A Peach Salad -- from the Transylvanian cookbook

My friend G offers an English translation of a 16th century cookbook from Transylvania, found here:

The Prince of Transylvania’s court cookbook 
From the 16th century 
THE SCIENCE OF COOKING

I am enjoying exploring this book and, considering lovely peaches are in season, today I decided to make recipe number 806 on page 155: 

(806) Salad from peach. 

Peel some peaches, slice the seeds into one so they will get stuck together next to each other, there should be one seed next to each peach, they sometimes add peeled almonds or walnuts instead; put these into one plate, add some raisins and bread roll pieces dipped into wine and jam. 

This took some thinking:  How should the sliced peach look on the plate along with the seed or nuts?  What kind of raisins?  What kind of bread rolls?  What flavor jam?  And what exactly do they mean by "dipped into wine and jam"? 

My longest thinking time went into the idea of the bread dipped into wine and jam.  Should the bread be toasted or slightly dried?  Do I dip it into the wine first and then dip it into the jam?  Or are some pieces dipped in wine and others in jam? 

My decisions culminated in this redaction:

2 medium or one large peach (mine was about 1/2 pound)
2 tablespoons golden raisins
2 tablespoons raspberry jam or fruit spread
1-2 tablespoons quality white wine (to taste)
6 - 1/2 inch wide slices of a baguette that is about 1 to 2 inches in diameter
Optional:  several almonds or walnuts, shelled

Preparation for two: 

Mix the jam and the wine together in a small bowl.  The result should be thinner than the jam that came out of the jar, but not too thin.  

Slice the peach into wedges.  I didn't peel the peach because I like the peel.  Thin wedges are better than thick ones as they lie better on the plate.  

Arrange the slices decoratively on the plates.  I used 1/2 peach per person.  For one half I left a slice attached to the pit, and on the other I placed several almonds to play the part of the pit.

Sprinkle the raisins over the peach slices, half per plate.  

Dip the bread slices into the jam-wine mixture.  I didn't cover them because I wanted the red-white contrast on the plate.  Place the bread on the plates neatly by the peach slices, three slices per plate.

Serve immediately.

My Notes

The listed quantities are estimations, so change it around as you like.

I stirred the wine and jam well, so that the jam chunks broke down.





The Verdict

I served it with grilled chicken and grilled corn, as a salad course before the rest of the food.

This one has the pit.

The slices were spread in an arc on the plate and the bread tucked into the plate to finish the arc. 

I liked the visual effect of the orange peach flesh with red edges against the white bread with the red wine/jam mixture.  I wondered if the raisins were going to make it too sweet. 

As it turned out, the raisins were a wonderful complement to the peach:  I ate a piece of peach with a raisin or two with it, and the flavor was of peach with a surprising, almost spicy flavor from the raisins.  The bread with the wine/jam mixture was excellent by itself, but when I took a bite of it and followed it with a bite of peach, I got a complex flavor burst of sweet and tart, with floral hints.  The bread was chewy enough to make eating the whole salad more interesting than just eating a piece of peach.

So different combinations of the offered flavors gave different sensations, making eating an adventure of sorts. 

This is the one with nuts instead of the pit.

The very large peach, even divided up between two people, was a lot of food.  I probably could have made it a salad for three or four people.  It was tasty and it was filling.

After we ate the salad, we cut more bread and finished off the wine/jam mixture that was still in the bowl.  Mmmmmm!

So success!  But in all honesty, I would really rather serve this as a dessert.  I image the same layout with the peaches, raisins, and bread.  But I would take the rest of the wine/jam mixture and drizzle a line over the peaches, then sprinkle on a few chopped almonds.  I might even serve a little bit of mild cheese along with it.

If I had to make this in advance, I would save cutting and dipping the bread until just before serving.  I would also briefly dip the peach slices into some white wine to keep them from turning brown. 

I am still not sure why we were advised to serve the slices with the pit or with nuts to look like the pit.  It didn't seem to stand out as a garnish and I couldn't figure out a more interesting way to display the peach slices with the pit.  Perhaps someone will come up with a good idea for it.