SC - Thamesreach Culinary Guild event

[Christina Nevin]

As promised, here is the report on the Thamesreach Culinary Guild's first
event last Saturday - a Tudor workshop and feast. It started at 12, finished
cooking at 6 and ate at 7. I timetabled it so we were making two dishes at a
time during the workshop. We used only original reciepts and did our own
redactions from them.

The first course dishes were a hot mutton pie of lamb mince, raisins,
currents, prunes and spices made by Arafel (who turned out to be a dab hand
at pies due to childhood training) which was very rich and everybody liked -
quite surprising as a couple of people commented they didn't usually like
raisins. Also a chicken mortis (pate) with bread sops, that was eclipsed by
the pie, but which was rather liked by most for its texture and delicate,
slightly sweet flavour. There was also a salad put together by Katherine,
very nice with lots of fresh herbs from her garden. 

The second course consisted of 'gobbets' (everyone was most amused by that
word) of cold roast pork. It was cooked the night before as this was all
done in Katherine and Ozbeg's samllish apartment kitchen and it was stinking
hot for London (32 C / 89 F degrees) so we decided the less hot dishes the
better. The Jance Sauce was made by Ozbeg and was a nice gingery-garlic
blend. The Carmeline Sauce (cinnamon and raisins in a base of almonds), made
by Ulric, was the usual hit. Everyone were heartily sick of grinding almonds
and other things in my mortar and pestle by the time we had finished, as it
is really only a spice-grinding sized one (I gave them the "no you can't use
the blender, cutting isn't the same as grinding" spiel) so I have promised
to buy a large industrial-sized one before Lammas festival next month (if I
can find one that is) I rather liked the Boiled Onions with bread sops -
(onions boiled together with spices and raisins), although this was
overcatered for by about a third. The raisins part was very tasty however.
The Tarte of Bean came out well also. Personally I didn't like the taste at
all, but a couple of the others raved about it. There was also an Apple
Moyse, another dish people held different opinions on. I was most impressed,
it was light, fluffy and delicious, but others thought it too much like
apple sauce. 

The third course was gingerbrede, rolled into balls and decorated with bay
leaf and clove to look like an apple, very pretty. This was the only dish
that could be accounted a failure, as it was more squidgy (highly technical
term that <grin>) than usual so could not be laid flat and cut into squares.
The ginger was overdone, so it was HOT and too gingery. I was the only
person to eat more than half a ball. The hyppocras was not too heavily
spiced but I think the grains of paradise flavor came through nicely. The
final dish, Strawberry Pudding, was universally liked and I was most
impressed with the consistency. We used rice flour as I couldn't find any
rice starch, but I don't think it affected the taste. We used alkanet to
color it, as the reciept said, but to be honest none of us could see any
difference in the color (which was a lovely rich pinky-crimson) and so would
suggest not bothering with it next time.

Two queries;
The salad had sliced horseradish in it, which I know is a period vegetable
but am still a bit dubious about our adding it to a salad. Would they have
done that? I know salads are supposed to 'open the stomach' with their
'wetness', so would they have added a 'hot' food to it? (I'm assuming
horseradish is of a hot humor)

The pudding reciept says:
"Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of zere in gode red wyne;"
Can anyone tell me what "tyme of zere" means? This is the only part I wasn't
sure about. I tossed up that it meant the herb, but am tending towards time
of ripeness???

Although small, the event was a success and I think I can safely say people
learnt something new as well as getting to eat a great meal which they had
made. They were all very pleased with themselves for cooking an authentic
Tudor dinner, which was encouraging to see. The next workshop/feast is
pencilled in for October, and I'm hopeful word of this one will enthuse
others to attend (although by necessity numbers have to be limited by the
space available). I already have a couple of bookings and I don't even know
where it is yet! Oh, and we came in slightly under budget too. Always a nice
addition.

Now I just have to do the workshop booklet...

Al Vostro e al Servizio del Sogno
Lucretzia

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Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia   |  mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald | London, UK
thorngrove at geocities.com | http://www.geocities.com/~thorngrove  
"There is no doubt that great leaders prefer hard drinkers to good
versifiers" - Aretino, 1536 
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