Poached Pears
Pears appear in a multitude of forms throughout medieval cooking and their use dates back thousands of years before period. They were often served at the end of a meal with other sweets and were thought to have medicinal properties. Chiquart’s "On Cookery" includes instructions for baking pears that were thought to help the sick, and scribes from circa 2750 BC recorded medical prescriptions that include a poultice made of pears, figs and thyme. In Siena, in 1326, candied pears were served at the end of every meal of one particular knighting ceremony, and the lower classes of Rome sometimes ended their meals with a dish of grapes, pears, and apples.
Recipes for pears cooked in wine and spices appear throughout English manuscripts. Surprisingly, there are few examples of similar dishes in French, Latin or Italian manuscripts. There was mention in some French and Italian menus of "Pears with Hypocras" however, a recipe did not appear until the 1400s. In fact, Le Ménagier de Paris mentions that they were "like turnips." This is different from sweet pear desserts of the English.
Pears were pureed, baked, or poached with spices in wine. With the poached recipes particularly, there are many variations, almost all include wine, pears, sugar, and cinnamon. Other ingredients include anise, cloves, mace, dates, currants, and vinegar. Also, salt or ginger was used. (Ginger can sometimes be an interesting alternative when trying to cut salt from ones diet). In "Forme of Cury", there is a recipe called Peeres in Confyt which adds mulberries to enrich the color and has the final dish served with the cooked pears in a pyramid shape with the syrup poured over top. This created an interesting variation of color when serving.
Color was important in medieval cooking. The authors of The Medieval Kitchen: recipes from France and Italy state that color "defined dishes an were an element in the cooks choice of ingredients." Meaning, that the kind and color of sauce determined which spices to use to preserve the integrity of the dish—for example, a yellow sauce may have used saffron, etc. The recipe from which mine is based, Perys en Composte from Harleian MS 279 Potage Dyvers, includes the addition of "Sawnderys" or sandalwood. Sandalwood, sometimes called dragon’s blood, adds an old rose/reddish color to dishes. The Boke of Godecookery website recommends the use of red food coloring instead, as the affect is similar without the difficulty of trying to find the spice and the unpleasant taste that sandalwood can sometimes add.
The following is the modern variation that I use when making poached pears:
2 cups of red wine (I prefer port)
1 tbsp sugar
4-6 pears
3 cinnamon sticks
a couple drops of food coloring
pinch of salt
powdered cinnamon to taste
In saucepan, heat through the wine, sugar, food coloring, salt and cinnamon sticks. I let mine simmer slightly to thicken a bit and to remove as much alcohol as possible. Remove cinnamon sticks. Peel and slice pears. Add these to wine mixture and heat at low. When pears are translucent (this may take awhile depending on how many pears and how firm they are), taste and add sugar and powdered cinnamon to your liking. Pears may be served warm or chilled. Keep refrigerated.
While many recipes call for the pears to be parboiled, this isn’t as necessary with modern pears as they are probably sweeter and softer than those available in period. While slow cooking wasn’t really a possibility in a medieval kitchen (hence the parboiling), it can break the pears up too much. I find the flavor to be better when they are simmered with the wine to soften them. For authenticity, or for particularly hard pears, you may wish to parboil them.
Also the original recipe called for 2 tbsp of powdered cinnamon to be added to the simmering process rather than cinnamon sticks. This can make the mixture gritty and requires straining of the cinnamon. For ease and for a subtler flavor I used cinnamon sticks. As mentioned above, you can also add dates or currants along with other spices.
Enjoy!
Bibliography
Hieatt, Constance B, Brenda Hosington, and Sharon Butler. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks 2nd Edition. Canada: University of Toronto Press, Inc, 1996.
Matterer, James L. "Perys en Composte." 2000.
Matterer, James L. "Apples & Peres." 2000.
Redon, Odile, Francoise Sabban, Silvano Servent, and Edward Schneider. The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Tannahil, Reay. Food in History. New York: Three River’s Press, 1988.
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