SC - Re: sca-cooks Hello to all

[willow at dowco.com]

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