SC - Rose Hip Wine Recipe

[Ladypeyton@aol.com]

>1) I have a marvelous recipe for Barley-Mushroom Risotto taht while it is
> from a modern source seems *perfectly* Period.  How can I introduce this ??
> The ingredients are all found within other recipes (barley, 'shrooms,
> onion, allspice,broth)  and the cooking method also (slow simmering, adding
> broth as absorbed)

Not the allspice -- it's native to the New World (somewhere in the
Caribbean, if I remember right).  Otherwise, it sounds like what I call
a Plausibly Period Recipe.  I prefer to work with an actual surviving
recipe until I have a tasty redaction thereof, but if you can't find a
suitable surviving recipe, or you don't have time or inclination to work
out a tasty redaction, a tasty recipe all of whose ingredients and
techniques are documentably period is better than serving pizza and
chocolate fondue (both of which I've had at SCA feasts).

Of course, you have to watch out with this Plausibly Period thing.  My
wife likes to give the following example (which I quote inexactly from
memory): "my clothes are woven wool, dyed with indigo; my shoes and
accessories are sewn leather.  All these things and techniques existed
in the Middle Ages, so my women's business suit is period!"  To really
do it right, you have to have enough familiarity with actual medieval
dishes to know what COMBINATIONS of ingredients and techniques were used
where and when, and (in the clothing analogy) how they were cut.

For example, you describe the dish as a "risotto", and mention "adding
broth as absorbed," which to my mind is the distinctive technique in a
risotto (as opposed to boiling all the liquid at once and adding the
grain thereto).  Was this technique ever used on barley?  Was this
technique ever used in the Middle Ages at all?  (Yes, technologically
it COULD have been, but that doesn't mean it was.  Meringue and roux
are two now-common techniques that could have been done with medieval
technology, yet I don't know of any solid evidence for either before
the 18th century.)

> 	2) Is Lavender a period flavoring?  This month's Sunset magazine has a
> nice article about using Lavender to flavor various dishes,  just about the
> same ones I read about that use Roses or Elderberry for flavoring agents.

Yes, lavender appears as a flavoring at least in Andalusian sources.
One of my favorite dishes from the 13th-century _manuscrito anonimo_ is
essentially a filled donut (filled with chopped almonds and pistachios
mixed with honey) and sprinkled with powdered cinnamon and lavender.
I don't know of any similar uses of lavender in English or French
sources, off the top of my head, but they may be there.

> 3) What about subsitutions?   I am in the midst of gathering recipes for a
> killer menu for Crown Tourney this next weekend,  and I was thinking about
> the "Strawberye" but using cherries and Kirschwasser instead ('coz I have
> cherries) 

I can't speak for the Kirschwasser, but there are surviving recipes for
cherries.  In fact, the "Strawberye" recipe you're thinking of,
presumably the one from Harleian ms. 279, is followed IMMEDIATELY in the
manuscript by one for cherries.  So rather than adapting "Strawberye" to
cherries myself, I would use the 15th-century recipe whose author thought
it was similar enough to put them on the same page.

Strawberye: Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of 3ere in gode red
wyne; [th]an strayne [th]orwe a clo[th]e, & do hem in a potte with gode
Almaunde mylke, a-lay it with Amyndoun o[th]er with [th]e flowre of Rys,
& make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle, and do [th]er-in Roysonys of
coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel,
Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put [th]er-to;
coloure it with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with [th]e
graynys of Pome-garnad, & [th]an serue it forth.

Chyryoun: Take Chyryis, & pike out [th]e stonys, waysshe hem clene in
wyne, [th]an wryng hem [th]orw a clo[th]e, & do it on a potte, & do
[th]er-to whyte grece a quantyte, & a partye of Floure of Rys, & make it
chargeaunt; do [th]er-to hwyte Hony or Sugre, poynte it with Venegre;
A-force it with stronge pouder of Canelle & of Galyngale, & a-lye it
with a grete porcyoun of 3olkys of Eyroun; coloure it with Safroun or
Saunderys; & whan [th]ou seruyste in, plante it with Chyrioun, & serue
f[orth].

Notice the following differences:
1) the cherry recipe doesn't call for almond milk, currants, pepper, or
ginger; maybe the author and/or his patron felt that these flavors went
well with strawberries but not with cherries.
2) the cherry recipe, after being thickened with rice flour, is further
thickened with "a grete porcyoun" of eggyolks.  I don't know why the
author chose to do this with cherries and not with strawberries, but
lacking evidence to the contrary, I'd follow his lead.
3) the strawberry recipe is colored purple with alkenade, while the
cherry recipe is colored yellow with saffron or red with sandalwood.
4) the strawberry recipe is garnished with pomegranate seeds, the cherry
recipe with whole cherries.

I would start by following the cherry recipe as closely as possible,
using a known-tasty redaction of "Strawberye" to get a first
approximation of the quantities.  If I had time (which you don't between
now and next weekend), I would experiment with each of the above
differences and try to figure out why they are there.

> 	How adventurous is a "newbie" allowed to be without offending the
> Authenticity Mavens or being sniffed at as OOP?

It's not "adventurousness" that people will complain about, it's
(a) serving bad food, or (b) serving food they could have gotten at a
church potluck.

As someone else pointed out, if you produce a palatable feast, very
few people will complain.  Those few will be the dread Authenticity
Mavens/Police/Nazis/[insert your favorite symbol of dictatorial
authority].  Even then, being for the most part decent human beings,
they will probably cut a "newbie" much more slack than somebody who's
been in the SCA for ten or fifteen years.  If I were served a feast, by
a "newbie", that was tasty but had (to my eye) obvious OOP elements, I
would probably seek out the cook after dinner, congratulate him/her for
a tasty feast, and say "Remind me to lend you some books of medieval
recipes; I'd love to talk about this stuff with you.  Here's my phone
number and email address."  If there was no followup (making some
allowance for losing phone numbers and email addresses), I might
conclude that the newbie in question had no interest in Real Medieval
Cooking, and would not bring the matter up again.  I might, at worst,
go off-board to the next feast that that particular person cooked.

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University
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