SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #177

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>From: rousseau at scn.org (Anne-Marie Rousseau)
>Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 20:41:27 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: SC - cooking frumenty for the masses
>
>Greetings all from Anne-Marie.
>Does anyone have experience cooking barley for large numbers of people? 
>We will be making frumenty outdoors, and I need to know how it bulks up 
>for say, 100 bodies. Is it like rice, ie touchy but doable if you know 
>how? Or is it like pasta where if you give it enough water it's fine?
>
>I just fear ending up with a gloppy mess (thereby undoing all thepositive 
>propaganda I've been giving out about medieval food not being brown 
>gloppy messes!).
>
>Thanks,
>- --Anne-Marie d'Ailleurs
>

Hi there! My group does a demo twice a year with another group called the
holistic consortium. You guessed it...we have to serve some vegetarian fare.
I have watched my friend Rowan of Ashebrook making vegetarian barley for the
demo just like one would make  rosotto--brown the barley with a good quality
oil astirring in a ladle full of extra-rich broth at a time, till it is
absorbed, and continuing until the alotted amount is used up, stirring,
stirring all the way. She sautes seasonal veggies and stirs them in at the
last, along with the spices. She uses a pan from a warming table for the
correct size to serve about 100 servings. We always sell out. A friend says
one of the benefits of being a scadian is that cooks in the SCA know how to
make you WANT to eat Barley!

BTW I like my risotto the day afterward, mixed with a beaten egg and fried
into cakes in the griddle. Yum! I suppose there no hope THAT practice is period?


Aoife
"Many things we need can wait. The child cannot."
				---Gabriela Mistral, Chilean Poet 1889-1957