My first brush with the Bard came
during ninth grade English class, where
Romeo and Juliet was the lone bright spot in a seemingly endless year that
revolved around mind numbingly boring lessons on grammar recited in my
teacher’s comically monotone voice. (Think Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day
Off). If there was ever a class that sucked the life out of English, it was
this one. Therefore, when we started reading the play, I was so starved for
something even resembling literature that I devoured it. Later, when I began working on my book
project, I immediately thought of this play.
The prospect of researching food
from this era was daunting in and of itself. My own working knowledge of
English Renaissance fare was limited at best and mostly relied on images of an
enormous King Henry VII gnawing on a turkey leg while seated at a banquet table
overflowing with similar roast fowl. In fact, a variety of meats, fish, fowl,
fruits, and vegetables were available, though the era’s taste in seasonings may
seem rather heavy and sweet for today’s palate. The medieval Crusaders had
brought back different spices from the Middle East, which were then
incorporated into European cooking. Spices were considered valuable and a sign
of wealth, so many recipes often included some combination of cloves, cinnamon,
mace, nutmeg, and ginger even in roast meat dishes.
In Shakespeare’s day
imported sugar became a popular ingredient as well, though it was out of reach
for all but the very wealthy—which led to the resulting blackened teeth
becoming another status symbol. Wine or ale was the standard beverage for all
since water wasn’t safe to drink. Of course, the richer you were, the better
you ate and the wealthy Capulets and Montegues certainly occupied the highest
level of Verona’s society.
When I went back to the original
text, I didn’t find much to work with. Shakespeare may have provided us with
some of the greatest lines in the English language, but he didn’t get too
caught up on describing table settings.
The lovers themselves don’t really mention food. Most of their lines are
devoted to talking about how much they love each other and how they hate their
families (otherwise known as standard teenager talk). But, luckily, Juliet’s
clueless parents are preparing a feast for her wedding to Paris. Let’s take a
look:
SCENE
IV. Hall in Capulet's house.
Enter LADY CAPULET and NURSE
LADY CAPULET
Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.
NURSE
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.
Enter CAPULET
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d
The curfew-bell hath rung, ‘tis three o’clock:
Look to the baked meats, good Angelica:
Spare not for the cost.
NURSE
Go,
you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.
CAPULET
No, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.
Aside from learning that The Nurse’s name is Angelica and that Capulet
can still party with the best of them, we learn of a pastry that needs dates
and quinces. Of course, since this is Shakespeare there is symbolism in nearly
everything, but especially something like Paris and Juliet’s wedding cake. Traditionally, quinces were a symbol of
love and fertility and were quite popular during Shakespeare’s day, so their
place in the pastry for Juliet and Paris’ wedding feast is obvious. However, it’s going to take a lot more
than fruit to make that union work. At the end of the scene Capulet sends the
Nurse to waken Juliet, but little do they know, Juliet has already ingested the
elixir that gives her the appearance of death, thus setting in motion a tragic
series of events.
In the 16th Century there were several
popular ways to prepare quinces: preserved, made into marmalade, boiled in
wine, or made into a paste. A Book of Cookrye: Very necessary for all such
as delight therin gathered by A.W. and published in London in 1596 offers several different quince recipes:
Tarte
of Quinces with covers.
When your Quinces be very tender and colde, mince with two
or three Warden amongst them and season them with sugar, sinamon and ginger,
and so the paste being very fine, lay a cover upon them.
Tartes
of Quinces without covers.
Straine your Quinces with some
wine, when they be boiled tender, and an apple with them, or two or three
Wardens, straine them and season them with Sugar, Sinamon and Ginger, and so
make tarte without a cover.
How
to bake Quinces.
Take half a pound of Sugar, and a
dozen of Quinces and pare them, take half an ounce of Sinamon and Ginger, take
fine flower, sweet butter, and Egges, and make your paste, then put in all your
stuffe and close it up.
The references to ‘ paste’ in
these recipes means pastry crust. Apparently adding a recipe for said ‘paste’
was redundant, or one of those ‘assumed’ things that ‘everyone’ should already
know—unless you’re from the 21st century, duh!-- and thus, goes
unmentioned.
However, Francine
Segan’s delightful cookbook Shakespeare’s Table she has a great updated recipe for what she calls
Renaissance Dough that can be used for puffe-paste:
2 cups sifted loosely-packed
pastry flour (8 oz)
½ tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten, cold
½ C butter, cut into small cubes,
cold
½ ice-cold water
Mix the flour, water, the salt,
and egg together on a cold surface until crumbly. Flatten the dough with a
rolling pin and place one quarter of the butter cubes on the dough. (Keep the
remaining butter refrigerated until ready to use.) Roll the butter into the
dough, fold the dough over, and roll again. Repeat the process 3 more times
until all the butter is incorporated. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and
refrigerate for at least an hour.
I decided to make an amalgamation
of the recipes and use the Renaissance dough for the crust.
Quinces look like a cross between
an apple and a pear and are considerably fragrant. Once quite popular, they
aren’t commercially grown and thus can be hard to find. I was lucky enough to find
some at Belltown Orchard in South Glastonbury, CT, but grocery stores sometimes
stock quince when in season, usually from October til December, and at a high
mark up. Most recipes call for them to be poached or baked, since quince are
too tart to eat raw, and this is no exception. When cooked, quince can take on a
lovely rosy color due to a high level of tannins.
A word of caution: be careful
when coring your quince, as they are quite hard. I escaped without any cuts,
but I definitely had to use some muscle just to get through the fruit. A small
melon baller would work wonders. At first, this recipe’s ingredients and
preparation reminded me of a traditional apple pie, but the delicate, almost
floral taste of the ruby-colored quince and the accompanying sweetness of the
dates makes for a decidedly different take on that most ‘American’ of desserts.
Pastry with Dates and
Quince
Make Renaissance Dough according
to above instructions.
After refrigerating, roll out
dough and press into a pie pan or tart shell.
I found that it was essential to
keep the dough as cold as possible because otherwise it took on a chewy texture
the day after baking.
For Filling:
4
medium quinces
½ C white Italian dessert wine, such as Muscat
½
C water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cloves
¼
tspn rosewater
½
C chopped dates
Peel
quinces and cut in half. Remove cores. Fill saucepan with wine, water,
rosewater, and set to boil. Add
quinces and cloves and simmer for about an hour or until soft. Check by sticking
a knife through the quince. If it goes through easily, it’s done. If not, keep
simmering. Depending on the size of your quince, it can take up to two or three
hours, so be patient.
Drain
quince and mix in dates, sugar, spices, and rosewater. Transfer mixture to pie
shell and cover with vented top crust.
