Subject: Re: wassail????

From: [email-masked] (Ailsa Murphy)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 00:20:29 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
David <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>I saw a recipe in rec.food.recipe for wassail but the author said that it 
>wasn't what was really thought of as wassail a long time ago. It was 
>apple cider or juice spiced with cinimon cloves ETC.and with limes or 
>oranges. 
>
>Does some one have an authentic recipe for traditional wassail?
>
well, i can't vouch for TRU authenticity, but this recipe is at LEAST
sixty years old...

Wassail

Core and bake:

	1 dozen apples

Combine in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes:

	1 cup water
	4 cups sugar
	1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
	1/2 teaspoon ground mace
	6 whole cloves
	6 allspice berries
	1 stick cinnamon

Beat until stiff but not dry:

	1 dozen egg whites

Beat separately until light in color:

	1 dozen egg yolks

Fold whites into yolks, using large bowl.  Strain sugar and spice
mixture into eggs, combining quickly.  Bring almost to a boiling point
separately:

	4 bottles sherry or Madeira
	2 cups brandy

Incorporate the hot wine with the spice and egg mixture, beginning slowly
and stirring briskly with each addition.  Toward the end of this process,
add the brandy.  Now, just before serving and while the mixture is still
foaming, add the baked apples.

Wassail can also be made with a combination of beer and wine, preferably
sherry, in which case the proportion should be roughly 4 of beer to one
of sherry.

--

i generally cut this half & half with cider, as it is too strong for
me, but if you leave the apples to soak for a while, they are lovely
dipped out and served with vanilla ice cream, or just whipped cream...

wouldn't mind seeing a few more recipes for this myself, but i DO
knwo that wassail punch is NOT non-alcoholic if done authentically.

					-ailsa
-- 
i saw the worst bands of my generation/applied by magic marker to drywall
i should be allowed to shoot my mouth off/i should have a call in show 
= [email-masked] = ailsa or Kate = half homo, half goober!  <><  <><

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From: [email-masked] (David)
Date: 27 Nov 1994 10:49:16 -0800

Thanks
Rusty
 -- I 
refuse to disclaim anything!
Anything and everything I say is a product of  everything and everyone I
have ever been  associated with
David (Rusty) Perez ([email-masked])
"If there's no bottom in your eyes, they hold more."
--Hazel Motes

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From: [email-masked] (Thomas Apple)
Date: 28 Nov 1994 09:29:19 -0500

>Does some one have an authentic recipe for traditional wassail?
Basically you peel and cut up some apples into small pieces, add some water,
cloves, & cinnamon, cook it down to it's essentially applesauce then add a
good ale approximately one part apple mixture and two parts ale. Mix the two
well and heat some more and serve. What you described in your previous post
was mulled cider. To save time with the apple cooking part, use chunky
applesauce and spices. Don't use the major domestic American beers for this or
it will taste horrible. Use something like Sam Adams Ale or a microbrewery ale
if possible. If you can only find the domestic type beers, use Killian's Red
and it should turn out ok. Wassail!!

Tom A.

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From: [email-masked] (Patricia Reynolds)
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 10:15:28 +0000

>Does some one have an authentic recipe for traditional wassail?

Primarily, wassail is a toast, not a drink.  The term can be applied to 
anything placed in a wassail bowl: the Oxford English Dictionary says that 
'spiced ale' is the drink most commonly associated with wassailling.  At a 
friends wedding last spring, we drank a wassail in a mead (a commercial 
whiskey based one).

-- 
Patricia Reynolds

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From: [email-masked] (Liz Herman)
Date: 3 Dec 1994 16:17:46 GMT

>Does some one have an authentic recipe for traditional wassail?

I came across a recipe in a book I was reading, yesterday.  Yes, I
know that historical fiction isn't always accurate, but Marion Chesney
put *so many* bits and pieces of correct historic Christmas season
trivia into her book that as this was is quotes, she probably found it
while doing her research for the book.:

"Wassail is in fact a centuries-old toast. ... The word comes from the
Anglo-Saxon 'wes hal' meaning 'be whole'. ... The traditional content 
of the wassail bowl was "lamb's wool," which was made by mixing
hot ale with the pulp of roasted apples and adding sugar and spices.

The full recipe went:  "Boil three pints of ale; beat six eggs, the
whites and yokes together; set both to the fire in a pewter pot; add
roasted apples, sugar, beaten nutmegs, cloves, and ginger; and being
well brewed, drink it while hot."

>from  _Miss Davenport's Christmas_ by Marion Chesney (1993), p. 101-102

(spelling is not mine, but the book's)

Hope this helps... the pewter pot might be difficult...and I don't know
if that refers to the 16 or 20 oz. pint.

-Liz Herman ([email-masked])