SC - sweet wine caudle

[Mark Harris]

Actually, Adamantius, I'm getting hungry... and I have my plastic teeth
back. Look out, kitchen!

I do have a serious query. This Thanksgiving, it looks like I'll be stating
home alone, and I thought that I'd entertain myself with cooking a few
things that I don't normally cook in the everyday hurly burly. I've got
myself some quail, and I'd like to experiment with them, as well as other
foods. Any suggestions, folks? I dislike bell peppers and black licorice
flavored things, although I love hot peppers. I will happily accept any and
all sugestions, whether period or not, and with a dozen quail, I can
probably try several variants. I know it sounds like a lot of food for one,
but I always, on the few holidays I have to myself, try to cook for the
unexpected guest. If he/she they arrive, fine, if not I have quality
leftovers. I am interested in any suggestions from appetizers to desserts.

Anyone wish to help?

Thanx,

Phlip

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
 and never a rider that cain't be throwed.

- ----------
> Alderton, Philippa wrote:
> > 
> > Just picked this up on the 'Bridge. Comments, anyone? Adamantius, I KNOW
> > you'll have something to say! :)
> 
> Who, me?!?
> 
> > > From: Steve Muhlberger
> > > To: Middlebridge
> > > Subject: [Mid] Feasts
> > >
> > > I have a preference in feasts.
> > >
> > > I like feasts to be a reasonable length.
> 
> Well, who likes feasts to be unreasonably long, unreasonably short, or
> unreasonably anything? It's downright unreasonable! I hate when that
> happens. What "that" is, though, I have no idea!
> 
> > > In the Middle Ages, from what I can tell, the big fancy feasts were
> > > standalone events.  You had a feast and it was the one event that day.
> > > In those circumstances, the feast could last a very long time, and
> > > clearly people did not sit down during the whole thing.  They took big
> > > breaks and did other things. 
> 
> Apparently, yes. This is quite likely one reason why individual courses
> appear to us as complete meals.
> 
> > > We squeeze our feasts into the evening portion of some other event,
yet
> > > try to serve something similar to the huge standalone feasts.  Feasts
> > > become long.  Also, the physical setup for the feast tends to take up
> > > most of the site, which means our freedom to do other things is cut
> > > down.
> 
> Okay. It 's probably true that doing feast _and_ everything else in the
> total space of perhaps twelve hours can make it difficult to do either
> one as well as we otherwise might. Certainly there are events held at
> which there is no feast, and there are also events whose focal point and
> main activity for the day is the feast. The fact that most events seem
> to attempt to do both is probably simply an indicator of the wishes of
> the majority. Yes, it is difficult to serve the number and variety of
> dishes at a real medieval European feast, some of which had upwards of
> five or six courses, each with perhaps fifteen dishes. Regardless of
> whether we want to discuss the queston of who got what, and whether the
> folks below the salt actually got a more "reasonable" amount of food or
> number of dishes. The solution generally adopted by cooks and stewards
> at SCA events is to serve far fewer dishes, usually in fewer courses. I
> am told, for example, that in the Outlands it is fairly (oops, I was
> gonna say "reasonably") common for four or five courses to be served,
> each with one dish. Here in the East you generally find two or three
> courses, with three or four dishes per course, served in quantities that
> the average human can choke down in the space of perhaps two and a half
> hours. Sometimes the cooks are able to keep people dazzled and in their
> seats for that amount of time, and sometimes people get restless after
> an hour or so. This is partly a function of things like entertainment,
> the quality of the food, toasts, etc.    
> 
> > > If a feast is not the whole event, and we expect people to sit down
> > > through a whole feast, then it should not be too long.   That way it
is
> > > neither a great medieval feast, nor a reasonable length meal for
modern
> > > people.
> 
> Again, "reasonable" is open to considerable interpretation. Lunch
> (that's **LUNCH**) at Bouley in New York City is routinely expected to
> last from noon to almost 3 P.M. There is one seating, and one seating
> only, per day. The restaurant is always exactly full, day and night.
> Never overcrowded, never empty. This is because the reservationist tells
> the customer when it is convenient for the restaurant to serve them. In
> short, a seller's market. Several thousand people, perhaps hundreds of
> thousands (I haven't done the math in detail) come away from lunch
> (dinner is even longer) there, with the feeling that they have just had
> one of the most memorable experiences of their lives.
> 
> My point? These people think that three hours is a reasonable time to
> spend eating lunch, under the right circumstances. The fact that some of
> them are New Yorkers, and therefore of questionable sanity levels, is
> moot, since many of them are tourists.
> 
> The longest feast I ever saw in the SCA lasted close to four and a half
> hours from the time people sat down, to the time they finally cleared
> the tables (I've heard of longer ones). These gentles understood that
> this was to be a serious feast, at least by SCA standards. They had a
> menu on each table, and really didn't want to leave without at least
> tasting the last item, which was a sweet wine caudle. They paced
> themselves, took small, tasting portions of everything (I believe there
> were something like 22 dishes in three courses), and evidently had a
> great time. Certainly there appeared to be no complaints of boredom or
> sore hind quarters, and people seemed seriously disinclined to get up
> and leave the hall until after the meal was over. Whether that
> constitutes a feast, I couldn't say. I just cook 'em, I don't call 'em. 
> 
> What Finnvarr seems to be saying most is that he gets easily bored and
> restless when a meal at an event runs too long for his taste. I'm sorry
> to hear that, but the overall situation seems unlikely to change much
> unless he organizes an event that is run more according to his tastes
> and tolerances.
> 
> Adamantius (There! Are you satisfied?!?!?)
> ______________________________________
> Phil & Susan Troy
> troy at asan.com
>
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