SC - Rendered horse fat

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hi all from Anne-Marie

we're asked about what recipes we like to do outdoors. Well....:)

We've spent all of last summer cooking all our meals over an open fire,
using only 15th century appropriate recipes. (we're doing 1470 Bruges
re-enactment). Our conclusions were that ALL of the recipes out there work
over an open fire! Lo and behold, unless they require an oven, it is all
well suited. Amazing, no? Especially when you consider that that's how THEY
did it :). (the oven thing could likely have been gotten around using
modern dutch ovens, etc, but we decided not to, and got our baked goods
from the "bake house")

Seriously, its pretty cool that so many medieval recipes are essentially
"hack to gobbets, spice til its good and boil till its done". Thickening is
done with particulates and/or reduction that dont require fussy heat like
an emulsion thickener. Even rice and barley, if you have a good pot with a
good lid work just great.  My only "cheat" is that I'm not comfortable
cooking large hunks of animal flesh (my insta read thermometer isnt really
15th century appropriate, you know? and I've gotten food poisoning once
from underdone chicken. Ugh.) over the fire and often in the dark, so I
often will pre-cook whole chickens, roasts, etc at home, and then grill or
spit them over the fire to warm them up.

So my advice is to pick your favorite medieval recipes with impunity. They
were originally meant to be cooked over an open fire, so you cant go wrong. 

have fun!
- --AM

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