SC - A different kind of historical recreation

[Wanda Pease]

Lurking Girl wrote:
> 
> [Wow.  Finally caught up with the backlog from Pennsic.  2400 messages.]
> 
> For my cooking class, I have been assigned to do a menu which is partially
> based on SCA cooking technology of 20 years ago.  Since the only kitchen
> I was allowed to use at that time was in Barbie's Dream Home, my teacher
> said I should ask people who were around then.  (Unfortunately, those
> I've asked so far don't seem to really notice what they eat at events...)
> 
> So--can anyone tell me what might have been served at a typical feast
> in ASXIII?  What were the sources everyone was using?  And what was
> considered bleeding-edge experimentation?

I've only been around for about 18 years. I'm not sure if my experiences
of that time reflect practice of the two years prior.

Sources would include "To the King's Taste", "To The Queen's Taste",
"The Delectable Past", "700 Years of English Cooking", and, of course,
Fab Feasts. I think earlier versions of Cariadoc's Miscellany existed at
the time, and I think I remember seeing some recipes in The Knowne
Worlde Handbook.

As I recall, ladies, at least in Ostgardr, tended to do more research
than the male cooks. A typical guy feast might include roast beef,
possibly with a sauce, a more or less modern onion soup, a bulgur
frumenty dish, bread, cheese, honey and/or herb butter, a salad,
possibly a simple sweet like shortbread or some kind of custard tart. 

Feasts planned by the ladies tended to have a bit more recognizable
medieval food. Lots of crustades, darioles, doucetys, etc., various
chicken stews cooked with fruit, a mandatory sauce for the ubiquitous
roast beef (cameline or perhaps mustard being standard issue, I'd say),
cheese goo, loseyns or macrows with butter and cheese, pork and fruit
pies, saffron bread, mustard soup as bastardized in The Delectable Past,
or maybe a split-pea version of cretonnee. Let's not forget Chicken In A
Rock, a.k.a. Icelandic Chicken, various Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan
raisin-cookie-type cakes, and wafers served with whipped cream.

I'd say that the idea of doing foods from the same time period and
location, say, 15th-century Savoy, was pretty rare; a more Generic
Middle Ages (with the odd 16th-17th century dish thrown in for good
measure) was, I think, more common in our area. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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