SC - Vigil Cakes?

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/1/99 10:04:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
mermayde at juno.com writes:

<< I have a question from someone who has been told about "Vigil Cakes". 
 The person who told her about them said they were in "Take a Thousand
 Eggs or More", but they aren't.  They don't sound familiar to me, can
 anyone else place them? >>

The only thing I've heard of that sounds similar is "Destiny Cakes", which 
are in Fabulous Feasts or Cosman's other book, Medieval Holidays and 
Festivals: A Calendar of Celebrations.  These are described as "These 
elderberry funnel cakes are simple fried crullers, made with batter that is 
passed through a funnel or tube, making amusing, fantastic or 'divination' 
shapes".  The following recipe includes baking powder.

As an indication of the authenticity level of this book, the first line in 
the chapter on Twelfth Night is "When the evil King of Labora punished his 
people by decreeing all work and no pleasure, he banished one of their 
favorite holidays - Christmas".  Later on she describes a game in which teams 
are chosen by being captured by two courtiers, dressed in orange and yellow, 
who are referred to respectively as "orange" and "lemon", basically doing the 
London Bridge game while singing the song about the sounds of the London 
Bells (ie Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements; you owe me five 
farthings say the bells of St Martin's, etc).  There is then a friendly tug 
of war between the teams , with the winners being declared Spring and the 
losers Winter, and the "prisoners" are the "sacrifice" that allows the 
triumph of the new season.

Where does she come up with this stuff????

Brangwayna Morgan
PS Somebody copied the chapter and associated recipes for me when I said I 
was looking for documentation for period Twelfth Night festivities for the 
event I ran in January...
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