture", which involves the classic fritter method, that is, thin slices, dipped in batter and fried in deep fat, an ancient procedure recorded in medieval manuscripts, early making its way to English court cuisine as in this archetypical receipt for 'Fretoure' calling for making the batter, then 'take fayre Applys, & kut hem in man'er of Fretourys,' dipping the slices of apple in the batter and frying them in 'layre Oyle.' In short, a procedure already so established even in early fifteenth-century England that one is to 'kut hem in man'er of Fretourys,' that is, raw in slices, and so understood. Note that all the terms come directly from the French: Frire and friture always refer to frying in deep fat. Always. What we now know as French fries may have started out as potato fritters, but it would not have taken long for French cooks to realise that potatoes are starchy enough not to need the coating of batter to provide the attractive characterizing crust of deep fried foods; that may well have occurred long before 1795, given the historical lag between practice and the printed word. I note that La Cuisiniere Republicaine is thought to have been written by a woman, not a chef (the cover title, Paix au Chaumieres, salutes women who are out of work - an early feminist cookbook).3 Chefs had other worries in 1795, and many of them had already fled France, among them Louis Eustache Ude and very likely Honore Julien, who was to become chef de cuisine at the President's House."
---"French Fries," Petits Propos Culinaires, Number 68
posted by infinite intimation (31 comments total)
47 users marked this as a favorite
Nice post. Now I'm hungry.
posted by _Lasar at 1:50 AM on December 22, 2010