Beat the heat! Bee Berry Sorbet

Just in time for summer...

Bee Berry Sorbet from Honey.com

Ingredients

• 1 package (16 oz.) - frozen raspberries
• 1/4 cup - honey
• 1/4 cup - fresh lime juice, including pulp
• 1/2 teaspoon - grated lime peel
• 1 cup - water

---

Directions

Puree raspberries in blender or food processor. Strain through fine strainer using spoon to press puree through strainer into medium bowl. Add remaining ingredients; mix well. Pour into canister of ice cream maker. Freeze according to manufacturer's directions. Freezer Method: Pour raspberry mixture into 9-inch freezer-safe pan. Place in freezer for 3 to 6 hours or until firm. Transfer mixture to mixer bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until slushy but not thawed. Return to pan and freeze for 2 to 4 hours or until firm

Modern Recipe: It's Adelle's Birthday!

I asked Adelle's to share her favorite recipe with honey in honor of her birthday. It's a pretty simple recipe... Enjoy!

1) Acquire honey

2) Open jar

3) Eat honey

Memorial Day Recipe: Honey Cranberry BBQ Sauce

A BBQ sauce for your Memorial Day grilling!

This recipe is from Honey.com

Ingredients

• 2 cups - fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1-1/2 cups - honey
• 1-1/2 cups - ketchup
• 1 cup - red wine vinegar
• 2 Tablespoons - lemon juice
• 2 Tablespoons - Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon - coarse ground black pepper

---

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a medium-large saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove cover and simmer for 20 minutes more or until thickened (mixture will thicken slightly as it cools). To can, pour hot sauce into sterilized jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space. Wipe tops and threads of jars with a clean, damp cloth. Place lids on jars so that the rubber sealing compound sits evenly on rim and screw rings on firmly. Place each jar in a pot of water that comes 1 to 2 inches above the jar tops. Cover and bring to a boil. Hold water at a steady boil for about 45 minutes. Remove jars from pot and let cool on a dishcloth with space in between each jar. Store in a cool dark place. (In lieu of canning, sauce may be stored, covered, in refrigerator up to 1 month.)

SERVING SUGGESTION

Serve over turkey, chicken or pork, or use as a dipping sauce for egg rolls or potstickers.

Modern Recipe: Baklava!

It's my friend Leif's birthday today. I asked what his favorite recipe with honey is. Baklava! Probably the most popular recipe with honey in it... nuts, cinnamon, orange, and honey! What's not to love?

Ingredients 

Makes 3 Dozen

1 (16 ounce) package of phyllo dough

1 pound chopped walnuts

1 cup butter

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Zest from half an orange

1 cup of water

1 cup white sugar

½ an orange, sliced

½ cup honey

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Butter the bottoms and sides of a 9x13 inch pan.

Chop nuts and toss with cinnamon and orange zest. Set aside. Unroll phyllo dough. Cut whole stack in half to fit pan.
 
Cover phyllo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have 8 sheets layered. Sprinkle 2 - 3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. The top layer should be about 6 - 8 sheets deep.
 
Using a sharp knife cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. You may cut into 4 long rows the make diagonal cuts. Bake for about 50 minutes until baklava is golden and crisp.
 
Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add orange slices and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
 
Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Serve in cupcake papers. This freezes well. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it is wrapped up.

Medieval Recipe: Von Einer Hirzlebern

This is a recipe from Sabrina Welserin’s “Ein Buch von gutter spise” published in 1553. This is a German cookbook. It has been translated only. I would love to hear what people come up with for a redaction and how well the recipe turns out! Leave a comment.

Von einer hirzlebern (Of a Deer Liver)

Ain birzes lebern sol man braten uf eime roste, die man lange behalten wil. und sol die dünne sniden zu schiben. und nim einen reinen honiesaum, den siude. und nim denne yngeber, und galgan und negelin. die stozze under einander. und wirfe sie dar in. und nim denne ein faz oder ein schaf dor in du ez wilt tun. und wasch ez gar rein. und giuz ez dor in ein schiht honiges. und lege denne ein schiht lebern. und also fürbaz. und legez vaste uf ein ander. und setzze daz hin.

One will roast a deer liver on a grill, which (grill) one wants to keep a long time. And will cut the dark to slices. And take a clean liquid honey and boil it. And then take ginger and galingale and cloves. Pound them together and throw them therein. And then take a tub or a jar in which you want to put this dish. And wash the tub very clean. And pour the finished honey in it. And then lay a finished liver and also still more (layers). And lay wide on the other and set that out.

Modern Recipe: It's Steve's Birthday!

I asked my friend Steve what his favorite recipe using honey is in honor of his birthday. Gulab Jamun is one of my favorites too! Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 cup Milk Powder
1/3 cup Maida/Plain Flour
¼ tsp Baking Soda
A pinch of Salt (Optional)
1 tbsp Yogurt or 2 tbsp Full Fat Milk
1 tsp Ghee or Oil
Few slivers of Pistachio or Almonds for garnishing

For Syrup:
1¾ cups Honey
1¼ cups Water
8 Green Cardamoms, peeled and seeds crushed to fine powder
A generous pinch of Saffron
1 tsp Rose Water (Optional but recommended)
Method:
Prepare the sugar syrup:

1. Add honey and water in a wide pan and heat it on a medium flame.
2. Once the honey dissolves completely, add cardamom powder and bring it to boil by stirring every now and then. Let the honey syrup thicken slightly, about 2-3 minutes after coming to boil. You don’t need to boil it until it reaches one thread consistency.
3. Turn off the flame and run the honey syrup through fine sieve to remove any impurities.
4. Transfer the honey syrup back into the wide pan and mix in saffron and rose water if using. Let it cool down to room temperature.

Prepare the Gulab Jamuns:

1. While the honey syrup is cooling down, prepare the Gulab Jamun mixture. Sieve milk powder, plain flour, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Mix in yogurt or milk and ghee/oil and start to mix the ingredients lightly to make soft sticky dough. I didn’t need to add more than a tbsp of yogurt and a tsp of ghee but if you find the mixture too dry and crumbly, just add little yogurt or milk about ½ tsp at time until you get a sticky soft dough. Make sure that you don’t over mix or knead the dough as we don’t want the gluten to form. The plain flour used acts as a binding agent and if you over mix the dough then the gluten formed will make the mixture dense and the gulab jamuns will not absorb the sugar syrup well.
3. Grease your palms with ghee or oil and pinch marble sized dough and roll it into smooth round or oval shaped balls. Make sure that the balls are small as they double in size once they are fried and soaked in honey syrup.
4. Keep in mind that the dough balls should be smooth without any cracks as they will split and crumble when deep frying. Arrange the balls on a plate and cover it with a kitchen towel to prevent from drying out.

Deep frying the Gulab Jamuns:

1. Heat oil in a pan for deep frying the gulab jamuns on medium flame and then reduce the flame to low. To test if the oil is hot enough, drop one ball into the oil. The dough ball should slowly float to the surface of the oil. If the dough ball sinks to the bottom and stays there, then the oil is not hot enough. If the dough ball quickly floats to the top as well as browns quickly, then the oil is too hot.
2. Ideally the dough balls should not crack when deep frying. If you find it spliting open or breaking when deep frying, mix 1 or 2 tsp of plain flour to the dough mixture and lightly mix them well. Pinch a small ball and test if stays in shape without cracking by dropping it into heated oil. If it slowly floats to the surface of the oil without cracking and evenly browns then you have mastered the art of making Gulab Jamun. :)
3. Gently drop 3-4 dough balls into the hot oil and stir with them with a slotted spoon so that they get evenly browned from all the sides. Be careful when stirring them with slotted spoon as they are quite soft and can break if you are not gentle. Once they turn golden brown, remove them from oil with a help of a slotted spoon and transfer them to the prepared sugar syrup.
4. Prepare all the Gulab Jamuns and let them rest in the sugar syrup for at least 1 to 2 hours before serving so that they absorb the sugar syrup well and become soft and melt in mouth treats.
5. You can serve these delicious melt in mouth Gulab Jamuns warm, cold or chilled on their own, garnished with slivered almonds or pistachio and a generous spoonful of honey syrup drizzled on top. One other most enjoyable way to serve them is warm with a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream! Heaven!

Medieval Pic: Roman Amphora

AEthelmearc Crown Tournament is today! The theme is Roman. Today's picture is honor of that theme. Roman amphora were used for the transportation of food. This set was found with honey residue in them.

Medieval Recipe: Honey and Poppy Seed Dormice

This recipe is from guest contributor the Honorable Lady Desiderate Drake:

"The dishes for the first course included... some small iron frames shaped like bridges supporting dormice sprinkled with honey and poppy seed." - Petronius, Trimalchio's Feast

Ingredients

Chicken thighs and drumsticks
Olive Oil
Honey
Poppy Seeds

Preheat Oven to 350

Leave skin on chicken pieces. Rinse and pat dry.
Place chicken pieces on greased baking sheet or baking dish
Brush chicken pieces with Olive Oil
Bake chicken until skin is crispy and juices run clear (about 40 minutes)
Warm honey in small pan, until it is thin and runny (do not boil)

When chicken is done, brush each piece with honey and sprinkle with poppy seeds. 

Source: Pass the Garum: Eating Like the Ancients

Medieval Recipe: Posca

This is a contribution from guest writer the Honorable Lady Desiderata Drake.

Posca is an Ancient Roman drink very similar to sekanjabin, frequently mentioned as something soldiers drank, and as an ingredient in cooking. Soldiers would carry Posca with them, and add it to water when they found it. The vinegar would act as a disinfectant, making the water safer to drink. In its most basic form, it consists of vinegar (most likely red wine vinegar), and water, though honey and herbs and spices were sometimes added.

I experimented quite a bit with the ratios of vinegar and water, but my sweet tooth was not happy until I added the honey. Lots of honey. I added the mint and coriander to make the drink even more refreshing on a hot summer day.

Ingredients (makes enough for 4-5 gallons of water)

1.5 c Honey
.5   c Vinegar (Red wine vinegar, White wine vinegar, or Apple Cider vinegar)
1 T Ground Corriander
Mint to taste

1. Put all ingredients into sauce pan, and bring to a boil.

2. Remove from heat and let cool

3. Store mixture in glass bottle or other sealed container.

4. For one glass:
    Add 1-2 T to 12-16oz of water and stir. 
   
    For 5-gallon water cooler
    Fill water cooler with 4-5 gallons of water. Pour in entire Posca mixture (2 c.).
    Make sure lid is sealed on cooler, and shake cooler to mix.

Source: Pass the Garum: Eating Like the Ancients

A History of Honey and Its Use in Period: (Part 6 of 6): The Decline of Honey and the Rise of Sugar

This is the sixth and final part in a series of entries on the use of honey in pre-1600's history.

Honey retains its primary position until it was superseded by sugar cane from India. After returning from India in 325BC, Alexander the Greats Admiral Nearchus, brought word of the reed, which “gives honey without bees.” China was using this type of sugar by 200BC. Arabs prized sugar starting in the 700’s. They introduced its cultivation in Sicily, Cyprus, Morocco, and Spain. Until the 900’s and 1000’s, sugar was hardly known in Northern Europe.

Cane sugar was rare and expensive for the next few centuries. It was treated more as a spice, condiment or medicine and was considered dangerous in large amounts. Returning Crusaders in the 1100’s brought more information on the uses of sugar. It became a fashionable and expensive cooking ingredient. Sugar was not in common use until the 1700’s, but James Hart in 1633 declared “Sugar hath now succeeded honey”. According to Eva Crane’s “World History of Honey Hunting and Beekeeping” honey and sugar prices compare as follows. The prices are pence per pound:

YEAR	HONEY	SUGAR
1250	0.43	19
1350	0.57	20
1410	1.17	24
1460	1.13	14.3
1480	1.23	8.7
1530	1.64	6.8
1575	3.4	18
c. 1600	2.3-5.7	13-20

Medieval Pic: Hive picture from Northern Italy

Detail of a miniature of beehives with bees. Northern Italy. (Lombardy)

From the British Library

Modern Recipe: Honey Packed Peaches

It's canning season!

Honey was used in the middle ages and Renaissance as a preservative. It is still used to this day. Use honey instead of a sugar syrup to preserve your fruit.

Canned Peaches recipe found on Honey.com

Honey Packed Peaches

YIELD: 6 PINTS

Ingredients

• 2-3/4 cups - water, divided
• 1/4 cup - lemon juice
• 5 lbs. - peaches*, peeled, pitted and cut into wedges
• 1-1/4 cups - honey
• 2 Tablespoons - vanilla extract
• 6 small - strips lemon zest

---

Directions

In a large bowl, mix 1/4 cup water and lemon juice. Stir fruit in gently, coating all pieces. Set aside. In a small saucepan, bring honey and remaining water to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Cover pan to keep contents hot. Pack fruit gently into 6 hot sterilized pint jars, filling to 1/4 inch from top of jar, and place a piece of lemon zest in each jar. Fill jars with honey mixture up to 1/4 inch from tops. Wipe rims of jars; top with lids. Screw on bands. Place jars on rack in canning kettle of hot water, adding water if necessary to bring water level to 1 inch above tops of jars. Bring water to a rolling boil; boil for 25 minutes. Remove jars carefully and cool on a wire rack. *Apricots or nectarines may be substituted.

TIP

Every honey variety has its own unique color and taste. There are approximately 300 varieties of honey in the United States - with flavors that range from delicately sweet to richly bold. In general, the lighter the color of honey, the milder the flavor. Try a light honey such as Clover or Orange Blossom in Honey Packed Peaches and Honey-Lemon Jelly. Experiment with a more robustly flavored honey such as wildflower or avocado when making Strawberry Jam or any of your favorite recipes.

A History of Honey and Its use in Period: (Part 5 of 6): Trade, Exportation, and Importation

This is the fifth part in a series of entries on the use of honey in pre-1600's history.

In Roman times, large quantities of honey were exported from Turdetania in Southern Spain. Ligurian people on the North-West coast of Italy carried their honey to Genoa. “Inhabitants of Carnic Alps exchange wax, honey, and other natural products for necessities of life” (Crane 1999, p491)

Honey and beeswax were traded out of Russia by the 900’s, along the trade route via the Neva and Volga to the Caspian Sea and then to Asia (Crane 1999, p 491) Beeswax was traded to Byzantium, Venice, and Genoa, before Christianity came to Russia in the 900’s (Galton 1971, p15) In 1555, Olaus Magnus reported that Europe exported much wax, but “honey they reserve to themselves in great supply.”

Spanish Arabs were important in the honey and sugar trades during the Muslim period (711AD-1492). In the 1500’s there were still Arab traders in Granada who specialized in buying honey from beekeepers. They would sell to merchants for use in the retail market.

Records survive of export and import of honey within Europe throughout the Middle Ages and following periods. After 989 AD, an Irish ship partially loaded with honey sailed to South Wales. ”Norse merchants maintained a brisk trade in Welsh slaves, horses, honey, malt, and wheat in exchange for Irish wines, furs,….butter, and coarse woolen cloth.” (Crane 1999, p491) Five Russian monasteries purchased several tons of honey each between the years of 1569 and 1599.

A History of Honey and Its Use in Period: (Part 4 of 6): Tithes and Tolls

This is the fourth part in a series of entries on the use of honey in pre-1600's history.

Honey was also required as a tithe. St. Augustine Abbey monks in Canterbury were noted to be stringent on honey as a tithe. They wrote in their “Black Book” that “Honey must also be tithed” (Crane 1999, p490). Peasants in 1290 Schleswig-Holstein were required to pay a tithe from their beekeeping yields to the church.

Tolls were charged for moving honey into another town or across a bridge. For example, in the years 1080-1082, monks of St Aubin’s in Angers, France required tolls on items peddled by peasants in neighboring markets. Wax and hives were charged a half penny to transport. Charters of 1285 and 1412 in England list portage (tolls) charges on honey crossing Montford Bridge in Shropshire according to the number of tons, carts or jars (Crane 1999, p 491)

A History of Honey and Its Use in Period: (Part 3 of 6): Dues and Taxes

This is the third part in a series of entries on the use of honey in pre-1600's history.

Honey was used as payment of dues and taxes. In Medieval Wales, honey was a common payment for rent. “After Muslin Arabs conquered Spain in 711 AD, a list of dues payable in Murcia includes honey, wax and slaves paid half as much as other” (Crane 1999, 490). Around the same time in Ireland, if a bee stung a man, the owner of the bee had to give him, “a man’s full meal of honey”. (Crane 1999, p490) In England, under the law of King Ine of Wessex, the annual rent for ten hides of land was ten vats of honey. One hide of land would support a free family and its dependents.

Charlemagne refers to dues paid in mead, wax, and honey in his Capitulaire de Villis. In Poland, serfs who owned hives had to pay dues. Owners of upright log hives paid in liquid honey. Those who owned horizontal log hives paid in comb honey. The Domesday Book, compiled between 1087 and 1187, has many references to dues paid in honey, but not wax. This suggests that the dues were of a pre-Christian origin, as wax was required by the Church to make candles. (Fraser 1958, 21)

August Quote - Driving of the Bees: Charles Butler, 1609

Driving the bees is part of the medieval process of harvesting honey. Skeps do not have frames that allow for easy inspection of the hive and harvesting the honey. Charles Butler recommends driving the bees rather than smoking them out with a sulfur fire.The smoke from the sulfur fire killed the bees and left a residue on the wax and in the honey.

Below is a quote from Charles Butler's "The Feminine Monarchie: Or a Treatis Concerning Bees and the Due Ordering of Them" published in 1609. He discusses how to drive the bees in order to harvest the honey.

“Around midsummer, early in the morning, invert the skep to be driven. Cover the mouth of the full skep with an empty one. Wrap the join with a cloth to seal the opening. Clap rhythmically on the sides of the full hive. The bees will walk to the other hive. After most of the bees have walked to the empty hive, place it where the first hive was. Bees that are coming back from flight will go in there.”  - Charles Butler

History of Honey and Its use in Period: (Part 2 of 6): Honey Collection

(    This is the second in a series of entries on a brief history of honey and its use in pre-1600's history. 

Retrieving honey is the first step to its use. There were two ways to eat the honey, straight from the combs or strained. The simplest way to separate the honey from the comb is to break up the combs and squeeze each piece into a receptacle. The first honey that dripped out was referred to as “Run Honey”. Next, combs were put into a strainer, such as a bag of woven cotton or other natural fiber or a pottery vessel with holes on the sides. Pressing the combs through the strainer or bag made a second honey. This honey contained pollen and was bitter. It was kept separate from the first honey. Columella describes the process in Rome c. 50 AD[1]:

“Whatever be the number of Honey combs that are harvested, you should make the honey on the same day, while they are still warm. A wicker work basket or a bag rather loosely woven of fine withies in the shape of an inverted cone, like that through which wine is strained, is hung up in a dark place, and then the honey combs are heaped in one by one. But care must be taken that those parts of the waxen cells, which contain either young bees or dirty red matter [pollen?] are separated from them, for they have an ill flavour and corrupt the honey with their juice. Then, when the honey has been strained and has flowed down into the basin put underneath to catch it…the fragments of the honey-combs, which have remained in the bag, are handled again and the juice squeezed from them. What flows from them is honey of the second quality and is stored apart by itself by the more careful people.”

---

[1] Although Columella is pre-period, he is referenced in period bee-keeping manuscripts such as Thomas Hill’s “A Profitable Instruction of the Perfect Ordering of Bees”, written in 1608.

Modern Recipe: Flatbread with Melted Manchego, Rosemary, and Honey

Flatbread recipe found on Honey.com

Ingredients:

Yellow cornmeal

Pizza dough (recipe link below), or 2 pounds store-bought fresh or frozen pizza dough, proofed according to package directions

Extra-virgin olive oil

6 ounces - manchego, or another semihard cheese, cut into slivers or curls with a cheese plane or vegetable peeler

1 tablespoon - fresh rosemary, chopped

½ cup - honey

---

Directions:

Sprinkle 2 baking sheets lightly with cornmeal.

Divide the dough equally into 6 portions. On a lightly floured surface, flatten each portion with the heel of your hand and gently stretch from the outside edges into an oval 6 to 8 inches long and about 5 inches wide. Brush olive oil liberally onto both sides. Using a long, flat spatula, transfer the ovals of dough to the baking sheets. Cover them with a towel and let them stand for about 30 minutes.

Arrange the oven racks in the lower half of the oven. Preheat the oven to 450°F.  Bake the flatbreads for about 10 minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom.

Remove the baking sheets from the oven and carefully turn over the flatbreads. Arrange the cheese on the top (the browned sides) and return the sheet pans, reversing the placement, to the oven and bake for about 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

Sprinkle the melted cheese with the rosemary. Serve the flatbreads warm with about 1 tablespoon of honey, or to taste, drizzled on each.

History of Honey and Its Use in Period: (Part 1 of 6): Introduction

This is the first in a series of entries on a brief history of honey and its use in pre-1600's history. 

Introduction:

Honey is an all natural food that has been produced by bees for over twenty million years. There is evidence that man has exploited honey for about ten-thousand years (Crane, 1980, pg 19). Bees and honey have been regarded as sacred objects for just as long as evidenced by cave paintings. The earliest known evidence of beekeeping, as opposed to honey-hunting, is 3,000 years old (Friedman, 2008). Honey was a staple in the Medieval and Renaissance household until sugar became cheaper.

Honey was an important staple in the Medieval and Renaissance household and economy. It had more uses than just food. It was used to barter with and make mead with. As sugar became more popular and cheaper to produce, honey became less and less important.

Cover me! I'm going in!