SC - A small foray into "period" cooking

[Karen]

Greetings

I am home from vacation, (and delayed in telling you my
adventures because of miscommunication with my ISP) and want to
relate my experiences in cooking a medieval meal for my family
reunion.

My husband's family (meaning his parents and sisters and all the
kids) get together every third year for a reunion.  We were
assigned Sunday dinner for the group of 20, and I endeavored to
come up with something that would not take me too long, that
would not be too weird for them, and that would introduce them
to the idea that good food is timeless!

Having about a 10 lb pork roast in my freezer, I took that with
me (traveling from Texas to Colorado in a small vehicle, I was
limited as to what I could pre-shop for) I bought the rest of
what I needed there.

I roasted the pork with water and onion in the oven, basting
often to get the top crispy.  I also had chicken drumsticks that
I skinned (and about 5 chicken breasts for those in the family
that were on severely restricted fat diets) which I sprinkled
with Mrs. Dash (this because my mother-in-law does not use much
in the way of herbs and spices, and that is what she had.)

I spent most of my time making a couple of sauces that I found
on Master Huen's website.  Before we arrived, Mom had been
cleaning out the freezer to make room for those things everyone
else brought, and then baked 2 large fruit cobblers, and had a
pot of sweetened pie cherries that didn't make it into a
cobbler.

So the menu was:

Roast pork and Roast chicken
Yellow Pepper sauce, Mustard sauce, and Cherries
Steamed rice
Green beans
fruit cobblers for dessert.

I gave them a little lecture just before we ate about what foods
were found in North America (this was on July 4th, and seemed
appropriate to think about what wonderful things we have because
our people came here from Europe) and let them go

The bad news is that there were no leftovers for later snacking,
the good news is that they loved it, and want more!  I was a hit
even with the teenagers who notoriously are suspicious of
strange food.  And those members of the family that live in New
Mexico and eat almost nothing without some sort of hot sauce
pronounced my yellow pepper sauce "not as spicy as I usually
have, but a really interesting flavor"

  The Viandier of Taillevent 
 
Yellow Pepper Sauce 
 
   2 cups red wine vinegar  
   1 Tbs. ginger (see note)  
   1 Tbs. pepper (see note)  
   1 Tbs. ground saffron OR 1 Tbs. yellow food coloring  
   ½ tsp cloves (see note)  
   1-2 cups toasted bread crumbs (unseasoned) - the amount
depends on the thickness of the sauce  
 
Bring the vinegar to a boil; reduce the heat slightly, and with
a wire whisk, beat in the spices and food 
coloring. With the whisk slowly begin to beat in the bread
crumbs until you reach the thickness of sauce 
that you desire. Continue beating until you have a smooth
consistency and the mixture has again.

Note:  What I did was make this sauce as per the recipe except
that I had apple cider vinager, yellow food coloring, and to
help with the "bite" I added some ground mustard.  This really
is a delicious recipe, and could be somewhat of a substitute for
that "hot" sauce prepared with caspium peppers.  (Margaritte,
are you listening?)

For the mustard sauce, I used prepared stone-ground mustard with
a little mayonnaise stirred in (I know, I know, mayonnaise is
not period, but these people liked it)

And the cherries I set next to the pork and served cold as a
sauce.  And I absolutely loved it, but I always did like fruit
with my meat, like cranberry sauce, pineapple, applesauce . . .


And I never could have done it without help from all of you over
the past year(s)

Thank you so much.  I had a wonderful time!

Tyrca
(I know, I know, recipes to follow in next message.)




===
Lady Tyrca Ivarsdottir
- -"Honesty is Everything"
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AoA, OPN, ASTA, oleander
Barony of Elfsea (Life is Good in Elfsea!)
(all sorts of places in and around Ft. Worth, TX)
Kingdom of Ansteorra
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