SC - Tastes of Britain Class Notes

[Shari Burnham]

Mistress Christianna:
I would love to have a physical copy of your Tastes of Britain classbook.  I
don't know if anyone brought this up before, but if you send an address, I would
be happy to send you money and an address.
Elisabeth

Christine A Seelye-King wrote:

> I want to relate to you how my "Tastes of Britain" Class went over at the
> Royal University of Meridies event.  I ended up with a 26 page handout
> after I was done cutting and pasting, and had 11 people show up for the
> class, which worked out quite nicely.  (I was prepared for 20 at a max,
> so this was just wonderful).  I charged a class fee of 3.00 a head to
> cover the handout and the food cost, which helped cover about half of my
> expenses.  The sources I cited were:  "The Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food
> Processing and Consumption"  by Ann Hagen;  "Early Period" Magazine;
> "The Ordinance of Potage" Constance B. Hieatt, ed.;  "Food in History"
> by Reay Tannahill; "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" by Cindy Renfrow; and
> one lonely recipie from Cariadoc's "Miscellany".
>         The dishes I served were presented in a feast table setting, and
> I encouraged the students to bring feast gear.  Luckily, we were in a
> kitchen ante-room, and had all the extra stuff we needed.  I warned
> everyone in advance if they were lactose intolerant or were watching
> their cholesterol, they might be in trouble, for this was a dairy intense
> and high fat content meal.  No one backed out, and so we went ahead.
>
>         Boiled Chicken with Leeks and Prunes - a dish from Early Period
> magazine, from a "Norse Menu".  A whole chicken boiled in chicken stock
> and water, with the addition of chopped leeks and cut up pitted prunes.
> Once the chicken was done, I removed it and boiled the stock down by 1/3,
> then added cracked wheat to it and cooked it until done.  Served as a
> side dish, it went very nicely with the chicken.  The comments on this
> dish were all favorable, especially at my house where we gobbled up what
> wasn't packed for the class.
>
>         Wheat and Hazelnut Pudding - Same Early Period article.  Rolled
> wheat, cooked in almond milk. When the wheat was done, it was mixed with
> ground hazelnuts, milk, eggs, sour cream, and honey.  Poured into a
> baking dish, dotted with butter, and baked.  It came out like an egg
> custard with loads of fiber, and was very good.  It was quite hearty, and
> stood up to transportation and a couple of weeks (what was left at home)
> of refrigeration.
>
>         Samit - Curds with Garlic - Early Period, "A Celtic Feast".
> Large curd cottage cheese was drained, and then mixed with butter, sour
> cream, garlic, and chervil.  Used as a spread on Rye Bread. Very yummy
> (and I hate cottage cheese), kind of a lumpy cheese spread.
>
>         'Gastel'-Honey Shortbread - From Anglo-Saxon Food.  I made this
> with whole wheat pastry flour, ground hazelnuts, honey and butter.  It
> came out way too short, very dry and crumbly.  I took a little mead and
> honey and mixed it with some warm water, and poked holes into the stuff
> and let it soak in.  This helped a lot, but not really enough.  It was my
> one real failure, and it still was ok.
>
>         Egg Custards - mentioned in Anglo-Saxon Food, as well as others.
> I used small tart shells and a standard egg and milk quiche mix.  To
> these I added the following ingredients individually:
>         Saffron
>         Safflower
>         Nutmeg
>         Mace
>         Galingale
>         Elderflower
>         Dried Blueberries and Cloves (I goofed and reached for the
>         cloves, so I made this one with the dried fruit.  It was good.)
>         I cut up the tarts and passed them around in pairs so that
> everyone could taste the difference between saffron and safflower, nutmeg
> and mace, etc.
>
>         Apples Marinated in Wine and Honey - Anglo-Saxon Food.  Oh, my
> God, were these good.  I took Fiji apples (it was that or Red Delicious)
> and marinated them in a mixture of Beaujolais Nouveaux and Merlot with
> honey.  They were soooo good.  There were NO leftovers.  So simple and
> easy to do, and absolutely stunning, as well as being refreshing with all
> the grains and heavier foods.  I suspect this was a hold over from Roman
> days, and could easily imagine garnishing it with a dash of ground black
> pepper (Hello, Apicius, is that you?)
>
>         Briw- Anglo-Saxon Food.  A savory Irish version of the
> ever-popular frumenty.  I made it with Buckwheat Groats, cooked in
> chicken stock.  When it was ready (very quickly), I added butter.  Then,
> to substitute for venison, I cut up chunks of bacon and fried them, and
> added the chunks and the grease to the mix.  It was great, and deemed a
> worthy cold-weather breakfast by one and all.  Damn the cholesteral, full
> speed ahead! (Really, with that much grain, the cholesterol didn't have a
> fighting chance.  Especially if you were an Anglo-Saxon or Irish farmer!)
>
>         Frumenty- A.S. Food, Food in History, Take a Thousand Eggs or
> More, Miscellany, etc.  For this one I used Whole Wheat Pastry Berries,
> which I cooked in Almond Milk, with rosewater, saffron, and honey.  I
> took it that way to the event, and then heated it up right before the
> class and added egg yolks and cream, and cooked that until it was heated
> through.  It was wonderful, and very distincitve with the saffron and
> rosewater flavors.  It was a good contrast to the savory Briw.  The
> Pastry Berries (whole wheat kernels) took the longest of all the grains
> to cook.  Even done (I think they were done, they cooked about 2 hours in
> all) they were al dente?, as in the skins still retained their integrity,
> but they were soft to chew.
>
>         Beverages and other things - Mead (a quick mead my lord had made,
> just enough for a taste for everybody);  Whey - which had drained from
> the Samit curds; Almond Milk (the boxed kind); Goat's milk yogurt, as
> well as goat cheese;  Fresh cherries, and  rye bread.  In small cups I
> had samples of :  Rolled Wheat, Rolled Oats, Rolled Rye, Cracked Wheat,
> Buckwheat Groats (steel cut), Whole Oat Groats, Whole Wheat Pastry
> Berries, Safflower, Elderflowers.  These got passed around to compare
> types of grains, etc.  I also had my spice jars to show them saffron,
> galingale, cardamom, mace, nutmeg (to compare colors and aromas).
>
>         I had a blast doing this class.  I loved researching it, and
> cooking for a group of 12 was a delight.  I had folks from experienced
> cooks to newcomers, and they all enjoyed it and learned a lot.  My
> favorite comment was "I guess we all failed and so we have to take this
> class again!".
>
>
> Mistress Christianna MacGrain, OP, Meridies
>
> Post Script - At Pennsic, I made the Briw with a mixture of my leftover
> grains, chicken stock, and mushrooms, with a little salt and pepper
> thrown in.  It came out very nicely, too, and received several favorable
> comments.  Cariadoc caught me on the "rolled" grains, asking if there
> were any reason to believe they were period, to which I replied that no,
> I had taken them to show the difference between the processed rolled
> grains and other types.  Now I see by re-reading my notes that I did in
> fact use rolled wheat in one of my dishes, so now I suppose I must go and
> do some sort of self-mortifying pennance. (I wonder if those flaggellants
> at Pennsic could take care of that for me?  I know they were running a
> special on certain sins, I just have to figure out which one of the seven
> deadlies this would fit into? :) )
>
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