SC - How do I get started?

[Par Leijonhufvud]

On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Heather-Enaya Parr-Blake wrote:

> I am new to the field of cooking and feast in the SCA.
> I belong to a newly founded (well nearly founded) shire
> in Northern Kentucky. I am looking for a source for
> recipes and gear. Particularly in the gear department,
> I am looking for pots and pans heavy enough to come through
> campfire/hearth cooking.

Have a.look in the outdoor gear catalogues. I have a set of aluminium
pots intended for open fire cooking (3, 6, and 9 litre capacity) which
have served me well for several years worth of camp cooking, both within
and outside the SCA. Eventually I intend to replace them with more
period ones (i.e. made from iron, soapstone or clay rather than
aluminium), but they aren't too bad to work with (either let the outside
become sooted and let it stay that way or paint with black "engine"
enamel. And no, they don't really need to be heavy gauge to stand up to
campfire use. Others use cast iron, but I feel that it is (a) an out of
period material (as if aluminium wasn't...), and that (b) the aluminium
will behave about the same as a pot made from thin iron, which the cast
iron will not. OTOH I am given to believe that soapstone and cast iron
behave in about the same way, so parhaps I am just being irrational, and
prefer the the "indestructible" Al pots to the more fragile cast iron.

One thing I use that is very nice when cooking over an open fire is my
pothooks. Basically I take two "J" shaped sticks (ca 1.5-2 cm diameter)
and carve and lash them together so that you get something that looks
like:

              / /
             / /     Joined here; overlap and carved "hooks" + lash
            / /         |
           / /          |
          ------------------------------
          |                            |
          ------------------------------
                                    / /
                                   / /
                                  / /
                                 / /

(detail of joint)
      -----------------------------------------------      
                                         |     
            -----                        |                         
           |     |                       |                         
           |      -----------------      |                   
           |                       |     |                         
           |                        -----                          
           |                                  
      -----------------------------------------------      



Basically one end hooks the bail handle, and the other is tied to a
string that goes up to the crosspice over the fire (I use two tripods
and a "beam" over the fire), where the string ends in a largish eye that
can be slid to the side. To adjust the position of the pot just wrap
more or less of the string around the top end of the hook.

I have no documentation (IIRC they are 19th c. woodcraft stuff, earlier
provenance unknown) for this, but in one Viking age find (Oseberg?) a
chain with hooks for adjustments was found. If I was better at metal
working perhaps I would make one like it, but alas. I once tried making
oen using commercial chain and S-hooks, but the best summary of that was
"shiny". Also, I understand that the Oseberg one was intended for use in
a building, not improvised camp usage.

Due to my personal preferences most of my camp cooking is of the brown
goo variety, so all I really need is the pots. But for other things I
have a device called a "murikka"[2], which is quite close to some of the
viking age skillets (it is slightly dished, rather than flat), and have
been in use for making bread, though other frying can of course be done
on it.

Other than that you need things like cutting boards, knives[1], a
grater, a few large wooden spoons, and perhaps some bowls. A mortar and
pestle as well as a coleander or sieve comes in handy. And either a pair
of welders gloves for handling the hot pots, or some pieces of heavy
wool for the same purpose.

/UlfR
  http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/

[1] Anyone who knows anything about how kitchen knives looked in
period?

[2] The name supposedly means something in Finnish, I have no idea what.
Based on a web search I begin to suspect that it is either a place name,
a personal name or means something like "home". It is a round piece of
flat, slightly dished steel (say 25 cm diameter) with a long handle
(over half a metre long) ending in a wooden handle.

- -- 
Par Leijonhufvud                                      parlei at algonet.se
Clues seem to seep out of lusers faster than you can LART them back in. 
		-- Simon Burr