SC - Oh yeah!?

[Kathleen M Everitt]

>You already probably know of "apples" made from meatballs; hollow 
>walnuts made of sugar paste with trinkets inside; and the 
>above-mentioned bacon and hard-boiled eggs of marzipan or sugar paste.
>Can we invent something similar?
>
>Alys Katharine

Wasn't it Taillevant who suggested filling a pre-baked pie shell with live
frogs? The idea is that you get a pretty volunteer maiden or three to "open"
the pie, and then clap out the lights and watch the panic ensue.

Sigh. Those were the good old days.

Today, you'd have to answer to animal welfare. But wind-up toys are cheap
and they work. Try the leaping variety (the kind that do somersaults, etc....).

Another Taillevant suggestion is to have a warship complete with working
cannon, which are fired from a distance at another warship. That's a little
complicated.

I have a friend (the mysterious Master Dyfan) who made a stained-glass
cathedral from gingerbread and melted hard candy. It was lovely. He used the
same recipe to make a carved wedding chest which was astounding. It had
leaping stags, IIRC, and foliage. The only reason I think I beat him out at
Ice Dragon in that catagory was that the chest was so amazing the judges
probably assumed that it was a wooden chest, and thus in the wrong room :^(
. I made preserved oranges (which had been preserved quite a while), a
rather compicated almond butter, and period flaky pastry. It was yummy, but
I didn't do the work he did, and mine wasn't as complicated.  

My brother once made a dragon from loaves of french bread artfully cut. It
was more of a crocodile, but effective none the less. He filled the bread
with bread pudding.

I used to make (back when Dawnfield in the East Kingdom existed) bread swans
to hold butter or soft cheeses. They are similar to the puff pastry swans,
less elegant but more durable (more inportantly, freezable), and they get
completely eaten, so there's no dishes to wash! That's so much nicer than
putting out a stick or blob of butter on a plate.

I've also been known to mold butter into another form, harden, unmold, and
press fresh herbs, edible flowers,  and thinly sliced pieces of vegetables
cut to fancy shapes onto the surface of the butter. You wrap it up, chill it
again, and simply unwrap to serve. Letting it stand a while will make it
soft enough spread.

I want to do a gaming theme: Cheeses arranged in a checkerboard and picks of
vegetables for chessmen. Or a feast where Every dish served looks like
something it isn't. Sounds really fun! I read an account of a feast where
the cook made an army of drumsticks. Each had a red grape helmet, carried a
breadstick spear and had a shield of sliced turnip. They were mounted on a
covered board with rows of non-galvanized nails. That's an army that really
was chicken! <<groan>> 

Just a few ideas off the top of my head.

Aoife

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