Everything about food, from matching food and wine to recipes, techniques and trends.

Winter Fare (Head on a Pike?)

Moderators: Jenise, Robin Garr, David M. Bueker

no avatar
User

Bill Spohn

Rank

He put the 'bar' in 'barrister'

Posts

9457

Joined

Tue Mar 21, 2006 7:31 pm

Location

Vancouver BC

Winter Fare (Head on a Pike?)

by Bill Spohn » Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:16 pm

Good weather for stews and such hearty dishes - I'll be doing one based on beef, with cumin, pearl onions, cinnamon and cloves this weekend.

But what this recipe reminded me of was another use for cumin. In the good old days when displeasure for political opposition didn't stop at snubbing them at the club, taking the losing side of an argument used to end up with your head on a pike as an example for others.

A recent mention of this on a documentary included the tidbit that they would parboil the heads with cumin so that the birds wouldn't pick them clean (bare skulls presumably having less preventative effect on still-living potential miscreants).

Anyone know more about this recipe for tête de traître? Were there other ingredients? How would they have known that cumin put birds off their feed - was cumin a readily available in England?

One has a macabre vision of Michael Palin showing up at the dispensary "I'll have a pound of cumin and pike, please....our three weapons are......."

Image
no avatar
User

Paul Winalski

Rank

Wok Wielder

Posts

7974

Joined

Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:16 pm

Location

Merrimack, New Hampshire

Re: Winter Fare (Head on a Pike?)

by Paul Winalski » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:45 pm

Bill Spohn wrote:A recent mention of this on a documentary included the tidbit that they would parboil the heads with cumin so that the birds wouldn't pick them clean (bare skulls presumably having less preventative effect on still-living potential miscreants).


Geez, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!

Presumably one receives the cumin treatment if one fails to curry favor in court, and gets one's head clove away by a big axe.

-Paul W.
no avatar
User

Doug Surplus

Rank

Wine guru

Posts

1106

Joined

Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:17 am

Location

Phoenix AZ

Re: Winter Fare (Head on a Pike?)

by Doug Surplus » Sun Dec 24, 2006 12:16 am

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Doug

If God didn't want me to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ClaudeBot, Google [Bot] and 4 guests

Powered by phpBB ® | phpBB3 Style by KomiDesign