Herb
Fritters
Ingredients
Yeast
Water
Flour
Sage
Salt
Honey
Vegetable Oil
The original recipe below is from the mid-fourteenth century and it is part of various English culinary recipes translated by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler(1). This original recipe was reprinted in Pleyn Delit(2).
Take gode erbys; grynde hem and medle hem with flour and water, & a lytel 3est, and salt, and frye hem in oyle. And ete hem with clere hony.
This translated recipe was then redacted by the authors of Pleyn Delit to create the following recipe(3):
Herb Fritters
1 package yeast
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup flour
3-4 tbsp mixed green herbs
1/4 tsp salt
optional: honey (as a sauce)
Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water, stirring. Then mix in flour, rest of water, finely chopped herbs, and salt. Cover (a bit of plastic wrap is fine) and set in a warm place (eg, the back of the stove, if you are cooking something on the front burners at the time) for about an hour. Then drop by spoonfuls into fairly hot oil and fry, turning once if you are not using deep fat.
In place of the mixed green herbs I used loosely chopped sage. Sage is a common herb of the Renaissance and medieval periods.
"In Latin, Salvia, takes the name of safety,
In English, sage, is rather wise than crafty;
Sith then the name betokens wise and saving,
We count it nature's friend, and worth the having."
-The English Doctor, 1609 (4)
The sage I used in this dish came from my herb garden. I have placed bowls of it (both whole and chopped) out for everyone to sample. Sage has a strong taste and an even more biting smell when in its raw-but-chopped form. When fried, however, the taste smooths out and becomes sweeter.
I chose to use only sage instead of mixed herbs because this vibrant taste goes well with the pungent flavor of the yeast. It helps remove the "yeasty" taste of the fritters.
It was also because of the flavor that I chose to use the optional honey. Instead of having the honey for dipping though, I drizzle it over the fried and still warm fritter. The honey I used had a full-flavored, edging towards the sour, taste to it when I sampled it raw. A bland or smooth-tasting honey would have become lost in the fritter with the bold taste of the sage and the yeast. But this particular honey holds its own and works well with the other ingredients.
While in period lard would have likely been used as the hot oil as lard was quite common, I used vegetable oil. I wanted to be sure that vegetarians could enjoy this dish.
FOOTNOTES
1. Hieatt, Constance B. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks. Toronto, Canada. University of Toronto Press. Second Edition, 2000. p. 164.
2. Hieatt. Recipe 8.
3. Hieatt. Recipe 8.
4. Holland, Eileen. Sage. Published in http://www.open-sesame.com/sage.html.
REFERENCES
Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, by Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington, and Sharon Butler, Toronto, Canada, University of Toronto Press, Second Edition, 2000.
Sage, by Eileen Holland. Published in http://www.open-sesame.com/sage.html.