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.

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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!