Post-Crown Update

[hrj]

It was very nice to have a March Crown with nice weather (especially given how icky that particular site gets when it's raining). On the other hand, the number of people who -- not trusting the weather, or for some other reason -- hotelled it or daytripped seemed to affect the social flow in noticeable ways. Sunday morning, in particular, I ended up wandering around a lot not quite finding enough meat to the event for it to make sense to stay. (Which isn't to say I didn't find good company to hang with in my perambulations -- I just try to avoid plunking myself down in a single spot for an extended period.)

The perambulations were more fulfilling on Saturday. Lots of enjoyable conversations and good food. (Yay cheeeeeese!) I managed to miss the Order of the Golden Poppy meeting Saturday morning -- which evidently took considerable talent on my part. (Not sure why the Poppies need a meeting in the first place, but I'd dragged myself out of a warm bed to try to make it.) Showed up 10 minutes after the time given in e-mail, only to find no one there and figured it had either been exceedingly short or cancelled. Found out later that it had been moved to half an hour later and, in theory, had been announced by the heralds, which is where the talent comes in because at that time I was hanging out in a pavilion a stone's throw away from where the meeting was scheduled and directly facing on it. So I must have been both deaf and blind. Ah well. I also ended up missing the evening ball, since it was oppose etaine_pommier's Virtue Roundtable, which I'd gone so far as to do advance research and study for. The roundtable was interesting. Some people came to discuss philosophy; other people seemed to have ... less room for entertaining ideas they didn't already hold.

To continue the completely out-of-order event report, I fulfilled my not-entirely-spontaneous and not-entirely-random dinner guest program by hosting aureellia (and still managed to forget to hand over the dishes I've been trying to get back to her for several months). The menu is:

Tartelettes

Take pork ysode and grynde it small with safroun; medle it with ayren, and raisouns of coraunce, and powdour fort and salt, and make a foile of dowh3 and close the fars therinne. Cast the tartletes in a panne with faire water boillyng and salt; take of the clene flessh with oute ayren & boile it in gode broth. Cast ther powdour douce and salt, and messe the tartletes in disshes & helde the sewe theronne.

Boil ca. 100 g boneless pork rib in water to cover until cooked. Cool. Remove the fat from the broth and reserve the broth. Mince half the pork finely and add to broth along with1/2 tsp powder douce and salt to taste. Add additional pork broth to make a total of ca. 2 cups. Process or grind the rest of the pork with 1/4 c. currants, pinch saffron, pinch salt, 1/4 tsp powder fort, and 1 Tbsp beaten egg white. Encase spoonfuls of the pork mixture in 8 wonton/potsticker skins, sealing the edges with beaten egg white. Cook the tartelets in boiling salted water and serve in the hot broth.

Pasternaks in Pottage

Take rapus and make hem clene, and waissh hem clene; quarter hem; perboile hem, take hem vp. Cast hem in a gode broth and seeth hem; mynce oynouns and cast therto safroun and salt, and messe it forth with powdour douce. In the self wise make of pasturnakes and skyrwittes.

Take:
2 medium parsnips
2 medium carrots

Pare then slice in coins. Parboil for ca. 10 min and drain.
Mince half an onion finely.
Heat about half a cup of chicken broth with a pinch of saffron and salt to taste. When the saffron is released, add the vegetables and simmer over a low heat until the broth is reduced and the onions are cooked. Serve sprinkled with powder douce.

Funges

Take funges and pare hem clene, and dyce hem; take leke and shreded hym small, and do hym to seeth in gode broth. Colour it with safroun, and do therinne powdour fort.

Slice the white of one large leek.
Clean and slice about 200 g mushrooms
Simmer in about 1/2 c. mushroom or other broth with a pinch of saffron and of powder fort until cooked and reduced. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Fenkel in soppes

Take blades of fenkel; shreded hem not to smale. Do hem to seeth in water and oile, and oynouns mynced therwith; do therto safroun and salt and powdour douce. Serue it forth. Take brede ytosted and lay the sewe onoward.

Slice one bulb fennel.
Slice half an onion.
Simmer in fat broth (I used the pork broth from the Tartelettes) with a pinch of saffron, salt to taste, and a pinch of powder douce. It should still have liquid when done.
Toast sippets and place them in the bottom of the dish. Serve the dish over it.

Chykens in Cawdel

Take chikens and boile hem in gode broth, and take hem vp; thenne take 3olkes of ayren rawe & the broth and alye it togedre. Do therto powdour of gynger and sugur ynowh, safroun and salt. And set it ouere the fyre withoute boyllyng; and serue the chykens hole other ybroke, and lay the sewe onoward.

Clean a game hen and simmer in 4 c. chicken broth until cooked, then remove from the broth. Reduce the broth to about half a cup. Beat two egg yolks and add the broth. Add ginger, sugar, saffron, and salt. Heat gently to thicken and pour over the chicken to serve.

Tartys in applis

For to make tartys in applis, tak gode applys & gode spycis & figys & reysons & perys, & wan they arn wel ybrayd colour wyth safroun wel & do yt in a cofyn, & do yt forth to bake wel.

Take a pippen apple and a bosc pear. Pare, then grate the flesh down to the cores.
Let the fruit sit overnight then pour off the liquid into a sauce pan. Simmer the liquid with a pinch of saffron until the color comes out and it reduces slightly.
To the fruit, add:
4 chopped figs
1/4 c. currants
1/2 tsp powder douce
The saffron-juice mixture

Bake in a closed pastry at 350 until the crust is beginning to brown (ca. 60 minutes).

Hypocras

Troys vnces de canell & iii vnces de gyngeuer; spykenard de Spayn, le pays dun denerer; garyngale, clowes gylofre, poeure long, noie3 mugade3, ma3io3ame, cardemonii, de chescun i quarter donce; grayne de paradys, flour de queynel, de chescun dm. vnce; te toutes soit fait powdour &c.

I made up a large batch of mixed spice based on this and another related listing in the same source with the following proportions:

Take:
ca. 15 g stick cinnamon
2 Tbsp ground ginger
1 Tbsp loose spikenard
1 Tbsp whole cloves
1 Tbsp whole long pepper
1 tsp ground nutmeg
(I skipped the marjoram as it wasn’t included in the other source and seemed odd)
1 Tbsp decorticated cardamom (unground)
2 Tbsp grains of paradise

Grind the unground items then blend with the pre-ground ones.

Then I added about 1 Tbsp spice to about 500 mL red wine (left over from last week's cooking) along with 1/4 c. sugar and let it sit a few days then strained when serving. (I like a strong, syrupy Hypocras. It would also have worked with half those proportions, but as something to sip after dinner it worked fairly well.)

I had enough food to have fed three or four, which is generally what I aim at for these things. I just wish I were better at the whole "acquiring dinner guests" part of the program. But that's why it's a program, right?

One of the things that drives me crazy about trying to do fine dining at camping events is how to keep food hot. I seem to have hit on a useful trick, inspired by the "lidded bowl" serving style from the Perfectly Period Feast. The various vegetable dishes were served up in wooden bowls, covered by another similar bowl. (I recovered the dishes after serving.) Not only was the food hot when we sat down, but when I was putting away leftovers at the end of dinner they were still warm. Success! I don't think ceramic bowls would have worked as well in this context, since they'd start out as heat sinks and would also lose heat more quickly to the air.

The one unhappy item was that when I sat down to dinner I realized that I'd lost one of my rings (a very plain wire band with a 2mm cabochon emerald that I got from Gaukler many years ago). I think it must have fallen off at some point during dinner prep, and I searched the ground thoroughly while packing up without finding it, so it's possible that it's in the bottom of one of my kitchen boxes somewhere. Not a ring with sentimental value in the slightest, but I do hate losing things.

Saturday morning I had the chance to do some close examination and detailed construction notes on joycebre's trestle table, with the intention of copying the design (with the maker's permission). Some very clever techniques there, and I think I may even be able to re-use the legs from my current tables for this design (with some additional work on them, of course). That would save a lot of work and wood, if so.

I skirted the edges of a couple of courts, but as usual my interests didn't intersect very strongly with the "official" parts of the event. More and more I'm finding myself prioritizing events where I can simply "do medieval stuff" as opposed to "doing SCA stuff". And to finish up with some totally random items: Yay for joycebre getting offered a Laurel! Yay for j_i_m_r's home-made cheese! Boo for nothing in merchant's row I wanted to spend money on! Yay for my new chamber pot! Dammit for missing the chicken divination!

ETA: Chicken Divination on YouTube

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

The wooden bowls are a good idea. Although, of course, much food did end up cold, come what may, at larger feasts.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I also have to make up for not having a serving staff (or, in many cases, control over delays between cooking and sitting down). So even having everything hot at the same time for the first five minutes is a triumph in my books.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I suspect you're doing better than many mediaeval kitchens, given the physical distance some of the staff had to walk with food (this is want my original comment meant, btw -- should have phrased it better).

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I think that's how I understood your original comment. There's a group of us here that have been looking at the "performance" aspect of recreating medieval feasts, and the whole logistics of getting the food from kitchen to table has been one of the research topics (although not one where we feel the need to reproduce all the original details).

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

More and more I'm finding myself prioritizing events where I can simply "do medieval stuff" as opposed to "doing SCA stuff".

Glad to see I'm not the only one :-)

BTW, your "diner sur l'herbe" sounds great! I love the idea of "lidded" wooden serving bowls--we may have enough treenware to try that....

trestle table

[nibuca.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Can you share you notes/construction info? I can probably get the boy to make something for me if I can present him with drawings/measurements.

Re: trestle table

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Since the original design belongs to someone else, I would need his permission to "publish" it. But if I manage to put together a useable set of diagrams and descriptions, I'll see if he'd be interested in having it promulgated.