Saionji Shonagon
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Mar 10, 2012 23:03:28 GMT -5
And you think the Girl Scouts of America are cookie pushers! Oze Hoan's introduction to the Chronicles of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. complains "What foul things have foreign priests done to Japanese converts?" These "worst enemies of Japan" not only used Christianity to sucker the ignorant, their black ships brought goods and created markets in rare foreign items. "If someone comes to look, for people who like to drink, they offer chinta, grape wine, roke, ganebu and mirinchu, and for teetotalers, they proffer things like kasutera, boro (cookies), karumeira (caramel), aruheito (a sort of meringue) and konpeito (confits) to enlist followers to their sect."
Hmmm, sounds a bit like the MO of the House of Cheerful Monkeys: Known World Domination by plying all comers with good food and drink.
Eric Rath's Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan has a translation of the earliest surviving recipe for kasutera. Also known as P�o de Castela (bread from Castile), it was one of several dishes introduced to Japan by the Portuguese in the 16th century. So the story goes, a Christian convert, Maruyama Toan (Antoniyo), opened a shop in 1587, selling a sweet called kasutera. He made presentations to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu (the future shogun).
"Knead together 10 eggs, 160 momme (600 grams or 2.5 cups*) of sugar and 160 momme of wheat flour. Spread paper in a pot and sprinkle it with flour. Place the dough on top of this. Place a heat source above and below to cook. There are oral instructions." from the Nanban Ryorisho or Southern Barbarian's Cookbook. (Exact date unknown, could be pre-1600 to any time in the 17th century).
(Sugar had been used medicinally in Japan, but the proliferation of "barbarian" treats involving the use of large quantities of sugar was a pricy novelty at the time.)
Well, I didn't get dough. What went into the pan was a sweet, yellow batter, which tells me that ten 17th century eggs may not be anywhere near the same volume and wetness as ten modern large Grade As. I used 2 1/2 cups each of plain granulated white sugar and Gold Medal all purpose flour (sifted), and hand mixed it with a wooden spoon, then baked it in a rectangular roasting pan lined with parchment paper for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. (Perfectly done at that temperature to not stick to a bamboo skewer in my oven, depends on baking conditions in yours.)
It LOOKS like cornbread. I just sliced off a small piece and the consistency is very cornbread-like as well. It only rose about an inch in the pan. Sweet, cakey*,very mild and unassuming to a modern palate, but to a culture who had never had things made with sugar in it? Or that many eggs? I can absolutely see the appeal.
It's also a very different consistency from modern kasutera. If you Google recipes, most of them incorporate milk and honey and call for whisking the eggs in a bowl over a pan of hot water. If any of you at Twelfth Night tried the packaged kasutera at my UnVigil, the cake is much spongier and has a density similar to pound cake.
While my giant modern eggs may have gotten in the way of this being a period-accurate result, it's ideal as a "breakfast bread" for a Sunday morning peerage meeting (and no harder to make than brownie mix).
I may have to whomp some up to take to Estrella War too.
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Mar 11, 2012 19:24:55 GMT -5
24 hours later, the consistency is somewhat more spongy than it seemed right out of the oven last night. I sliced it up and took it to Clan Makita's practice, where a sizeable dent was made.
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Post by Sō Haruko on Mar 11, 2012 23:47:16 GMT -5
I *have* to purchase a copy of that book -- read it, drooled over that section specifically. Your cake sounds yummy!
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Mar 12, 2012 0:24:24 GMT -5
It is. I do want to try it again with fewer eggs and see if I can achieve the consistency described in the book, but it was a hit as it is. One of the guys had several pieces over the course of the afternoon!
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Lash
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perfection isnt an end result but a path to walk upon with your eyes closed.
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Post by Lash on Mar 12, 2012 23:40:08 GMT -5
what was the sugar like back then ? was it like it is now? what about using farm fresh brown eggs? they are half the size of a large egg.
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Mar 13, 2012 0:45:25 GMT -5
Ever heard the term "sugar loaf?" It's my understanding that cane sugar was processed into loaves, blocks or cones and one would cut or break off what was needed and sift it into granulated form as needed.
A bit of Googling confirms that our namban friends, the Portuguese, were spreading the cultivation of sugar cane to Brazil right around the same time of first Portuguese contact with Japan in the 1540s. The article on Wikipedia is actually fairly detailed. (Yes, Wikipedia - not perfect, bet it's sometimes a good place to start).
That said, I fully intend to chat up some of the food-Laurels at Crown for a better idea of the quality of period sugars as well as the eggs.
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Post by Please Delete on Mar 13, 2012 9:02:29 GMT -5
Sugar was being refined in Sicily by the 10th century: www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/topic_id/13/id/110/Various types of sugar cane grow in tropical Asia and Oceania, and traded with China. They had methods of refining sugar cane in China by the Tang dynasty (Edward H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand). Methods of refinement included: 1) Chewing/crushing into a juice/drink 2) Boiling the juice into a solid sweetener 3) Refining the solid into sugar According to Schafer, sugar cane was introduced to the late Zhou and Han from Annam (Vietnam), and may have been fermented into a "sugar liquor". "Stone honey" was little cakes or loaves of sugar made by drying sugar cane juice in the sun which could be moulded into various shapes (e.g. "sugar lions"), produced in Tongking by the 3rd century, and in various towns throughout China by the Tang dynasty. Schafer notes that milk is one ingredient used for stone honey: -One type made near the capital with "white honey" and milk curds -Another place boiled rice powder in carabao milk -Finest type, made of sugar cane and milk, came out of Sichuan and "Persia" (e.g. Sogdiana--Bukhara, Samarqand, and Kwarizm) Attempts to reproduce the sugar from the Far West led to"sandy sugar"--Schafer mentions that this was just a really good brown sugar, and not a truly refined sugar. Truly refined sugar comes about in the Song dynasty as "sugar frost" I hope that helps, some. I don't know how much made it to Japan before the Portuguese, but I would fully expect to see it being imported together with kasutera.
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sashakhan
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Post by sashakhan on Mar 13, 2012 18:54:28 GMT -5
I suspect that the likely best analogue for loaf sugar may be like the sugar cones (piloncillo in Spanish) that are a common item in the Latin food section of California supermarkets. It may require crushing with a mortar and pestle.
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Mar 25, 2012 16:43:54 GMT -5
Made two batches of kasutera today. Batch#1 I used seven Grade A large eggs, which resulted in a thickish batter and baked up in about 30 minutes. For Batch#2 I cut it down to six Grade A large eggs. This was much more like the dough Rath describes in his chapter on the Namban Cookbook. It baked up somewhat flatter as well, though nowhere near being a pancake, and needed maybe seven more minutes in the oven before my testing skewer came out clean. Tastes about the same as the ten egg version from a couple weeks ago, but the consistency is bread-ier.
Both batches have cooled, been cut up and bagged, so if you're coming to Estrella, you'll get to try some.
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Lash
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perfection isnt an end result but a path to walk upon with your eyes closed.
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Post by Lash on Apr 4, 2012 12:48:18 GMT -5
it was PHENOMINAL Saionji-Sensei !!! I almost made myself sick before sumo chowing down on it!! lol!
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Apr 4, 2012 13:26:49 GMT -5
Yeah, but the sugar rush probably won you that bottle.
By the time you started on it (five days after it was baked), it had turned to something like biscotti, which may or may not be due to the dry desert air. Or some snacker in camp not having resealed the zip lock bag, even.
Sir Conrad offered the conjecture that this might be a function of it having come via the lengthy voyage from Portugal as a ship biscuit. Not ruling that theory out as I have yet to start researching the Portuguese end of the thread, but it did remain edible under field conditions.
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Post by Sō Haruko on Jan 8, 2013 13:21:07 GMT -5
I'm working on a redaction of this as I type -- it's in the oven baking now. Hope to have good results. (:
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jan 8, 2013 13:51:29 GMT -5
I found ten modern Grade A large eggs made it cakey, so I usually do five to six, which yields a biscuit-bread that doesn't rise as much. Lash-dono is completely addicted, BTW. ;-D
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Post by Sō Haruko on Jan 8, 2013 14:17:43 GMT -5
I'm using weight rather than volume -- you get a substantially different ratio of flour to sugar, and nine eggs was just about right. Full details when it's done baking, as I'm using a covered pot per the directions, and it takes more time that way. (:
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Post by Sō Haruko on Jan 8, 2013 15:48:28 GMT -5
First things first: I went and looked up what modern kasutera looks like. It's a spongelike bread, dark brown on top, fine-grained. I also attempted to see if I could discover what the Portuguese version looked like. A small amount of trawling yielded pao de lo, which is similar to an angel food cake. I weighed out 600 g of sugar and 600 g of flour, given that the recipe had kindly given explicit quantities. (How awesome -- and rare! for period cooking!) I chose weight instead of volume also because it is more accurate, just as an overall baking skill. Volume is less accurate because different people pack their flour and sugar to different amounts, and equal volumes of sugar and flour do not weigh the same. I did about half whole-wheat and half white flour, as I expect that white flour as we have it was unavailable at the time. I also did a mixture of white and brown sugars. I think next time I will use brown sugar or piloncillo exclusively, as I think it will be closer to accurate, and will also affect the weight measurement. Brown sugar is heavier and contains more liquid than white sugar, in equal quantities. I also added a pinch of salt to the sugar, because salt makes sweet taste better. For reals. (; At this point, I started cracking eggs. When I got to seven, I looked at the flour and sugar again, mentally measured the amount of liquid to solid, thought "that's not enough" and continued on to nine eggs. I think it could take the full ten, actually. There are oral instructions.Given that the modern recipes are light cakes, I decided to beat the eggs well before adding the sugar and flour, to add some loft. I could have used my stand mixer and gotten it really frothy, but I was hesitant to do that as obviously stand mixers are not period. I dug out the whisk and got to work. So it was not as light as it could have been, but I did beat it to the point of frothy and lighter-colored than the original mixture. I then added the sugar a little at a time, beating hard with each addition. I followed up with the flour, doing the same. About halfway through the flour, I switched to using a spoon because it had gotten to be too heavy for the whisk to work with. The final dough was a thick, heavy batter, not quite dry enough to knead. I lined a Dutch oven with two pieces of parchment paper, lightly floured, and set the oven to 350‹. I think when I bake it again, I may bake at 375‹ or 400‹ to see how that works. I placed the dough in the pot, smoothed it with my fingers, and covered it with a lid. I did this because the Japanese in period had no ovens; the coals would have been heaped on the lid of the pot, and the surface of the bread would not have been exposed to open heat. This does cause the bread to bake longer, as it is less-directly exposed. It also means that it browns less, because the sugar is not exposed to such high heat. I baked it for half an hour, checked it, and it was just starting to dry around the edges, but was still very wet and doughy throughout. I checked in approximately 15-minute increments thereafter, and was satisfied with its doneness (cake tester came out clean) at approximately 1 hour 25 minutes. I removed it from the oven, let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes so that it would not collapse immediately, then used the parchment paper to transfer it to a cooling rack. Couldn't quite wait until it was entirely cool -- just sliced it open and had some. I actually find it quite sweet, though just a tiny touch dry -- I think I overbaked it a little because I was concerned that the parchment paper was over-insulating the bottom. Probably best at 1 hour 15 minutes bake time. In summation: Kasutera by hexslinger, on Flickr Untitled by hexslinger, on Flickr
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