Pokerounce – a medieval sweetmeat

Pokerounce – a medieval sweetmeat

Pokerounce is very easy to cook and takes just a few minutes to prepare. This is arguably the most evocative dish featured on the site so far.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces of good "set' honey (buy locally if possible)
• ½ teaspoon of ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon of cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon of ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon of freshly gound nutmeg (optional, it is a worthy addition)
• 4 thick hand cut slices of bread (from a white tin loaf)
• A big handful of pine nuts for decoration

Preparation:

• Weigh the honey out into a small saucepan.



• Cook's note: Put the saucepan on a set of scales and add the honey spoonful by spoonful to get the correct weight. You can use "runny' honey if you prefer but set honey is easier to work with.
  



• Add the spices to the honey and simmer the mixture over a low heat until well blended (a few minutes should do the trick). The mixture changes consistency and becomes easy to pour.



• Cook's note: Do not allow the honey to get too hot or it will caramelise and turn into toffee.



• For a clear glaze, spend a minute or two skimming the froth from the top of the honey mixture and then use the clear honey below. However, the look of the opaque glaze is more in keeping with medieval cookery as it retains and uses the whole of the honey mixture.


• Allow the mixture to cool slightly while lightly toasting the four slices of bread on both sides.


• Cut each slice of toast into four pieces, either square or diagonally according to your preference, and arrange on a serving dish.


• Using a spoon, carefully pour the spiced honey over the toasted bread.
• Place pine nut kernels stuck upright into the bread to make patterns and decorative shapes.

• Warning: Hot honey sticks and will burn. Run burnt fingers under cold water immediately.




• Cook's Note: Serve hot. Eat with a knife and fork to prevent burning fingers.

• Cook's note: The black pepper and spices take away excessive sweetness, which makes this delicious dish a healthy (fat free) conclusion to a medieval meal.

Original Fourteenth or Fifteenth Century recipe for Pokerounce

Take Hony, & caste it in a potte tyl it wexe chargeaunt y-now; take & skeme it clene. Take Gyngere, Canel, & Galyngale, & caste þer-to; take whyte Brede, & kytte to trenchours, & toste ham; take þin paste whyle it is hot, & sprede it vppe-on þin trenchourys with a spone, & plante it with Pynes, & serue forth.

From "Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55.", Austin, Thomas, The Early English Text Society,

Think Medieval

One of the problems facing modern historians is that we no longer have the same "mental furniture' as people in medieval times.

In other words we don't take for granted the same things that they did and don't have the same "general knowledge'. We haven't had the same life experiences and have not been subjected to the same teaching/learning.

This makes it hard to appreciate the reasons why beliefs, both religious and secular, were held n the past. We don't really know what influenced people to think the way they did and we don't fully understand the implications of their beliefs.

This lack of understanding extends through most aspects of medieval life as we know it. We may feel we understand the medieval period, but in reality we can only make educated guesses about what people really thought.

For instance, it is quite likely that in addition to being a very pleasant sweetmeat, Pokerounce was also seen, in medieval times, as an aphrodisiac.

Pokerounce was made primarily from ingredients that were generally thought to have aphrodisiacal powers:

Honey

Many medicines in Egyptian times were based on honey, including cures for sterility and impotence. Medieval seducers plied their partners with Mead, a fermented drink made from honey. Lovers on their "Honeymoon" drank mead and it was thought to "sweeten" the marriage.

Pine Nuts

Apicus, in his cookbook "De re coquinaria", recommends the use of pine seeds together with cooked onions and white mustard (Eruca sativa) and pepper as a stimulant. While Galen, a Greek of the Second Century AD, indicated that if a mixture of pine seeds, honey and almonds were taken before bedtime on three consecutive evenings it should produce "desirable' effects.

A collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts that could be loosely described as health handbooks, "Tacuinum Sanitatis in Medicina", preach the virtues of pine cones "to stimulate the libido".

Ginger

Brought to Europe from the East, ginger root raw, cooked or crystallized is a stimulant to the circulatory system and, in medieval times, was recognised as having numerous "beneficial' properties.