Have you ever wondered what capon is? I actually thought it was a fruit of some
kind though I may have been thinking of capers. I don't know but now I do know,
because today we're gonna be making sweet measure, capons in milk and honey.
It's a savory dish colored gold with saffron. Truly a meal fit for a king.
Sweet measure has quite a list of ingredients. First and foremost a capon,
but I didn't have a capon. So I'm using a chicken, and I'll explain why in
a little bit. But whether you're using capon or chicken you'll need three to
four pounds cut into serving-sized pieces, 1/2 cup of flour mixed with 1/8
teaspoon of fresh pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt,
then mix it all together. 3 tablespoons of oil, 3 cups of milk, 1/3 cup of honey, 3
tablespoons minced fresh parsley, 2 small leaves of fresh sage minced, 1 teaspoon
hyssop, 1/2 teaspoon savory, 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of saffron, another 1/2 teaspoon
of salt, another eighth teaspoon of pepper, and 1/3 cup of pine nuts. Before
you get started pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or 175 Celsius.
First dredge the fowl in the flour mixture, then brown the pieces in oil in
a large heavy saucepan until golden on both sides. Next combine the milk, the
honey, the herbs, salt and pepper in a bowl. Layer the chicken or capon into a
deep saucepan, or a casserole dish, or anything that can go into the oven. Then
pour the milk, and honey mixture over the fowl, and cover the dish, and simmer in
the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the fowl is nice and tender. Now while
that's simmering in the oven let me tell you why I chose to use chicken, and not a
capon.
"The capon is a cock made as it were female by carving away of his gendering
stones." Bartholomeus Anglicus. While it's clear that dear Bartholomeus
doesn't understand how gender works, you get the gist they *click the chicken, but why
would they do that? The history there is a little murky but the earliest known
reason that we have comes from the lux fauna a series of Roman laws put in
place during a drought in 162 BC. Among other things the law forbade the
fattening of chickens because it was seen as a waste of grain so some
enterprising young poulterer's instead castrated their roosters because that
made them grow quite a bit larger. The poultry went out of fashion during the
fall of the Roman Empire probably because who has time to worry about
mutilating chickens when you're more worried about of Visigoths mutilating
you, but by the 14th century things had calm down and people went back to
snipping their chickens. Capons became most popular with the wealthy classes
probably due to their size their tenderness of meat and their complete
lack of a gamey flavor. Monks were credited with having a particular
weakness for the bird but by the end of the 14th century it was all the rage to
mock, and ridicule monks for their sloth, and greed so you have to kind of take
that with a grain of salt. Even in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales the
monk, the friar, the pardoner, and the prioress are definitely seen as symbols
of wealth, and greed rather than humility and piety. Now amongst the wealthy capons
were so prized that they often played centerpiece to medieval feasts like the
sweet measure we're making today which is colored gold with precious saffron.
Though that pales in comparison with the legendary cockentrice. The cockentrice was
a Frankenstein style dish where you would take the front end of a suckling
pig, and tie it to the back end of a capon. Then you would stuff it full of meat
and roast it, then color it gold with saffron. One of these days I want to make
that so I'm saving my capon for that day. Now there were more down-to-earth
recipes for capon namely in France where the writer Francois Rabelais
mentioned his favorite capons coming from Le Mans. They were fattened with
Maslin, and aromatic herbs to give their flesh a better flavor and still to this
day Chapon du Mans capons from Le Mans are served at Christmas dinners all over
France. It was probably a simpler dish like this
that King Henry IV had in mind when he wished for a poule au pot in every
house on Sundays, and it was probably chickens rather than capons that most
people had, and that's why I'm using a chicken, because I have a lot more in
common with a medieval French peasant than I do a medieval French King. Even
today to order a capon that's gonna cost you about $75 for a bird that's why
I'm using chicken. Let's get back to it. Once the fowl is nice and tender, remove
it from the oven, and stir in the pine nuts, then serve it forth. I serve the
sweet measure on the traditional medieval trencher that I made in the
last episode, so I'll put a link down in the description to where you can see
that. Now as you can see from my abrupt costume change I am filming this on a
different day than I filmed everything else in this video, and that is because
since I made this video I have realized that people actually want to see me
taste the food. It's called Tasting History, I'm a little
slow on the uptake, but I didn't film myself tasting the sweet measure so
suffice it to say it was sweet, a little bit savory, extremely tender and frankly
it was just delicious all around, and I even being the peasant that I am tasted
the trencher, and after soaking up a bunch of milk and honey, that was pretty
good too. Anyway thank you so much for the feedback again I will always include
me tasting food from now on. I appreciate any suggestions that you have I'm trying
to make this channel better, so thank you. Make sure to subscribe, Like this video,
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.