SC - Re: sca-cooks Hello to all
willow at dowco.com
willow at dowco.com
Mon Apr 14 08:53:26 PDT 1997
Hail Charles:
I too am interested in bread baking in the old manner, though I seem to
have specialized in the English, Scotch, Irish branches of the craft,
with some French and Italian thrown in for good measure. I have had a
hard time translating (Middle and Olde English seems like a foriegn
language sometimes!) as well as adapting the recipes. Breaking down the
flower from a bushel or peck to a manageable level is difficult at the
best of times. Some -or I might say most - 12th century recipes use the
left-overs from ale making to leven bread, though that practice seemed
to have lessened with the advent of manchet and white flours.
I think I have finally mastered trenchers - they have to be made with
whole meal flour and left to harden for four days before using. I have
tried to use them fresh with disasterous results and much leaking of the
juices from vegs and meat. I am having an Elizabethan feast for a few
friends on the Queen's birthday, so I will have a chance to test my
theories.
I would delight in exchanging views and recipes with you, either through
SCA or privately. I am very new to SCA - a half-dozen weeks, maybe, but
I have always had an abiding interest in all things ancient and that
includes food and -mostly - breads and cakes, which were usually nearly
the same, less yeast.
Yours in service to the dream, I remain
Lady Bridgid Morgan ap Crawford of Shrewsbury
willow at dowco.com
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list