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One of the ways in which I tend to diverge from a lot of my friends in the SCA is that for me the big, number one, most important and most fun thing I do in the SCA is try to understand historic cultures by trying to reproduce little bits of them. I'm not saying that other people don't think this is fun and important too, but it seems to come further down the list for most people. I don't come to the SCA for a "dream of chivalry"; I don't come to find "family" (well, except for my brothers, of course); I don't come for the partying; I come to do and make medieval things. Yesterday was the sort of thing I love to do in the SCA. Trying to learn more about the constraints and advantages of medieval cooking methods and equipment; comparing different possible interpretations of a single recipe; sharing and discussing knowledge and techniques in a situation that involves practical application without the looming pressure of a room full of paying diners. And the second most fun thing about the cooking (after the cooking itself) was the near-constant stream of people wandering through to taste the results.

Here are the recipes I did -- all from Sent Soví, no repeats of my previous experiments (although I brought the results of the arugula sauce for people to try). See previous postings for the bibliographic information.

( Mushroom Sauce )
( Carrots )
( Squash )
( Broad Beans (Favas) )
( Broom Pudding )

Overall Summary

I'm quite fond of the number of vegetable dishes in this book. It's also interesting to see several "patterns" of preparation applied to multiple base ingredients. I'm itching to do a distribution analysis of seasonings to get a big-picture notion of the rules of the cuisine. I keep getting the notion that some of the dishes labelled "sauces" are more in the way of side dishes -- or at least more of a condiment than a sauce, per se. It's also interesting to read some of the side comments on preparation and serving (like the bit about serving the squash with sour grape juice on the side, presumably to be added individually as people are served). All in all, the recipes seem more "talky" than contemporary collections from more northerly areas. Less someone's personal memory aid and more intended as actual instructions to someone unfamiliar with the dishes.

ETA: sarahbellem was taking pictures of the cooking, so they may show up online at some point.

So at one and the same time, I was pondering what to do with the large bunch of arugula that came in last week's CSA box and contemplating which of several 14th c. cookbooks I wanted to play with at the Cooks' Play Date at Coronet. And thus did I find myself staring at Sent Sovi's recipe for Arugula Sauce. The translation I'm working from (Robin Vogelzang's translation of the Joan Santanach edition) reads:

If you want to make arugula sauce, take the arugula and grate it, and, well ground and then diluted with good vinegar, knead it. Cook it well or scald it nine times with boiling water, and each time grind it finely. If it is too hard, you can put vinegar in the mortar or wherever you are grinding it; when it is well ground, dilute it. You can scald it in the same mortar, and each time that you scald it, pour out the water. Then mix it with vinegar for flavor, and with spices: saffron, pepper, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon, if you have some. Put in fruit syrup or sugar for someone delicate.

It is served with roasted chickens, roasted pork, beef, veal or salted fish.

Since the directions for "scalding" were more detailed than the option for "cook it well", I went with the former. I also made heavy use of a food processor rather than using a mortar since I don't have a large enough mortar for the experiment. So.

Wash one large bunch arugula, pick over, and pinch off the leafy parts from the stems. Add in small handfuls to a food processor with enough vinegar to make manageable and process to a roughly chopped level. This counts for "kneading" it as well. Dump into a strainer and press out the liquid. (The liquid was such a lovely thick green that I reserved it for further experimentation.)

Return the leaves to the processor and pour boiling water over them, process, then strain as before. (This liquid wasn't worth keeping.) Repeat for a total of 9 scalds. (The water gets progressively clearer and clearer as you go.)

Ok, at this point I have a wad of green vegetation that has pretty much been entirely stripped of the peppery taste that arugula is normally chosen for. So I decided to go down two different paths. For half of it, I mixed it with plain vinegar, for the other half, I mixed it with the original drained vinegar that had oodles of arugula juice in it. So...

To each part of squeezed arugula pulp, add one and a half parts vinegar (or vinegar-juice). I ended up with 2T arugula pulp in the plain version and 3T in the vinegar-juice version. The following amounts will be for the former, with adjustments for the latter.

Add:
1 pinch saffron
1/16 tsp pepper
1/16 tsp ginger
1/32 tsp cloves
1/16 tsp cinnamon

At this point, the volumes I was dealing with were such that I could grind the mixture in my kitchen mortar. I skipped the sweetener for the moment.

Results: Both taste pretty much of the vinegar and spices with the arugula being there for "body". The vinegar-juice based sauce does have an identifiable arugula taste, which the other does not. I plan to let them sit in the refrigerator to age a bit and then try them again, this time with some meat. If they keep for two weeks, I'll bring them to the event for others to try.

Guesses: The "cooking" aspect seems to assume a tough or older plant -- especially the bit about "if it is too hard". But on the other hand, it's hard to figure out why you'd make an arugula-based sauce if your process was guaranteed to eliminate all trace of what distinguishes arugula from any other generic plant pulp. The scalding, grinding, and draining, in particular, seem guaranteed to wash out any soluble flavorings. Compare with the parsley-based "Green Sauce" which is otherwise very similar in structure and seasonings, but involves no cooking. If the recipe assumes an older, tougher arugula than the young salad green of today, would that also mean a stronger flavored plant whose taste would stand up to the treatment? How valid would it be to take an approach of "cook it sufficiently to be able to grind it" and do a version where young arugula is treated much more lightly? Is it reasonable to find an interpretation of "grind it with vinegar, knead it, cook it (in the vinegar)" and then continue from there with adding the spices? Is it possible that the peppery arugula flavor was not a desired feature for this recipe and it was basically simply supplying a green base to a vinegar-spice mixture?