SC - Period Breakfasts...

[jeffrey s heilveil]

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Hello -

I had passed on the two deserts you mentioned because the first
(with the cottage cheese) was deemed "icky looking" by my tasting
audience, and I had used the pears in a previous feast (in September).

I tried the musticai.  I couldn't get them to cook quite right in
quantity, and the one's that did cook correctly were kind of bland.
I also tried the pear patina and didn't like the consistency it came
out.  My attempts to fix it led quite far from the original recipe and
pretty close to modern French cooking.  I tried a couple of the other
custard recipes (one of which came out too much like runny scrambled eggs
to serve), but really wanted something more starchy to replace the
musticai.  All that that left me was the really complicated pastries 
and the fried bread type dishes.  Both proved far too complicated
to make for 125 and get out in decent shape.

I didn't try every recipe, but I had originally been planning on the
musticai and the pear patina, and got kind of frustrated when neither
of them worked out well.  

I should explain my biases in regards to feasts.  As far as I am concerned,
if I serve a major piece of my feast that people don't eat, it's a waste
of money.  So I look at every recipe for the following criteria:

Periodness (to the theme of the meal, not just in general) - I think I'm
	the only one who knows if I succeed at this one, but it's a point
	of personal pride.  I consider period to include a single place as well
	as a consist ant approximate time and even season where possible.
Good Taste - goes without saying
Nice Presentation (i.e., my feasters won't go ICK at the way it looks) - I
	push the edges of this one, but there are limits.  I serve a LOT of
	sauces on the side because it looks nice AND means that those people
	who don't like the sauce still eat.
Affordability (my barony is poor) - This can limit ingredients - Because we 
	added the "dormice" to this feast, I lost some flexibility.  I'm glad, 
	since they went over REALLY well, but that was $30 I could have spent on
	dessert.
Ease of preparation for the size of the feast with the equipment we have
	(this is kind of a big one)
Uniqueness - This is a fuzzy one to explain, but basically means I don't
	like to repeat recipes two feasts in a row or get TOO close to something
	I served before.

Each dessert I tried failed on at least one count, sometimes on more then one.  

Had I had more time, I might have tried more of them.  But the cookies
were an "8:30pm night before the feast all I have are a lot of eggs and
some almonds" solution.  Even if they were period in the broadest sense
of the word, I normally wouldn't have served them because they weren't
the same period as the rest of the feast.  But I was tired and they were 
a sure hit.

Ruadh
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Rebecca E. Tants	retants at us.oracle.com	Phone:	716-389-1154
Oracle Consulting Services			Pager: 800-PAGE-MCI
Data Warehouse Architecture			Pin#:  1932362
 
 



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Date: 17 Feb 98 13:47:30
From:"Melissa Martines <melissa.martines at mail.corpfamily.com>" <sca-cooks-owner at bastion.globeset.com>
To:SCA-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject:SC - Roman Desserts
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     At 12:46 PM 16/02/98 -0800, Rebecca Tants wrote:
     
     >The only completely non-period item (we'll skip lemonade for the 
     moment)
     >was the Almond Cookies.  They were AWESOME, but came from a nice 
     Italian
     >cookbook I have and can't be dated to prior then the turn of the 
     century.
     >They were, however, inexpensive, yummy and a good solution as I got
     >frantic.  (Recipe for those is 11oz almonds, 1c plus 3T sugar, 1/2 t
     >vanilla, 4 egg whites, pinch of salt.  Beat egg whites and salt to 
     stiff
     >peaks, process almonds and sugar together.  Fold almonds/sugar and 
     vanilla
     >into the egg whites, bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes on greased 
     cookie
     >sheet.  YUMYUMYUMYUMYUM)
     
     
     Rebecca,
     
     I am curious -- which desserts from Apicius were you trying that you 
     had so many problems with during your testing?
     
     In case you are interested (or for future reference), Mistress 
     Rosemounde of Mercia and I co-feastcratted a Roman feast last year 
     which had three desserts which came out very well.  One was simply 
     cottage cheese and honey with poppy seeds (looks weird, tastes great, 
     easy to make) one was simply pears poached in red wine and honey and 
     allowed to soak overnight (there weren't ANY of these left, also easy 
     to make) and the more complicated one was one of the Patinas -- the 
     peach one.  We played with the recipe a little bit until it came out 
     like a peach custard -- very yummy.
     
     I thought your feast sounded really yummy.  I'm glad you kept with the 
     traditional Roman courses -- we did that too and it goes over really 
     well.
     
     THLady Morgan MacBride
     Shire of Glaedenfeld
     Meridies

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