Exiting Research Mode

Well hello!

So, yes, I got all of you all excited about this project and then proceeded to be completely silent for six weeks. Sorry about that. All I can say is work and holidays took up a lot of my free writing time, and what time was left I spent reading. And reading. And reading. And trying to get my head around how to make what I want to do work within the restrictions that the site kitchen imposes (which, to be frank, I find increasingly intimidating, in large part because it's not my local group's site, and I don't want to screw it up for the local group by accident). And then I read some more.

Most of my reading was two books: The Mead-Hall, Feasting in Anglo-Saxon England (Stephen Pollington) and Ann Hagen's Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink. Although neither is a true cookery book, I like them both, and found them both useful, for somewhat different reasons. The Mead-Hall primarily discusses the cultural aspects of the feast, while A-S Food and Drink talks a lot about the archeological evidence for certain ingredients (which is fascinating and I love) but has very little about menus and the actual food that was cooked.

I now have a notebook full of notes, and a pretty clear idea of what we're doing. Three services (four if the budget somehow allows for it, but three for certain), two of "cooked" foods and the third of cold foods, including nuts and fruits. This is a combination of the "platters" approach that Le Menagier de Paris lays out and the rule of meals for Benedictine monks (of all things) that is discussed in some detail in A-S Food and Drink and seems, overall, like a good rule to follow that echos the menus suggested in Le Menagier.

I'm still in the process of pulling actual recipes. But I wanted to share with you a bit of what my notes look like:

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Winter

Hard Cheeses, Salt meats, dried cereals, pulses (beans)
Live animals

Soft cheeses, meat pudding, sausages

Apples and Onions
Leeks
Garlic

Source quotes a salad comprised of garlic, scallions, onions, leeks, young leeks, and herbs.

Carrots (not orange), parsnips, radishes, turnips

Kidney beans, broad bean, dried peas. (Dried peas stewed in wine.) "Juicy" peas reference fresh peas. Lentils. 

Cress. Cabbage. 

Fennel. Celery. Combined with beans to combat flatulence.

Mushrooms.

Apples, pears, plums, mulberries, plums & cherries, grapes, dates and figs.

Hazelnuts, walnuts, sweet chestnuts, pinenuts.

Honey.

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And that, believe it or not, is the feast.  I don't have all the specific recipes quite lined up yet, but I'm getting there. Then we just have to price and source it..

Some stuff I'm looking at:

Sausages in Pottage (1604 and French, but encapsulates everything I'm reading about in one neat package.)

Medieval Cheese

En Gerhit (1345 German) I think it's a sauce? More research needed. 

Salat (Forme of Cury 1300) - Related to the garlic and onion salad referenced in A-S Food and Drink

Cured Ham (1616, far too late, but salted hams are clearly around in this period) The entire note is "XLVI - SpegeSkinke [cured ham]. Take salt and garlic and rub the ham with it and pierce through the sword [?] ginger, cloves and garlic"

'Heathen Peas' (1345 German) Peas and honey. "One hands this out greedily, cold or warm."

Drawen Beans (c. 1300 - turns up in Forme of Cury and a lot of other places) I've always wanted to try this, and this may be the time. Arundel 334 adds bacon.

Fresh Parsnip Pie (1604 and French) Too late and too french, but I'm very intrigued by what seems to be a mashed parsnip pie, and it certainly fits with the food themes listed above.

Apple Tarts (and here is a second one) The Forme of Cury one is ... wait for it ... an apple, pear, fig, raisin, prune AND FISH tart. They had me right up until the fish. I'm almost tempted to do tiny personal hand apple pies as part of the first course, but we'll probably go with a bulk tart instead.

I will probably serve leeks and mushrooms, just because I almost always do leeks and mushrooms. I'm currently searching for more creative leek and mushroom ideas than the regular Funges one.

Edited to add: I should probably look for a barley dish, since I'd like to do barley water as a beverage and I'd hate to waste all that barley.

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Possible First platter: Hot apples. Sausage. cheese. maybe something with cabbage if I can find something. Some kind of rice dish. Bread.

Possible Second platter: Ham, with sauces. Some kind of dish with peas. A dish with onions. Leeks and mushrooms. Something else with a rich, bacony flavor. More bread. Parsnip fritters?

Probable Third platter: spiced walnuts. chestnuts. fresh fruit (grapes, I'd love to do pomegranates or something else rare), wafers or thin pancakes with honey for dipping.