SC - Faire Food--the Menus (long)

[MAGGIE SECARA]

I'm back. Wrist is somewhat better and computer is no longer dead. Now where
was I. Oh yes.

Several people expressed an interest in see how I cooked my summer
vacation--or at least my weekends in the spring. Here are the day by day
menus. This is for 6 weekends (13 days) of Crossroads Renaissance Festival,
encamped with a bunch of mercenaries and their women as part of the show.
As I said earlier, my subscription list was about 11 people, mostly men.

According to my day book, Breakfasts went on the table around 10:30am, after
their morning procession around the faire (taking their weapons for a walk).
Dinner at about 1:00.  Desserts were mostly just for Saturday, and laid on
for "grazing" after the battle pageant late in the afternoon.  Memorial Day
Monday was also Closing Day and the schedule was all awry. Anyway, after the
menus are some notes on sources and some other stuff.

Cheers!

MaggiRos

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Crossroads European Renaissance Festival (Corona, CA) 1999

Breakfasts may include:
     Hard boiled eggs 
     Bread, butter, jam or honey
     Fruit (orange wedges, cherries, grapes, etc.)
     Gingerbread
And one of the following
     Sausage (sliced and cooked) or 
     Meatballs (frikadeller, pommes d'or, etc) or
     Scotch eggs
    Breakfast quiche (small, shallow, 1-ingrediant--ham, mushroom, beef,
etc)

Most days include: 
     Cookies: neat stuff from the fancy cookie aisle
     Salty nibbles (olives, pickles, cucumber slices in vinegar)
     Marinated mushrooms, artichokes
     Dried Apricots & unsalted almonds
     Pretzels 
And I throw a few dried cranberries and cherries in here and there too

Week 1 Saturday		

Pork pie (pork in ale-I think this is from Hare in Ale, but ???)
Spinach quiche (from Platina)
A tri-tip roast in a bag (saved half for tomorrow)
Cheesecake w/ cherries plumped in single malt

Sunday

Armored potatoes (var. Platina)
Roasted beef, w/ mustard
Cheeses

Week #2 Saturday
	
Roasted beef (tri-tip)
Chicken pie (To the Queen's Taste)
Beef & cheese quiche
Cheesecake w/ re-plumped peaches

Sunday

Pork roast w/ fruit sauce 
Roast chicken
Sausage (salami, etc.) & cheeses
Apple pie 

Week #3  Saturday

Ham baked with cherries &c
Onion tart
Strawberries
Bread pudding (lemon)

Sunday

Beef roast w/ fruit sauce
Mushroom pie
Little sausages

Week #4 Saturday

Beef roast
Armored potatoes
Pear compost (actually, from a card I picked up in the produce section)
Marinated mushrooms
Citrus custard (I can't for the life of me remember where this is from)


Sunday

Paris pie
Chicken Mrs. Duffield's Way
Little sausages
Watermelon


Week #5 Saturday

Chicken in garlic & rosemary (Medieval McNuggets, as someone said)
Piroshki pie
Cheese
Cherry strudel 

Sunday

Corned beef w/ mustard
Spinach beef strudel
Rosewater & ginger custard

Week #6 

Saturday

Lemon chicken 
Beef pie 
Shrimps in vinegar (thank you Cindy!!)
Lemon Cheesecake 

Sunday

Pork roast w/ cherry sauce
Chicken strudel 
Apfel strudel 

Monday (abbreviated for schedule changes)

Spiced beef  w/ currant sauce 
Mushroom pie
Beer bread (parmesan & romano)
==================================

SOME SOURCES

Ok. I'm a lazy redactor. I keep my eye on both sides of the page while I'm
cooking :)  That is, I use the original receipts directly for ingredients
and intentions, but refer to the redacted version as guideline for amounts.
So I'm kind of redacting on the fly, with the help of those who've already
blazed the trail. 

Also, I'm a lone cook. Most of my pies and some of the quiches are done in
spring form pans, so I get the effect of a coffin but with a faster crust.
(I do all the cooking in an evening, so I don't waste time rolling pie
crust!) And not everything on my list is perfectly period. Some things are
purchased-especially cookies and other "little food" since I know my
limitations. But when I mean to be period, I pretty much am.  If I don't
have an ingrediant, I make something else. I do have cubebs, grains of
paradise, sandlewood, mace, fennel, and other lovely things so I can use
them. Oh, yeah, ok, I have substituted ground coriander for cardamom, but
that's because I used to think they were the same thing <blush>

Here are some of my sources

Beef y-stywyd is Harleian 279, redacted both in Take 1000 Eggs or More and 7
Centuries of English Cooking.  So is the roast I call Spiced Beef. For the
roast, I blend the spices in a little vinegar and cooking oil to make a
paste, and coat the outside, then slow roast till it's done. Another
variation is to cook it covered on the stove with more liquid, and use the
reduced juices to make a dipping sauce for the meat.  That time, I made a
currant sauce.  For the pie, I make up the stew as-is, then case it in a
crust. Yum! 

In the same way, my pork pie and one version of a pork roast is Brawn in
peverade, Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks, given and redacted in 7
Centuries.  In other words, the spices are the same, the presentation
varies. 

Pies of Paris is Harleian 279 and 4016, redacted in both of the above.

The meatballs are either purchased or they are Pommes d'orryle from To the
King's Taste., p. 82.

Queen's Taste Chicken Pie is from Gervase Markham, printed and redacted in
To the Queen's Taste.

Chicken Mistress Duffield's Way is from the Good Huswife's Handmaid, given
and redacted in To the Queen's Taste and in 7 Centuries. 

The lemon chicken is inspired by Sabina Welserin's. 

The Lemon sauce for Sabina's chicken is actually the orange wine sauce from
Gervase Markham, substituting lemons for oranges.

The onion tart is A Tart in Ember Day from Forme of Curry, given and
redacted in 7 Centuries. I also add a splash of orange juice, based on the
onion sauce in Markham (Queen's Taste, p. 87).

The cherry strudel is based on A Tarte of Cherries in the Good Huswife's
Handmaid. I started with dried cherries.

My apple pie/strudel are inspired by Leshes Fryed in Lenten in To the King's
Taste. I have made the whole thing up properly and it's wonderful! For
faire, I leave out most of the dried fruits and pears, and leave just
apples, currants, and all the flavorings.  For some reason, I misread the
receipt a long time ago, and I swear it said something about adding
fortified wine, so what the hell, a splash of sherry.  The best apple pie on
the planet.

Piroshki pie is a variation on a piroshki recipe I have in a wonderful book
called Cooking in Crust. Not period, but (in its original) very period like.
I add potatoes because I like them. We call them faux-turnips!

The currant sauce for the spiced beef was actually given for Stewed Capon
(Harleian 4016)  in Take 1000 Eggs p. 87. This dish prompted several
propositions and at least one proposal of marriage. My husband put his foot
down on that one.

The roast chicken in Week #2 was Leche Vyaundez (Harleian 4016/279), given
and redacted in Take 1000 Eggs, pg. 69  (I used the grapes).

I know there are some more, but that's a quick run down.

MaggiRos
secaram at mainsaver.com

Màirghréad-Ròs FitzGarret of Desmond (O.L., Caid)

Elizabethan life at your fingers' ends...
http://ren.dm.net 
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