Redaction by Roana DeLaci
This redaction won the "Bake" portion of the "Bake and Brew" Competition at Kingdom 12th Night, 2005.
Original Recipe
Again, pears cooked without coals or water: to instruct the person who will be cooking them, he should get a good new earthenware pot, then get the number of pears he will be wanting to cook and put them into that pot; when they are in it, stop it up with clean little sticks of wood in such a way that when the pot is upside down on the hot coals it does not touch them at all; then turn it upside down on the hot coals and keep it covered over with coals and leave it to cook for an hour or more. Then uncover them and check whether they have cooked enough, and leave them there until they are cooked enough. When they are cooked, put them out into fine silver dishes; then they are borne to the sick person.
Source
Scully, Terence, ed. and trans. Chiquart's "On Cookery" - A Fifteenth-century Savoyard Culinary Treatise. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1986.
Redaction
- pears, cored
- cinnamon & sugar to taste (optional)
Place whole, cored fruit in a baking dish or pan and bake at 400° F until the fruit has completely turned a deep brown, about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. Sprinkle with cinnamon & sugar and serve.
This recipe is fundamentally less elaborate than the original would leave one to believe. It is simply pears baked in an oven, very much baked apples but with the addition of sugar & spices.
Baked pears were thought to have medicinal properties and were one of the foods considered appropriate for the ill, hence the instruction to give them to the sick person.
Keeping in mind the modern palates, my redaction has been sweetened with a little cinnamon & sugar. (I used about 1/2 tablespoon of sugar per pear and since I like cinnamon I used a full tablespoon per pear. The better the grade of cinnamon, the better the dish. Excellent grades of cinnamon may be purchased they Penzey's. No affiliation, just a happy customer!)
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