FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 434

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Kraus, in his ‘Medical Dictionarj-,’ gives the Greek paste as .signifying ‘a firm cake made of a dough or paste,’ with many possible derivations. But this tran.slation is not supported b}- the great dictionaries. Paupiettes : French, from Italian polpettes, .slices of meat covered with slices of bacon, over which a layer of farce has been spread ; they are rolled, wrapped in paper, and roasted on the .spit ; when the\- are done, they are taken out of the paper, crumbed, and slightl}- browned, and served with sauce piquante (D.D., 809). See Canelous. Petty toes : the feet of sucking pigs. Pie : English, a quantity of meat or fruit baked in a di.sh while it is covered with a lai-er of paste, which is baked along with it. The etymology of the word is uncertain, some deriving it from the Irish and Gaelic name, pighe, for the same di.sh, which brings ns no nearer. Pie being peculiarly national to England, we conclude \\\a.tpie is probably the older, a.nApighet\\<i derived form. Piping; a kind of decoration made of icing, used for ornainentiug cakes, pastry, small pastr}-, and stands ; it is produced with the aid of a short funnel or conically - shaped instrument of tin (inserted within a large-sized and .siniilarl3'-shaped paper funnel or cornet, the pointed end of which is cut off, so as to allow the tin instrument to protrude ; the icing, or glacing (a mixture of fineL’-pounded sugar and white of egg worked into a smooth jiaste), is placed in the cornet or forcer, the upper part of which IS completel)' closed ; the glacing is then forced out at the point by pressure of the thumb on the upper part of the cornet. Placenta : tlie Latin name for cake in general, not for anj’ jiarticular cake; derived from the Greek placous, which also means cake, 682 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY and is itself a contraction of placoeis, meaning flat, plane, even, broad, so that the Greek name of cake seems to embody the idea of its accidental shape, and not to he a symbol of its' intrinsic nature. Placouse: a dariole with apricot jam and nuts, such as almonds, pistachios, or filberts. (The name does not occur in either ka Chapelle, ‘Dons de Comus,’ or Careme.) Apricots and nuts being above the custard, a placouse is a tran.sition from dariole to fanchonette. The culinary levellers of small modern manuals have absnrdl}- called the placouse ‘apricot nougat,’ thus proving that they know neither the nature of a placouse nor the character of nougat. Plucke, French, or plush English, a mixture of leaves of parsley, chervil, tarragon, lettixce, or sorrel, chopped or cut small ; the herbs are used mixed or separatel}^ as may be prescribed. Polony : a dr}' sausage, made of meat partly cooked. A corruption of Bologna sausage (‘Heyse’s Etymological Dictionary’). Pommes d’Api ; small rosy apples named after the Roman Appius (‘Smith and Hamilton’s Dictionary'), bxxt the nature of the con- nection of the name with the fruit is not explained. Perhaps the French name has some relation to the German Apfel and the English apple. Porringer: a small dish for porridge. Posset : hot milk, curdled with wine or acid ; from the Welsh posel, curdled milk; pusoid, possetnm ; zythogala {q.v.). Potage: French for soup. The French national comic person is called ‘Jean Potage,’ as the German equivalent goes by the name of ‘ Plans Wurst,’ and the Engli.sh used to be called by the now obsolete name of ‘Jack Pudding.’