SC - Hello, Edible Flowers and Classes

[Charles McCathieNevile]

Hello all,

The problem with coming into a list is that you are catching the second half
of everyone's conversations...

A quick intro - my SCA name is Rowan Perigrynne and I live in the Barony of
Rowany, in the Principality of Lochac (ie Sydney, Australia). I've been in
the SCA for about 16 years and have done a bit of everything. Cooking is a
big mundane hobby for me and medieval cooking is a natural extension. I was
so pleased to find this list!

On Flowers...
Pot Marigolds (Family: Compositae, species: Calendula officinalis) certainly
are edible and make a nice additional to salads. They have a slightly
peppery flavour.

On classes...
The most popular food classes I've run have been on Medieval Ingredients and
Redacting Recipies. For the first one I have a list of ingredients and their
modern names and some substitutes, but the real aim is to let people look
at, small and taste real saffron, verjuice, galingale, long pepper, etc and
give people sources for these. Sampling foods made with these things is part
of the fun.

Redacting can be done in theory and/or practice. The theory includes handing
out a glossary of terms and looking at the original recipies, learning to
trasnlate them into modern English. Then a discussion on methods for
recreating the dish - cross referencing to other sources (medieval and
modern), assumed knowledge of ingredients and techniques, the how and why of
all the decisions you make on the way and coming up with a dish which is
hopefully to your taste as well.

The practice is great as an extension. Having done the theory, a fun option
is to divide the class into groups, give them all the same original recipie
and ingredients and encourage them to redact the recipie and produce the
dish. Finished products can be compared and you can get a lively group
discussion on which they like best, which is the best "period"
interpretation and why they made the choices they did. This can also be done
as a demo if short on time/resources or have students who are not competant
cooks.

It is always so good to meet a group of like mided people!

Rowan




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