SC - Fw: recreating medieval feasts

[Alderton, Philippa]

I had a look in Scully 'Early French Cookery' and found Ris engoule,
attributed to Viandier (Sass attributes something very similar to Forme of
Cury)

His redaction says

1 cup	uncooked rice
1/4 tsp	saffron 
1 cup  	hot milk
1 cup 	hot beef bouillon
2 tbsp	beef grease or butter

Rinse rice, dissolve saffron in hot milk, stir in rice.  Add beef boullion
and grease, cover and cook on low heat until liquid is absorbed and rice is
cooked.  Add more bouillon during cooking if necessary.  

For a fast day version use almond milk instead of milk and beef bouillon and
omit grease
For a sweet version use almond milk, garnish with pomegranate seeds, candied
orange peel or sliced browned almonds.

Given so many dishes using colour contrasts on the same basic recipe, would
it be unreasonable to deduce a white version (without saffron, with almond
milk) and a green version (no saffron, lots of herbs) served with this?  Or
even a black version - with blood?

I haven't found anything involving lots of cheese and would be interested to
see it.

Which raises the question of what sort of rice was used in the medieval
period - has anyone any info?  Given that rice used in Northern Europe came
from the Po valley (Lombardy), which now produces short grain, risotto rice,
is it reasonable to assume that sort of rice was grown there then?  I find
the recipes don't work so well with long grain rice, which now comes from
India and America.

Any thoughts?

Caroline

> Hello, all. I am wondering if anyone has come across a period recipe for
> Risotto or a Risotto-like dish. It occured to me this would be great event
> food, espescially since it's cheap, and leftovers can be made into Rice
> Cakes for frying in the morning (yum!). Risotto with fresh herbs smells so
> fragrant cooking as the stock is ladled in slowly and stirred, stirred,
> stirred, that it draws crowds to the kitchen area. I try to keep the food
> relatively period when I go to camping events and am just cooking for
> family
> and friends. I really enjoy making Risotto. It's a sensual experience!
> 
> There does not seem to be anything resembling Risotto in my English/French
> collection, but that does not surprise me very much. Does anyone have a
> Southern European source with something like this in it? I suppose the
> ingredients would be part of the clue: Rice, olive oil or butter, stock,
> herbs or spices, a little cheese added at the end. Or perhaps this is
> another no  brainer that wouldn't have been written down?
> 
> Aoife---Curiosity almost killing her----and snowed in with a foot of
> fluffy
> white stuff, to boot! No work today, and all my sources are at work for
> display (it's a library!)
> 
> 
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