Rat (mock) on a stick - a soteltie

I created these "charming" creatures as an entry for an arts and sciences competition, the theme of which was rats and cats. 

I based them on the recipe for Herissons (hedgehogs) in Le Viandier de Taillevent (Vatican manuscript) which is from the first half of the 15th century.   

Prenez chair crue, hachiez la plus menue que faire se peult, puis fault roisin de Daingne, frommage de gain esmié, et tout meslez emsemble avec pouldre fine, puis ayez des caillettes de moutton, eschaudez et lavez très bien, et non pas en eaue trop chaude qu'ilz ne se retraient, et les emplez de ladicte chair hachiée, et puis les coudre d'unne petite brochette de boys. 

Take raw flesh, chop as finely as possible, then add raisins de Digne*, crumble harvest cheese, and mix everything together with fine powder, then have sheep intestines, scald and washed very well, and not in water too hot for them to shrink. And stuff them with the said minced flesh, and then sew them up with a small skewer.

I have to admit that I can't give you the quantities of ingredients as I have to admit that I just went with something between what I had, and what felt right. 

• 

  Just before going into the oven
  

  Pork minced then ground
• Feta crumbled finely
• Finely chopped sultanas
• Spice powder**
• pine nuts (for teeth)
• bacon rind for tails

I formed the mix into rats, skewered them, and used pine nuts to make teeth and a currant for an eye. 

I then endored*** them with a mixture of flour, saffron, egg yolks, sandalwood and water. Saffron was the most common colouring for endoring (being to make something look gold) but sandalwood was used in this period to give food a red colour. 

I was keen to see if I could get a colour that resembled the rats on a stick that you buy even now for sale in some countries. A single coat of endoring was ok, but a second coat of the endoring paste half way through ended up making a very effective but slightly disturbingly realistic 'skin'. 

I was really pleased at how the final rats looked. 

Double endored mock rat on a stick

  Notes: I spent/spend a lot of time trying to figure
  out what 15th century French "harvest cheese"
  might be.  Cheese ready to be eaten at harvest
  time? Cheese made from the milk drawn
  at harvest time?  That is a whole other post
  for another day. 

  The other question that I had to think about was
  whether the original recipe is indeed for making
  a soteltie... or is it a recipe for cooking hedgehog
  meat? Who knows?  The original recipe does not
  specify what meat it uses. 

Fresh out of the oven

* Raisins de Digne – Le Menagier de Paris (15th century) tells us what Raisins de Digne are : take two pounds of the raisins which be called raisins of Digne, to wit small ones, with no pips or seeds of any sort therein.

** Fine powder – from le Menagier de Paris : Ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, long pepper

*** Endoring : 15th century English recipe for cockentrice : ''endore them with yolkes of eggs, and poudre of gynger, and saffron, & ioiss of persely or malves, & draw them, and endore them a abowte in euery perty of him. ''