Literary Eats: Pastry with Quince and Dates from Romeo and Juliet

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 21^st 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.

Bake at 350 for about an hour. Cool and serve.



Pyrex Glass Pie Plate, 9" (Google Affiliate Ad)