Recipe no. 588 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 259.
Preparation
- Preparing the vesselsFill the bottles or jars cold, cork them well with good quality cork, and tie them. Wrap in hay or straw, using bottle straw wraps if available.
- Cooking in the water bathPlace the vessels in the stockpot, its bottom lined with hay. Cover with cold water, rising a few centimetres above the corks. Bring to the boil slowly, without haste. The boiling must stay slow and be kept up for exactly the time indicated.
- CoolingTake the pot off the heat and let the vessels cool inside it.
- Tying the corksSoak the corks in boiling water to soften them. Insert them so that they project 7 or 8 millimetres above the neck. Cross the string over the cork, fastening it first beneath the ring of the neck.
Reboul's text
Preserving in bottles can be practised in a household with far less trouble and expense than that prepared in soldered metal tins. It is nonetheless not free of drawbacks. One must particularly guard against breakage of the bottles or jars. One must also choose corks made of supple and well even cork, that is to say without flaw. These vessels, filled cold, well corked and tied, are wrapped in hay or straw: bottle wraps of straw serve this purpose perfectly. Placed in the stockpot or cauldron in which they are to cook, the bottom of which has beforehand been lined with a layer of hay, they are covered with cold water and brought to the boil without haste. Take particular care that the water rises a few centimetres above the corks; it is even good to place a lid over it.
The boiling shall be slow, and it shall be kept up only for exactly the time indicated in each relevant recipe. The pot is then taken off the heat to let the vessels cool inside it.
As for corking the bottles, after making sure of the good quality of the corks, they are set to soak in boiling water to soften them. Whether one uses a hand bottle corker or any other method, the cork must not be driven fully down to the level of the neck, but must project above it by a few millimetres: about 7 or 8. This makes it easier to cross the string over it, so that the string does not slip; it is first fastened beneath the ring of the neck. This string must be strong, for the internal pressure would send the cork flying as soon as the boiling begins.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| siéure | cork |
| fen | hay |
| paio | straw |
| oulo | stockpot |
| peiròu | cauldron |
| boui | boiling |
| ban-marìo | water bath |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 588, page 259. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.