Adam Balic

Damn this new fangled intelluctual food . Good this means that I am free to use prunes then without looking like a copy-cat.

Indeed, meat glue would simplify the whole process greatly - but welded meat may not have the same mouthfeel as a terrine ← I actually think that the meat glue you're talking about is aleady used in the industrial terrines we find at the grocery store, this is a pretty common ingredient in factory made sausages and terrines. ← Yes, I'm sure that it is used in all sorts of industrial stuff (those sliced meats that have clown faces comes to mind). But, it has some interesting potential and it is just a protein solution after all. But, I will do some tradiional stuff first. End of next week. Your terrine looks great BTW, really nice and I can taste the combination of prune and rabbit in my head, Yum!

Adam, here is the recipe, from Scappi. This isn't a direct translation but the gist of it. Per fare una vivanda di semolella con diverse altre materie alla moresha chiamata sucussu How to make a semolina food with diverse things in the style of the Moors called “sucussu” (couscous) [book II, Cap, 153, p. 65] The couscous is made by rubbing together semolina and white flour to form grains moistening with water. It is left to dry for an 1 1/2 hours and one uses almond oil or olive oil for rubbing. It’s made in a pignata di terra (an earthenware stew pot that looks like the bottom portion of a couscoussiere) with fatty beef, wether back meat, salted pork throat, capon, all cut up. It is cooked in water and when the meats are almost cooked one adds Milanese style yellow cervellate (a kind of sausage), and pepper, and cinnamon, and saffron, and finishs the cooking. The semola is placed in another stew pot and it is cook by steaming over the meat broth. This could take two hours. After cooking the couscous it is piled on a plate and it is sprinkled with grated cheese, sugar and cinnamon. The meat is served on top, along with some fresh butter and spoonfuls of broth. It is covered with another large plate and let to rest for 1 hour. Chefzadi might recognize this dish from the sixteenth century Italy as it looks very similar to a contemporary Algerian couscous. ← Thank you very much, I have wanted to know what this recipe looked like for some time. English translations of Scappi seem impossible to come by. Actually, it looks very good and quite contempory to some extant dishes as you mentioned. Does the sausage contain brains? The still use an earthenware pignata for stews around Nice, I think that it is called a poelon in Provence.

(Hand up) Garfish are relatively common in southern Australia (traditionally boned by rolling in round a can of beer), I have seen it twice in the UK. Both times it had mistakenly come in with a case of sardines. Did it include the bones? The bones are a sort of metalic blue-green. Quite pretty. Mangostine are relatively common in SE-Asian foodstores (well at least in Edinburgh). The intact fruit looks like this scroll down. They are really nice and sometimes seen in Thai curries. Looks like an excellent meal. Thanks for the detailed write up.

I have see some very interesting non-english books on the subject, but there seem to be a lack of such books in English. J Acord and I have discussed the possiblity of using the enzyme discussed in this thread to create some interesting geometric forms, without too much difficulty. Meat Glue

J - once again you fall for my cunning 'poor little me' act. Bahahahahahaah! But, caul sound good, tah.

It didn't seem like a tannic reaction (no real feeling of astringency). It may be something specific to this type as I have never come across it's like before. As I said it looks just like a yellow version of the typical apple eggplant, but it had this strong floral smell. I got the feeling that it might be the exception to the rule that these eggplants are eaten raw, but I would like to know if this is correct. Cool McGee quote. I have wondered about this. Makes sense, as gourds are found in both the new world and old world and are thought to have drifted across from one to the other. Seems unlikley, until you consider that Elephant bird eggs from Madagascar have ended up on the west coast of Australia after floating across the Indian Ocean.

It would seem that this would be the case, but without documentaion it is difficult to make a say when and with whom it originally developed. But I don't think anybody is suggesting that pasta was developed on Sicily by the Arabs, just that it may have strongly influenced the direction European pasta evolved in. Also, I would think that the very large group of products we know as pasta, proberly evolved from some quite independant sources. Also, technically some of the round semolina products are not pasta as they are formed by accretion rather then being a 'paste' product.

Austin - great images and information. I was wondering if you had any information on these yellow eggplants. They have been flown in from Thailand and you can judge the size from the pea eggplants etc. They smell very floral, really quite unlike any other eggplant I have had before. I thought that I would try some raw, but this was a mistake as they were so caustic that my throat felt raw for the rest of the day. I was too scared to use them after that......

Foolish? Nah. Another good resource for the origins of pasta is "Pasta: by Silvano Serventi, Françoise Sabban, Antony Shugaar (Translator), Francoise Sabba". This looks at pasta development in both Europe and China. Charles Perry has also written an article on the Persian/Arabic origins of various pasta in the Far East. I learnt all this valuble pasta stuff while researching the eGCI pasta course I did.

Alberto - not the thread to discuss pasta origins, but here is an interesting article by Clifford Wright on the subject. Roman Pasta? As for Scappi, I only have the recipe title "succussu all moresca", not the recipe itself. I haven't been able to find a transcript of this book todate . Having said that, I would imagine that the couscous in Sicily took the direct root from North Africa, rather then though Scappi etc.

Many of the early Italian cookbooks contained large chunks of earlier Arabic texts, in some cases retaining the original names. Even in later Italian cooking texts there were North African/Arabic influences. Bartolomeo Scappi's "Opera" (1570) contains a recipe for "Moorish couscous" for instance. Odd to think of 16th century popes tucking into couscous. However, I think that this issue is very complex as Arabic culture wasn't exactly geographically or temporally fixed. In addtion, the Jews co-existed within Arabic states and I am sure that some Arabic dishes in Italy have arrived there via the Jews in Italy. Even Artusi has a recipe for couscous which he indicates comes from Jewish Italians. Re: Pasta. I would say that the likely Arabic origin of pasta applies to Semolina based pasta, many soft wheat pasta most likely developed in Italy (an also independently in other parts of the world. Also, I think that the Arabic 'ytria' (string?), derives from a Greek/Armenian root?

Ah, there you go then. Cool. Thanks very much for putting the effort into contacting an expert touaregsand. You know it is strange to think of the Romans and Classical Greeks etc and realise that they didn't have any distilled alcohol.

Sadly not the butchers in Edinburgh, to my knowledge. As it is difficult to get fatback of the correct size etc, I mostly resort to green streaky bacon.

"Bard" is the thin slices of pork backfat that you can see lining the terrine. It takes a little practice to get it in such lovely thin sheets as bleudauvergne has here. bleudauvergne - wonderful photographs of the process, really really nice. I mentioned galantine making for today, unfortunately I have too much work on this week, so I will have to put it off until ~28th, sorry.

Technically, it is more a pâté. The original pâtés of France were encased in dough and kept for a long time. Now the distinctions are somewhat blurred, but it is commonly understood that a terrine is a preparation of meats/fish/forcemeats/vegetables etc. baked in an earthenware dish (the terrine), and a pâté en croûte is baked in a case of dough in some mold or terrine. But some preparations called "pâtés" are actually terrines, so there you go. I think the main difference between French-style and English-style pâtés/meat pies is the dough but basically they have the same origins. French style: the dough is thick and hard, meant to isolate the inside and preserve its flavors, and in the case of pâté en croûte is it not meant to be eaten. The English hot-water raised dough is delicious to eat but it is not used in French cooking. French pâtés encased in puff pastry or butter/lard shortcrust are generally eaten warm, dough and all. They are lovely old-fashioned dishes, worth reviving. ← More information on English pies Ivan Day's Pies Quite right. Orginally, many of the crusts of the English style pies were not meant to be eaten either. The pie was a way of preserving meat or protecting it for transportation. English pork pies are a survivor of a greater tradition, yesterday I heard a lecture on the history of English pies and it was mentioned that there was some evidence to suggest that the crust were not always eaten even in small pies ('chewits') and in some cases was recycled.........

I would love to know as well. I have asked a few times and the butchers say that it is possible, but resturants tend to pre-order it (which ones I wonder, I have never seen any evidence of it). Oddly I was taking to a friend about this today he mentioned that he got his from a Turkish butcher. Sadly, this is in London. Good back-fat is also an issue.

English language books are few and far between. On of the best 'Pâtés & Terrines by Friedrich W. Ehlert, Edouard Lonque, et al...' has been out of print for ~ 20 years. I have seen some interesting French and Italian books, but don't own any. Making basic terrine is easy, but some examples are require a great deal of skill and art.

1st - Appologies the French nation for non-French terrine on the French board..... I am attending the Leeds Food Symposium tomorrow, this year the topic is cerals. Anyway, as it is a meeting of food history I made a 17th century 'steak pie' (delegates provide the food ). Essentially a terrine. Fresh from the oven it looks like this: It should look like this: As you can see I have made some mistakes and this is going to be given for lunch to some of the best historical recreation cooks on the planet..... I will take photos of the interior if I am not too shamed. So nobody else should fear making terrines.

There are many examples of specific regional French terrines. Not sure if there is a pan-French example that comes to mind, but I would think that most people would consider all terrines to be 'French', although this is incorrect. The English pork pie is basically a terrine after all.

I have also made this version and liked it very much. I think her information on lightening the bechamel with beaten eggs is excellent, especially for such a rich dish.

No worries . BTW Not sure what type of gannet you are, but the Australasian gannet is very similar and if you are lucky can be seen in Melbourne (Brighton Pier was the last time I saw one along with a fairy penguin). At least kids will like it. Also the Melbourne zoo is v good and an hour out of town is the Healsville Sanctury, which is full of native (non-toxin) wild-life.

Yes, that is right. If you look at it carefully, you can see a faint line where the second layer of forcemeat was put in. I really like the look of the red mullets on the right. I wonder if you could make a fish 'boulibaisse' terrine (saffron, fennel, orange zest etc), without it looking like a '70's dinner party?

Pistachios are for the colour (like carrot, pickled tongue, squares of lard and truffles) and texture contrasts I would thing. They sometimes take up flavour elements as well.

[squeezes forehead]. Parsley, tarragon and thyme. And some preserved ginger. OK. I will make a galantine of some description and take some photgraphs etc. If I get a chance, maybe this Monday. Thankfully I have just bought a fish-kettle.