Salsa de Cervo (Pepper Sauce)
Original:
Si vols fer salsa de cervo, pren la salsa menys de safra e ages pa torrat e mullat en vinagre e capola la e pica la ab lo pa eusemps, e, corn sera tot ensemps picat, destempra ho ab del brou matex, e corn sera destemprat e corn la sal hi sera, pren vinagre e arrop e mit n I per cominal, e com ato sera fet mit la a biillir, e, corn sera bullida, eva la del foch e tasta la de sal e de vinagre e de arrop e fe n escudellas.
[El Libre de Sent Sovi, LXII, Ed. Luis Faraudo de Saint-Germain, c.1325, 1952]
Translation:
If you want to make pepper sauce, take a mixture of spices without saffron, and take bread toasted and soaked in vinegar, and chop it and grind it all together with the bread. When it is all ground up together, blend it with the same broth. When it is blended, and when the salt is in, take vinegar and boiled fruit syrup, and add some in the usual way. When this is done, set it to boil. When it is boiled, take it from the fire, and add salt, vinegar, and fruit syrup to taste. And put it in bowls.
[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of Sent Sovi, LXII, c1325, Trans: Robin Vogelzang, 2008]
Ingredients:
Spices (Black
Pepper, Ginger)
Bread
Vinegar (Red Wine)
Fruit Syrup
(Pomegranate)
Broth (Chicken)
Salt
Redaction:
Toast two pieces of bread until blackened. Soak Bread in Red Wine Vinegar. Grind Bread with Black pepper and Ginger. Add Chicken Broth and set to boil. Add Salt, Red Wine Vinegar, and Pomegranate Juice to taste.
Notes:
Pepper sauce: spicy sauce made with spices and broth, thickened with bread.
the same broth: this reference to the broth, as if it had already been spoken of, suggests the possibility that the recipe has lost a previous step in which the broth was mentioned.
[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of Sent Sovi, LXII, c1325, Trans: Robin Vogelzang, 2008]
This recipe is similar to Poivre Noir from Le Viandier de Taillevant (Recipe 165):
165.
Poivre noir: Black Pepper Sauce. Grind ginger, round pepper and burnt toast,
infuse this in vinegar (var.: and a little verjuice) and boil it.
I used used this recipe to gain further insight into this recipe and used Black Pepper and Ginger for my redaction.
Bibliography:
“Salsa de Cervo.” In El Llibre de Sent Sovi / The Book of Sent Sovi: Medieval Recipes from Catalonia, edited by Joan Santanach, translated by Robin Vogelzang, 166-7. Barcelona: Barcino-Tamesis, (c.1325) 2008.
“Poivre Noir.” In The Viandier of Taillevent, edited by Terence Scully, 227-8. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, (c1300) 1988.