Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Are you in?

Click here to read the Medieval Maker's Faire Event Announcement.

You -- yes, YOU, who are reading this now -- are invited to get involved with the feast planning process.

In keeping with the theme of the event, we are going to attempt to plan the evening feast as a two part class. Part I will use the Internet to bring us all together to plan the feast. You can read more about how I think this planning process might go here.  Part II will be the actual hands-on preparation of the feast.

If you are interested in medieval food and/or feast planning, I urge you to sign up for the email list and get involved in this process.  All levels of experience, from master chef to new to the Society are welcome!

Click here to sign up for the Maker's Faire Feast Email List via Google Groups.

Questions?  Leave a comment below or feel free to email me directly at waxtablet (at) gmail (dot) com.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Platters, Menus, and the theory of the theory of the feast

A few years ago, my in-laws gave me this book for Christmas, and I have to confess that I kind of half-read it and then put it in the big box with all the other historic cookery books and basically forgot about it.  As I was digging in the box the other night, though, I pulled it out (mostly because of the, you know, 1250 date in the title) and although I feel like it doesn't do enough to differentiate between eras and locations (England in 1250 and Italy in 1450 have less in common than one might imagine).

So, reading this has led me to a source I had not previously heard of ... Dello Scalco ('How to organize a banquet'), Italian, 1528. The Oxford Compaion to Italian Food tells me that author was a Chief Steward in a noble Italian home, responsible for overseeing both the kitchens and the service, and he traveled widely. I cannot seem to find any complete translation of this work (either on-line or even referenced on-line, although I'm not done digging), but the glimpse that I have is very interesting indeed.

In particular, check out the menu that starts on page 20 of Cooking in Europe 1250-1650. You can't see what's on page 21, but it's more of the same:  'themed' platters, incuding another cold course and then a fruit and roasted nut course.  I really, really love the idea of having a cold course set and ready to go, so there can be food on the tables right as everyone sits down. Also, although of couse we've always served "family style" at SCA events, I do find myself wondering more and more about the use of the term "platters". The Food in the Anglo-Saxon period article I linked a few days ago provided this tidbit about pre-Norman feasts: "And unlike in the Medieval period there were no food courses and elaborate entertainments in the Anglo-Saxon period; all the food was served at once, on platters made of wood"

Anyhow, back to the Dello Scalco menu (which, again, is much later and farther south than what I'm aiming for). Some items from the first course that caught my eye include:
- Salad of sprouts with halved hard boiled eggs
- Slices of beef pie with slice of citron
- Flakey little pastries filled with blancmange
- Pastry roses filled with marzipan
- Slices of pork loin in vinegar with toast

Honestly, one could do worse than just having those five items as the first course at a feast.

Service is one of my big pet peeves at Society feasts. I understand that it's tough to always get your timings right, but I've been to far too many feasts where you get a dish ... and a pause ... and another dish ... and a pause ... and another dish ... and so on, and I'm wondering if doing some kind of mixed platters for at least part of the service is a) authentic and b) a solution to that problem.

Anyhow, I have a copy of The Mead Hall: The Feasting Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England waiting for me to pick up when the library opens tomorrow, and perhaps that will solve some of my nagging questions.

Finally: the email group for feast planning is now up and running. I very much want the planning of this feast to be a collaborative process.  If you would like to be involved, you can join the email list in one of two ways. You can go to the Google Group page (just click the link) to sign up, or you can send an email to me at waxtablet (at) gmail (dot) com and I will subscribe you. I hope you will join us!

PS: You should be reading Fearless Kitchen. It's written by Lady Safiya Shirazi from Carolingia and it's awesome.

PPS: I can't get the spell check to work in Blogger, so y'all are going to have to suffer with my awful spelling. Sorry. Please don't judge me.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Termes of a Kerver

I don't have much of interest to share today, but I was looking over The Boke of Kervynge (1508 - another version on-line here) and I just think the whole introduction reads like more of a poem than anything else, and wanted to share it with you:

Terms of a Kerver

Baeke the dere
lesche y brawne
rere that goose
lyste that swanne
sauce that capon
spoyle that henne
fruche that chekyn
babrace that malarde
bnlace that conye
dysmembre that heron
displaye that crane
disfygure that pecocke
baioynt that bytture
batache that cuclewe
alaye that felande
wynge that partryche
wynge that quayle
niynce that plouer
thye that pygyon
border that pauy
thye that woodcocke
thye all maner small byrdes
tymbre that fyre
tyere that egge
chynne that samon
strynge that lampraye
spatre that pyke
sauce that place
sauce that tenche
splaye that breme
side that haddocke
tuske that berbell
culpon that troute
syne that cheuen
trallene that ele
traunche that sturgyon
baderttraunche that purpos
tayme that crabbe
barbe that lobster


Here endeth the goodly termes.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Trying to avoid the rabbit holes....

FYI: the Food in the Anglo Saxon Period article I linked to yesterday is really well written and comprehensive and I highly recommend it. On the second page, they link to this recipe for an Anglo Saxon Elderflower Ale (Ellen-Elau), which ... well, I don't brew (and have never tried) and I also don't drink beer, but something about that particular recipe (maybe the elderflowers?) makes me want to try and make it to serve at this event. (Unfortunately (Fortunately?) Decimus has pointed out to me that the site does't allow us to bring in alchohol, so that project will need to be set aside for another time.  Good thing, too.) These are the rabbit holes that it is easy to fall in to.

Yesterday, also, spurred on by the Meat Day Menus in Le Menagier I started wondering aloud (on Facebook) about what "bacon gruel" might be (second menu, fifth platter), which, of course, led us back to looking at the original French, where it's written as Un boulli lardé. Now, none of us who were discussing this are really medieval French scholars, but the difference between larde and lardé is the difference between bacon and "larded" ... which led to a whole discussion about the difference betwen the two terms, and how larding was used on meats, and what the final dish might have looked like (no recipe is given) and how it might be the same/similar/different than the "smothered rice" (ris engoulé - here's a version) that is the next item listed.

All of which, really, while very interesting, is me getting far, far ahead of myself.

Our fee is set ($12 per person).  We have a headcount (sorta) -- maximum of 80 attendees, plus the high table, who will figure into the counts but who likely won't pay. That puts the budget at $960 for 88 or so mouths to feed. 8 per table means that services will need to be cut into 11 'platters' for 8.  I have a few people who want to help already, but to be true to the spirit of the project I'd like to have some more. A bunch more, in fact.

So, how about it? Are you interested in helping -- either during the planning or in the kitchen or both? If so, make a comment here and let me know!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

And so we begin....

It is the deep of midwinter, somewhere in the isles. Perhaps a monk or learned man could tell you the year, but you cannot. You have carefully preserved the bounty of the summer and fall so that the many who depend on your lord and lady for their meals will have good food, and plentiful, all the year round. This year, in the sliver of time between the feast of Candlemas and the start of Lent, your Lord and Lady have decided to host a celebration of the Masters and apprentices - a faire in honor of all those who make the things we do and wear and use each day. A celebration in the depth of winter is always welcome, but then news comes that makes this celebration all the more special - His Majesty Kenric aet Essex and Her Majesty Mistress Avelina Keyes of Lockwood will be attending the celebration -- and the feast! Of course, this meal must now be extra special. What can we serve for them, while still ensuring that there is enough set aside to feed those who must be fed until the frost ends and spring comes again? This is the special challenge of a feast in the midwinter.

-------

For Maker's Faire, being held in Carolingia on February 8th, I am hoping to make the feast the same sort of collaborative effort that the rest of the event celebrates. This blog is a way of publicaly sharing the planning of the evening meal, and hopefully working colaboratively to develop the menu, select and source the ingredients, set the serving sizes, redact the recipies, and, ultimately, cook the meal.

All that being said, however, there are some restrictions and perameters:

 - For the sake of limiting things a bit, I would like to try to aim for something late Anglo-Saxon. The King and Queen of the East have late Anglo-Saxon personae, and I think picking a time period (albiet, in this case, a hard one) is essential for some kind of uniformness in the feast.

- The site has restrictions: no cooking of raw meats, extremely limited dish washing.

- The time of year would have restrictions in period: smoked meats, pickles, root veggies, grains, preserved foods all would be on the menu.

So, that being said, I'm trying to limit my sources to those prior to 1400 (although the Anglo Saxon period really ends in 1066, sources prior to 1200 are basically nonexistant unless you go back to a fully Roman meal).

Some things I'm looking at for a start:
The 'Harpestreng' cookbook (Also published as Libellus De Arte Coquinaria. The link goes to the original language version, I have the translation in hardcover, but I don't see it on-line anywhere.)

Forme of Cury (English, 1390) (link is to Wikipedia, contains links to the multiple versions online)

Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections (England/France c 1340)

Le Viandier de Taillevent (France c 1380 - probably too French for our purposes but still a valuable early source)

Enseignements qui enseingnent a apareillier toutes manieres de viandes (Lessons which teach the preparation of all manner of meats - English c. 1300)

I have coming from the library Anglo Saxon Food and Drink.

Finally, I'm also looking at Le Menagier de Paris (France, 1393), particularly for the wonderful meat day menus (or "platters") that appear in the book, which give a lovely idea of how to put together courses at the time. This is also French, and a little late for what I'm aiming at (by, oh 327 years or so) but its one of the most complete sources we have.

Other things I've read this morning:
- Preserved foods of the Viking Age
- Food in the Anglo Saxon period
- Feasting and the Culture of Anglo Saxon Food (from somebody's thesis)
- Boke of Kervynge (mid 1400; specifically about carving and serving meats)
- Vegetables in Medieval Europe and the section on veggies from The Florilegium
- Þóra's page on Viking food-related archeology of the 9th and 10th century
- Regia Anglorum's food page

That seems like quite enough for today. Talk to me in the comments!