SC - Game feast-story LONG

[LrdRas]

In a message dated 3/16/98 5:12:32 PM Eastern Standard Time, kat at kagan.com
writes:

<< Darkwood is a difficult place to try to serve "specialty meats;" and when
you consider the fact that out here they consider VENISON a specialty meat...
I could no more serve eel or ostrich here than fly to the moon.  I was pushing
it with the goose and the salmon...   >>


I understand your feelings regarding the service of "specialty" meats. And,
your local group's location may or may not be a factor in serving what was ,
in fact common fair in the MA. At the very least, game animals were common
enough among the nobility and upper class citizens of that time to have made
an impact on the surviving corpus of recipes. I would like to tell the story
of my gane feast, if I may.....

I have been using meats such as lamb, goat, rabbit, emu (not period but big
and handy. :-)), bear, venison, squirrel and pigeonregularly at most all of my
Feasts. The time that I remember with the most fondness is when a local stick
jock walked into my kitchen at a feast I had entitled "A Feast Consisting of
Victuals Which Could Be Begged, Borrowed or Stolen In  and Around The King's
Forest". Essentially, it was a game feast.....Anyway, this guy throws down a
rattlesanke in front of and says, "Here's something for the feast!."

I hastily converted the rattlesnake into a less recognizable form by braising
it in some chicken broth, grated black pepper and a small onion with a clove
stuck in it. After it was doned in quickly stripped the flesh from the bones
and cut it into chunks. And immediately dumped it's contents into the 5 gallon
pot containing 35 lbs. of simmerimg cubed bear meat. The assorted small game
which included 2 rabbits, 7 squirrels and 11 pidgeons were rosted, picked from
the bones and added to one pan of the frumenty. A Pottage of herbs was
produced using dandelion, spinach and leaf lettuce. Sauted carrots sweetened
slightly with a bit of sugar and served with fresh ground pepper and a
sprinkle of ginger was another vegetable. Rosated onions the other.

Given that all the game was donated, I managed to spend less than $75.00 on
that feast. The local doomsayers were all complaining that no one would eat
that stuff. There was even a comment from someone that suggested  no one was
going to eat any of the food.

As the first course , the bear stew , homemade bread and cheeses , was being
served you could hear a wave of silence slowly creep across the hall following
the servers as they advanced through the diners. Then for a few minutes, the
only sound was spoons clicking on dishes...suddenly some one started stomping
and then another and another..................soon the entire hall was
thundering with yelling and feet stomping .......

I creeped from the kitchen to face my punishment and as I appeared thunderous
applause began. I cried just like a baby. And you know what was the best part
of it all? Not a single bit of food was left at the end of the feast. An added
plus was the 3 beggars I had at the back door with its attendant opportunity
to feed the "poor".


Ras
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================