New cookbooks and an old with a new recipe

During Saint Nicholas and Christmas time I have received and bought some new (at least for me) medieval cookbooks. These were:

The Book of Sent Sovi, containing the recipes of a 14th century cookbook from Catalonia (Spain) (ISBN 978-185566164-6). Luckily for us, the Catalan language is translated into English, but the actual transition to modern cooking has to be done by ourselves.

Das Mittelalter Kochbuch by Hannele Klemettilä (a German translation of an English translation of a Finnish book; ISBN 978-3-7306-0028-3) is filled with general information on medieval cooking, and contains a collection of recipes from medieval cookbooks and by Finnish re-enactors. There is some uncertainty whether the dishes by the latter are indeed medieval as no manuscript source is provided. Also some interesting information on Finnish medieval food can be found in the book.

Herrenspeis and Bauernspeis - Krumme Krappfen, Ollapotrida und Mamonia (ISBN 978-3-936622-14-0), Mein new Kochbuch - Wurst von Salm, Salbeimauschen und weitere Rezepte aus der mittelalterliche  Burgküche (ISBN 3-936622-64-7) and Orientalisch-mittelalterliche Küche (ISBN 978-3-940168-44-3) are all three by Peter Lutz, the former medieval cook of the Ronnenburg in Germany. These last three book are written in a very entertaining and informative way, and his view of how to prepare medieval dishes is very like our style of cooking. His last book deals with the medieval Islamic food and the influence it had on European (Mediterranean) medieval cooking. One of the dishes in this book, Rummaniyya, can also be found in the the Italian Liber de coquina from the beginning of the 14th century as Romania. This a a meat dish with a pomegranate sauce. A related recipe, Limonia (with a lemon sauce instead of a pomegranate sauce) is Katinkas favourite medieval dish. Mein new Kochbuch mostly takes the recipes from the late medieval/early renaissance cookbook Ein new Kochbuch by Max Rumpolt from 1581. However, Peter uses the extensive information on cooking found in Max Rumpolts book to find out how certain medieval cooking styles were performed. The recipes in this book are not those commonly encountered in modern medieval cookbooks.

Recipe of Rosijsen from the manuscript of Maister Hannsen des from Wirtenberg koch from 1460.

His first book, Herrenspeis und bauernspeis, starts with a recipe of Krumme krapfen. We knew this recipe already from another book under the name Rosijsen (Horse shoes) and have made it several times. The other book, however, did not provide the source, while peter Lutz provides at least two: The manuscript of "Maister Hannsen, des von Wirtenberg koch" from 1460 and the Alemannische Büchlein von guter Speise  (1470). The latter one also adds that the horse shoes are good and healthy. Indeed they taste very well, but today we would have some doubts on the healthiness of this dish.

Rosijsen

When eaten it looks like a horse shoe. You shall take good cheese and grate it. And take a same amount of flour and add eggs. So it can be kneaded easily. Add spices to it and roll it on a dish like a sausage. Bent it like a horse shoe and bake it in lard. [my translation of the German recipe] 

Ingredients (serves 4):
3 eggs
150 g grated cheese
150 g flour
salt, black pepper, nutmeg
lard or vegetable oil for frying

 

Make a smooth dough from the eggs cheese, flour, salt and a good amount of spices and let it rest for 20 minutes. Flour your hands and roll the dough into a sausage with the thickness of a thumb. Cut it into pieces of a finger length and form into a horse shoe. Fry the horse shoes in the hot lard or vegetable oil until they are gold-brown and crispy. Eat warm (with a sauce, but it tastes also good without one).

Salse von Weichseln (sour cherry sauce)

Peter Lutz recommends this sauce with the Rosijsen - which I have not tried yet. The recipe is from  Das Kochbuch des Meisters Eberhard (mid 15th century) who was the cook of Duke Henry of Landshut in Germany.

Zum ein salsenn von weichselnn zu machen.
Item wiltu machen ein gutte salsenn von weichselnn,
so thue die weichsell in einen hafen vnd
secz die auff ein glut vnd laß sie siedenn vnd
laß dann wider erkaltenn vnd streich sie durch ein
tuch vnd thue sie dann wider in den hafenn vnd
secz sie auff ein glut vnd laß sie wol sieden
vnd rurr sie, piß sie dick wirt, vnd thue dann
honig dar an vnd geribens prot vnd negellein vnd
gut gestu:ep vnd thue sie in ein feßlein. Sie
pleibt dir gut drew oder vier iar.

To make a sauce of sour cherries [translation into English by Volker Bach].
If you wish to make a good sauce of sour cherries, put the cherries into a pot and place it on the embers and let them boil. Then cool down again and pass them through a cloth, put it back into the pot, place it on the embers and let it boil well until it thickens. Then add honey and grated bread and cloves and good spice powder and put it into a small cask. It will stay good three or four years.

 

The sour cherry sauce with the rosijsen. Image scanned from the book Herrenspeis und Bauernspeis.

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 1 glass of sour cherries
• 100 g honey
• breadcrumbs to thicken the sauce
• cinnamon
• cloves, freshly ground in a mortar
• black pepper, also freshly ground 

Take the stone out of the sour cherries and mash the stoneless cherries to pulp (e.g. with help of a blender). Heat the cherrypulp on a small flame untill it is reduced by a third in volume. Add the honey and the breadcrumbs while constantly stirring until the sauce has thickened. Finally add the cinnamon, cloves and a little pepper.  If the sauce is added hot into clean jam bottles, it can be stored for several years.

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for an objet dart

chris recently finished this pedestal for a niche in a new york home .. it will hold, i believe, an antique vase, or some other objet dart ... ive always liked that phrase; almost anything can be one, and you get to decide what is one, and what isnt one.  all you need is a pedestal .. weve made a couple of these, and like a lot of other things, they look easy when they are done.  click the photos to enlarge them.

this one will get a swedish style decorative painted finish by a local paint artist.  it is currently displaying trevors masking tape ball, which he has been working on for several years.  we use a lot of masking tape to secure edge inlays and other design details, (see this recent post), and trevor is careful and resourceful when he peels it.  mark, who left our shop in 2007, after a 7 year stint, had a ball larger than a soccer ball, and just a little smaller than a basketball, when he left .. the tape balls are very cool objets.

a couple in process photos below  ..

we made the cad drawing from the image below, using the dimensions provided by the designer .. 

we used a combination of 3/4 baltic birch for the shaft, base and top, and solid woods for the moldings ...

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another parsons table

 

chris recently finished another parsons table for a client in new orleans.  the parsons table is a classic design form, (the link is interesting) and i wrote a blog post about one that will made back in 2010.

this one is going to be covered in shagreen, which under current usage, refers to the rough skin of a southeast asian stingray.  it has been used for a long time as a decorative covering for many different kinds of surfaces.  the table was delivered recently to mhg studio in long island city, new york.

here chris is gluing up the base before adding the mitered top to complete the table.

fortunately, or should i say miraculously, we were able to find wills original corner sample, which kept me from having to describe the various operations required to chris, and he could just have at it.

clean and crispy, with miters everywhere.

we used 3/4" baltic birch and plugged the holes in the bottom of the legs when it was finished.

looking forward to seeing the finished table..

and here it is .. 10/17/14

and its lookin good ..

 

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An 17th century plane from Alkmaar

This post is a sidestep from the medieval posts normally shown on the Saint Thomasguild blog. However, the lack of medieval planes have survived time and the fact that the plane from Alkmaar is not very well known (I did only know of this plane because Anne bought a book on archaeology in Alkmaar last month) are reason to devote this small post to it.

Archaeological excavations were carried out in the Huigbrouwerstraat 3 in Alkmaar, the Netherlands in 1995. Specifically the cesspit and chutes were dug up. The finds in one of the pits could be dated to 1625 and 1680. Most of the non-organic finds were broken earthenware and glass. One of the special finds was a more or less complete wooden plane. The description of the plane given in the published report Gebruikt en gebroken - vijf eeuwen bewoning op drie locaties in het oostelijk stadsdeel  is very scarce. For instance the type of wood is not given and the measurement could only be calculated from the 1:2 line drawing.

Photo of the 17th century Alkmaar plane from the report Gebruikt en gebroken. 

You can see clearly the wooden cross-pin and the low-angle for the blade.

The plane is small and has a length of approximately 16 cm, a height and width of 7 cm. The toat is slightly higher at 8 cm. The toat is cut directly out of the plane block and forms one piece with it. From the opening in the plane it can be deduced that the blade had a width of 4 cm and was set at a low angle around 35 degrees. The blade was secured by a wooden crosspin (still present) and wedge - an outdated method at that time, superseded by the grooved wedge. One side of the plane has been repaired using iron nails. The actual blade was present at the time of excavation, but removed due to heavy corrosion during the conservation process.

Line drawing of the 17th century Alkmaar plane from the report. 

The size bar has been added by me.

The Dutch plane from Nova Zembla

In the report, a comparison of the Alkmaar plane is made with another Dutch plane from an earlier century: the block plane of the Nova Zembla expedition of Willem Barentz (1596), which was left behind on the polar island and excavated in the late 19th century. The planes are however only comparable in size. The construction is very different, as well as their intended use, as the blades are set at quite different angles. 

 Dragging wood on sleds to the place where the Behouden Huys (Safe House) is built from 17 September 1596. In the background the Behouden Huys is under construction, left the jammed ship can be seen. Engraving opposite page 67 of the book Warhafftige Relation. Der dreyen newen unerhörten seltzamen Schiffart so die Holländischen und Seeländischen Schiff....Anno 1594, 1595 und 1596 verricht . Printed by Levinus Hulsius, Nuremberg, Germany, 1598. Image freely available from online collection of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The Barentz plane is very precisely dated between 1590-1596 and measures 16 cm (length) × 10.5 cm (height including toat) × 5.6 cm (width). The plane and toat are made of beech. The (top) opening for the plane blade is 4.5 cm wide by 10.2 cm. The octagonal toat is attached to the plane block by  a wooden dowel. The plane blade is set at an angle of 45 degrees and secured by a grooved wedge. Two plane blades which are slightly tapered towards the end are associated with this plane.

A detail of the engraving shown above, shows a carpenter cutting mortises. Behind him on the ground are an axe and a plane strikingly similar to the one found at the site of the Behouden Huys. The engraving is of 1598, the actual plane of 1596 - only two years difference. 

The block plane of 1596 found on the site of the Behouden Huys at Nova Zembla, Russia. 

Image freely available from online collection of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 

The two plane blades associated with the Barentz plane. Both blades are 4 cm wide and weigh 121 gram. The length of the left blade is 14 cm, the one on the right 14 .6 cm. Both images freely available from online collection of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The Barentz plane with one of the plane blades.

Another comparison can be made with the 17th century planes found on the ship Vasa, which sank in 1628. The construction of this ship was overseen by Dutch shipbuilders, and some planes have similarities to later Dutch planes. I do however have no detailed information of these planes, except for the photos I took and were published in an earlier blogpost.

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an interesting overview

for a while earlier this year i had katie rubick from route 7 social helping me with my dorset custom furniture facebook page .. while i sort of paid attention to what she was doing, she really dug back into my blog and found some interesting stuff.  heres a link to my photostream ... lots of links there.  lots of pictures, in no discernible order .. an interesting ramble ...

 good job kate ..

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An Italian sgabello

The so-called Strozzi-chair, above all, a pearl of the collection, a world-renowned uniqueness, a truly enchanting masterpiece, one of the most beautiful Florentine pieces of furniture. Under the hand of an artist - who could not think of Benedetto da Majano? -  the profiling, tasteful intarsia, the magnificent schiacciato carving of the medallions that crown the backrest, which are yet lifted by delicate gilding -  a real work of art has been created. Even in the princely Palazzo Strozzi this chair has been regarded and guarded through centuries as a family treasure.

This (translated) praise of a three-legged chair from around 1489, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (gallery 500), comes from F. Schottmuller in his book Wohnungskultur und Mobel der Italienischer Renaissance from 1921. At that time the chair belonged to the collection of Dr. Albert Figdor. He acquired the chair from the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. When the Figdor collection was auctioned in 1930 the chair - along with some other furniture - was bought by the New York museum.

This beautiful 15th century chair is made of walnut, with maple, ebony, ebonised wood, fruit-wood and gilded details. The octagonal seat plate rests on three oblique, upwardly rejuvenating triangular edged legs. The also oblique backrest is small and high, and spreads upward. All parts are decorated with geometric intarsia strips. The backrest is crowned by a circular medallion, surrounded by a row of  pierced carved rising moons of the Strozzi crest. Both sides of the medallion bear the crest of Strozzi in low relief (so-called schiaciatto) carving: the front with a buckler occupied by three half moons on a cross bar, covered by a helmet crowned with an eagle with raised wings; the back side has the buckler alone with the Strozzi family coat of arms of the three half moons on a cross bar.

The chair was made by the workshop of Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano, who were also responsible for the portrait bust of Filippo Strozzi, as well as the sculpture of his funerary chapel, and the designs of the Strozzi palace and its furnishings. The chair is 147.3 cm high, 42.5 cm deep and 41.9 cm wide.

The front (left) and the backside (right) of the medallions of the Strozzi chair. The rising half moons are omni-present in the schiaciatto carving. Images by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

The side of the Strozzi chair. You can see that the octagonal seat is enlarged at the back to accommodate the backrest. Also can be clearly seen that the backrest is angled backwards. Image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This photo shows the intarsia strips that decorate the backrest, seating edges and legs.The dark lines are ebonized (painted like ebony) wood. Image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A detail from the intarsia of the photo above.

A modern version of the Strozzi sgabello

In 2006, I did not have these detailed colour images, or had any background information of this famous chair from the Dr. Figdor auction catologue. I only had  one black-and-white photo from the book Oude meubels (old furniture) by Sigrid Muller Christensen, with no more information than that it dated around 1490, that it once belonged to the Strozzi family and that it resided in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. No dimensions were given, nor anything else. But I liked the appearance of the chair, and decided to make two modern versions of this chair, using modern wood glue and finish. For the rest, the construction could be like the Strozzi sgabello, but as said before, the only piece of information was the photo in the book.

The photo on page 55 of the book Oude Meubels by Sigrid Muller-Christensen.

Using this photo I tried to reconstruct the dimensions. I used a standard seating height of 42 cm and based the rest of the dimensions on that. I also guessed the angles (10 degrees) using a protractor. The total height of the photo chair was 109 cm, 36 cm short compared to the real Strozzi chair.

Measurements of the chair based on the black-and-white photo and a 42 cm seating height.

I had some leftover wood from a (non-medieval) rocking dragon I made, which I wanted to use for the two chairs: European maple for the chair itself, and walnut for the intarsia - the opposite of the Strozzi chair. The same leftover wood has been used for the playing board of the game of the Four Seasons called the World described in an earlier blogpost. Instead of a round medallion at the top of the Strozzi backrest I used an octagonal one, also the intarsia decoration used on the chairs was designed by myself.

I made only rough sketches of the furniture I made at that time. I have put the dimensions on a photo of one of the two chairs. The legs of the chair are triangular. The backrest also has an angle of 10 degrees, like the three legs.

The plan for the walnut intarsia at the top of the backrest. The decorative plan for the octagonal medaillon and the seating was drawn more precise in 2006. The dimensions were added in 2012. The two diamond intarsia on the backrest were skipped in the final plan.

The intarsia plan for the seating. You can see that the octagonal seating is elongated at the back to accommodate for the backrest.The walnut triangles at the bottom and the two left and right at the top are the places where the legs of chair connect to the seating.

The two modern Strozzi chairs without final their coating. The chairs were finished with an oil-wax mixture (Osmo Hardwax oil - satin finish).

Two details of the construction. Left: The backrest of the chair is connected to the seating with dovetails, which in turn are fixed by the walnut intarsia strip. Because of the angled backrest, the  dovetails are also set at an 10 degrees angle. Right: The walnut intarsia strip at the seating. The strip is around 3 mm thick. The groove for the strip was made with a router.

The legs stand at an angle of 10 degrees on the seating, which means that the mortise has to be set at the same degree. I used a block of wood set at the same degree to guide the chisel when cutting the mortise. I started the mortise at the top of the seat at the place of a walnut traingle. I then calculated where the mortise would appear at the bottom. After the mortises were made, the legs were glued in and the mortises wedged. At the top of the seating the mortise was covered with the walnut traingle.

Some more views of the chair and the intarsia. The grooves for long walnut strips on the backrest were made with a router, the grooves for the short strips were made by hand.

The intarsia of the octagonal medallion were made by hand. The walnut diamonds were made slightly tapered to fit exactly in the corresponding hole. After glueing, the medallion was planed flat.

Both my modern Strozzi chairs at Castle Loevestein in 2012..

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a birch and lacewood table

well heres a cool little table

and here it is in its spot .. lookin good .. and you can just side the pine sideboard we built for them last year back there by the fireplace.  the client was embarrassed to tell me she was using it for a tv stand.
heres a photo of the finished piece.  scroll down

its based on this table i built for a show about 10 years ago.. this one was cherry and milk paint, with ebony and lacewood accents.  the one we just finished was almost my last plank of some figured birch a friend saved from the cutting it up for cutting boards line at the local kitchen accessory factory, j.k.adams .. we made some other pretty interesting pieces like this one from those four boards.

except for the total tapered legs, which makes for about a 1.5 degree angle on all the horizontal parts, it was a fairly straight forward project.  the lacewood edges are 1/16th inch veneers, cut from a board and paired up to wrap around the outside edges of the top and shelf so that, with the mitered corners, the edging looks kind of like solid wood unless you look real close. 

trevor did a great job with the building and finishing of it, and he didnt use the cnc even once.

heres a coffee table in the cherry, ebony, lacewood and milk paint

same deal here only with some stain

and a kind of blurry close up of the edge detail from the original .. hmmm

this ones a little better, but its cut from the full size picture and i didnt focus on a close up like i should have .. next time.  you  get the idea.

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