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		Printout version of 'sluberkens' .Printout version of stuffed quinces

 recipe november/december 2006
'Sluberkens' and stuffed quinces
Two medieval recipes with bone marrow.
Dutch version of this recipe

Recently I acquired the book Bones. The front cover has a splendid picture of roasted marrow bones. This led to my browsing through the editions of medieval cook books on my bookshelves to see whether anything interesting was done with marrow in those days.
And indeed, bone marrow was used a lot. Mostly the marrow went into sauces and pasties, in the same way as butter or suet, or occasionally served as marrow porridge. Two recipes in particular caught my fancy: 'sluberkens', small pasties stuffed with marrow and sugar, and the many dishes combining marrow and quinces. According to the Notabel boecxken van cokeryen (see below) the sluberkens were meant as a starter ("Ende dan dient mense metten eersten gerechte" - "And then one serves them forth with the first course"). The quinces are less fixed in the menu.
The culinary use of bone marrow is not limited to the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century it was fashionable to serve roasted marrow bone and all (see the cover of Bones). Special cutlery was designed for eating marrow from the bone, the marrow spoon (see below). It is a pity that nowadays marrow bones are mainly considered dog food/toys.

'Sluberkens' or 'Slupers' were a delicacy. The meaning of the name of the dish is not clear. According to the  Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek (The Lexicon of Middle Dutch) a 'sluper' is related to the Flemish 'sluymer', which according to Kiliaen means "artocreae sive lagani delicatioris genus", in English "meat pasties or pancakes of a delicate nature". You can find recipes for these marrow pasties in three of the six Middle Dutch cook books: in ms UB Gent 476 (that is the recipe presented on this page, edition recipe nr 41), the Notabel boecxken van Cokeryen (edition recipe nr 155, same recipe but without egg yolks), and the Nieywen Cooc boeck of Gheeraert Vorsselman (edition recipes XI.12 and XIV.10, this recipes use cooked eggs instead of raw egg yolks). Marrow pasties are not exclusively Dutch, you can also find recipes in for example the fourteenth century English Forme of Cury where they are called 'pety peruaunt' (edition recipe nr 203), and the French Ménagier de Paris, also from the fourteenth century ("Buignets de mouelle", edition recipe nr 224).

At first sight quinces stuffed with bone marrow seems a strange combination. But replace 'quince' by 'apple' and 'bone marrow' by 'butter', and the recipe is much more recognizable and acceptable. The stuffed quinces were cooked in a liquid, or baked in a pasty. Because the 'slurpertjes' are also pasties, I have chosen for a recipe of quinces cooked in wine. The recipe is from the ms UB Gent 476, but Karel Baten (Carolus Battus), using practically the same recipe, describes how to serve the quinces once they are cooked in his Seer excellenten ghe-experimenteerden nieuwen Coc-boeck from 1593: "snijdt snekens wittebroot in u schotelkens ende set daer u peeren op ende gieter u sop over ende dienet ter tafelen" ('Cut slices of white bread in your dishes and set your pears (=quinces) on them and pour your juice over it and serve it forth', edition p.5 col.1). There is another recipe for marrow-stuffed quinced in vol.3 of the Gent convolute KANTL 15 (edition recipe nr 263). In this recipe the marrow is spiced with cinnamon and ginger, the wine is red instead of white, and there are no currants in the stuffing.
Other recipes with quinces on this site: Medieval stuffed goose, Quince cake.

The original recipes for "sluberkens" and stuffed quinces from ms UB Gent 476 (edition p.77 and 127).

The manuscript UB Gent 476 from which these recipes are taken is anonymous and untitled. The first pages contain a list of recipes which was added later, the recipes start on a new page without preliminaries. On the last page of the manuscript there are some scribbles of owners or users, indicating that at the end of the sixteenth century this manuscript probably belonged to a family Vander Strinck. This cookbook has many tasty recipes, but also some remedies and -quite rare in those days- a survey of the order in which dishes were to be served. However, this list is quite arbitrary and incomplete. 

The modern adaptation of the recipe for 'sluberkens':
Printout version of 'sluberkens'

The name 'sluberkens' is quite to the point: these pasties are so good you just slurp the stuffing out of them! They are easy to make, and don't need a lot of time either. According to Thomas vander Noot the pasties are to be served in the first course. To be historically correct, you should do that too. But nobody is going to write you a fine if you serve them as dessert.
For four to six pasties.

List of ingredients:
200 gram (1 1/3 cup/7 ounces) short crust
1 raw egg yolk to 'guild' the dough with
The stuffing:
90 g (3 ounces) marrow (2 to 3 marrow bones)
50 g (1/4 cup) sugar
30 g  (1/4 cup) currants
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 or 2 raw egg yolks

Preparation in advance:
Soak the marrow bones for at least twelve hours in water with salt. Refresh the water several times. Rinse the bones, cook them for ten to fifteen minutes. Let cool for a few minutes, then push or scoop the marrow out of the bones.

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 200EC/390EF.
Chop the warm marrow (it will get hard again when it has colled to room temperature). Mix in sugar, currants, cinnamon, sugar and egg yolks.
Sprinkle some flour on the worktop. Roll out the short crust, cut for to six rounds out of it (diameter five to six inches). Place a tablespoonfull of stuffing on one half of each round, fold them and press the edges firmly together. Coat the pasties with raw egg yolk. Bake them in the oven for about twenty minutes.

To serve:
The pasties are eaten while still hot.

The modern adaptation of the recipe for stuffed quinces:
Printout version of stuffed quinces

Reckon on one quince a person, but if the quinces are very large and the meal is copious, halve the quinces before serving. The marrow pasties were quick and easy, but this dish takes a little more time to prepare. Quinces take one and a half to two hours to cook. But you do not need to watch the pan all the time, so it's not that bad.
What IS bad, or at least a nuisance, is removing the cores. Quinces are very firm, my apple corer was no use. Best just use a pointed knife to make a conical incision at the side of the stalk, end then just scrape until you have removed the whole core, including the white membrane around it. In the Middle Ages a 'crauwelkin', a small meat fork with curved prongs, was used for this.
The pips can be kept and frozen for making jelly or jam.
By the way, the quinces on the picture were not coloured  from using red wine or Photoshop. They turn this lovely colour all by themselves, just from being cooked.

List of ingredients:
4 quinces
70 g (2 1/2 ounces) marrow
60 g (1/2 cup) currants
Liquid:
white wine (500 to 750 ml/2 to 3 cups)
for every 250 ml (1 cup) wine 100 g (1/2 cup) suiker
And also:
4 slices of white bread without crust

Preparation in advance:
Boil the soaked marrow bones (see recipe for 'small slurpers') twelve minutes in beef broth or salted water. Let cool slightly, push or scoop out the marrow and chop immediately. Add the currants.
Peel the quinces and core them. Take care not to slice through the bottom, to prevent the marrow from leaking out. Stuff the quinces with marrow and currants.

Preparation:
Choose a cooking pan in which the quinces will fit snugly. Sprinkle 200 g sugar on the bottom of the pan. Put the quinces on the sugar, and pour wine in the pan, taking care not to pour wine into the stuffing. Start with 500 ml wine, add more until the level has reached to about a half inch/1.5 centimter below the top of the quinces. If you need more than 750 ml wine, add some extra sugar. Bring the wine to the boil, cover the pan with a lid, and let the quinces stew for one and a half to two hours. Take the pan off the fire one hour before serving, but leave the quinces in the wine. The quinces and the juice have now turned a beautiful colour.
Just before serving, toast four slices of white bread without crust.

To serve:
Not piping hot, but definitely warm. Marrow sets again when it cools.
Put a toasted slices of bread in each dish, arrange a quince on it, and pour some of the liquid over it.

Variation: You can also make a kind of apple dumpling with this recipe: Mix marrow and sugar in equal quantities, add some currants and cinnamon, stuff the quinces. Roll out puff pastry (sweetened if you like), sprinkle some sugar and cinnamon in the center, place the quince on it. Bring up the dough, moisten the edges and pinch sealed. Cut away all excess dough. Bake in the oven for 90 minutes on 175EC/350EF.

Some ingredients
All ingredients

Currants: Currants are raisins, but not all raisins are currants. A raisin is a dried grape. Currants are dried grapes from a special kind of small grapes that originally grow in Greece, in Corinth (which of course explains 'currant').

Kiliaen(not an ingredient, but needs an explanation anyway): Cornelis van Kiel (ca 1530-1607) wrote the first Dutch dictionary, the Dictionarium Teutonico-Latinum (1574). The Dutch words are not only translated into Latin, French and German are also used. More information in the Belgian website Taalvantaal (In Dutch).

Bone Marrow is 'the soft, nutritious substance found in the internal cavities of animal bones, especially the shin bones of oxen and calves' (The Oxford Companion to Food). It used to be a delicacy, but now it is looked upon with suspicion (BSE, cholesterol). This distrus and repulsion is not justified. Bone marrow contains iron, phosphorus, vitamin A, and contains 75% monounsaturated fat which is believed (though not yet proven beyond a doubt) to reduce the risk of heart disease and even some cancers. Since the shin bone is not connected to the brain or spine, there is no risk of BSE.
Modern use of bone marrow is limited to soup bones and ossobucco.
Before using bone marrow, you have to prepare it. The bones have to soak for at least twelve hours in salted water which has to be refreshed several times. You'll see the water turn pink from the blood that is extracted from the bone marrow by the salted water. After soaking rinse the bones and dep them dry.
Bone marrow can be prepared in to fashions: you can boil them or roast them. If you boil them, fifteen minutes is enough. Roasting takes about as much (or little) time, in a preheated oven of 225-240EC/435-465EF. Just place the bones upright in a greased baking tray. When the bones are done, they are served on a plate with a special marrow spoon. The marrow is scooped out of the bones, spread on freshly toasted bread and sprinkled with salt.
The marrow spoon dates from around 1700, when serving roasted marrow bones was quite popular. The spoon can be used at both sides, for narrow and wider marrow bones.

Quinces: These downy apple or pear shaped fruit, officially called Cydonia oblonga, originate from the Caucasus. The ancient Greek already knew and loved quinces. The quince was dedicated to Aphrodite, and probably the (in)famouse Apple of Paris was in fact a quince.
Quinces are very odiferous. Because of their pleasant smell they were used in perfumes and as "air-fresheners".
Quinces are practically inedible when still raw. They are very hard and sour. Mostly they are cooked, but you can also roast them in the oven, like apples. Because of the high amount of pectine quinces make excellent jellies. When cooked the fruit has turned a delicate pink.
Harvesttime is October/November, but quinces keep for a long time. 

Bibliography
The editions below are in my possession. Links refer to available editions. 
All books mentioned on this site (with short reviews)

Carolus Battus, Medecyn Boec [...] Hier is oock byghevoecht een seer excellenten ghe-experimenteerden nieuwen Coc-boeck die noyt hier te voren in Druck en is gheweest. Dordrecht, 1593 (internettranscription by Marleen Willebrands).
W.L. Braekman, Een nieuw zuidnederlands kookboek uit de vijftiende eeuw . ('A new southern-Dutch cookbook from the fifteenth century') Scripta 17, Brussel, 1986. (edition of vol. 2 and 3 of KANTL Gent 15)
E. Cockx-Indestege, Eenen nyeuwen coock boeck. Kookboek samengesteld door Gheeraert Vorselman en gedrukt te Antwerpen in 1560, ('A new cookbook, compiled by Gheeraert Vorsselman and printed in Antwerp in 1560') Wiesbaden, 1971. 
Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, Curye on Inglysch. English culinary manuscripts of the fourteenth century (Including the 'Forme of Cury') Oxford, 1985.
R. Jansen-Sieben and M. van der Molen Willebrands, Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen. Het eerste gedrukte Nederlandstalige kookboek circa 1514 uitgegeven te Brussel door Thomas Vander Noot. Bezorgd en van commentaar voorzien door [...]. ('A remarkable little book of cookery. The first printed Dutch cookbook ca 1514 edited in Brussels by Thomas vander Noot') Amsterdam, 1994. 
Ria Jansen-Sieben and Johanna Maria van Winter, De keuken van de Late Middeleeuwen. Een kookboek uit de 16de eeuw [...]. ('The cuisine of the late Middle Ages. A cookbook from the 16th century') Bert Bakker, 1989 (edition of UB Gent 476, reprinted in 1998, again out of stock)
Jennifer McLagan, Bones. Recipes, history, & Lore Harper Collins, 2005.
Le Mesnagier de Paris. Text edition Georgina E. Brereton and Janet M. Ferrier, translation (in modern Frenh) Karin Ueltschi. Paris, 1994.

All text and pictures of dishes are the intellectual property of Coquinaria and may not be reproduced without permission and acknowledgement..