SC - Viceregal 20th Anniversary

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"No s**t, there we were..."

Hullo, list! The above was the basic tone of the event held in my home
group, the Crown Province of Ostgardr, yesterday. We celebrated the 20th
anniversary of the tyr...benevolent leadership of Ian and Katherine, our
Viceroy and Vicereine, and from what I saw, mostly through the kitchen
door, it became sort of a combination of "This Is Your Life" and a Las
Vegas Celebrity Roast. That was fine, though, because the event went
very well indeed, and the event held a preponderance not only of faces
I've missed for much of the past 20 years (well, I was only there for 18
of them) but a large proportion of children, all quite well managed, and
all, it seemed, having a wonderful time.

To remain on the list's topic, though here's what we ate:

Day Board:
There was a day board, I'm told, I'm told it was a good one, but other
than seeing scant remains of a chicken and a vegetable potage coming
back into the kitchen, I missed it. Thass okay...

Evening Feast (bear in mind now that this menu was consructed somewhat
to reflect Ostgardrian eating habits of 20 years ago...perhaps Cariadoc
remembers this and can tell if we did it right...I'm working from memory
here so please bear with me):

On the tables were bread, honey butter, herb cheese and lemonade (again,
think 20 years ago)

First Course

Platina's Roast Chicken with Orange Juice
Sallet of Worts and Herbs
Savory Toasted or Melted Cheese (Digby)
(There may have been more, I don't recall)

Second Course (Formerly the Third Course)

Steaks of Beef or Venison in Sauce (2 15th Cent.) 
Mushroom and Cheese Pasties, in this case large open tarts (Le Menagier
via Pleyn Delit?)
Caboges, stewed with marrow and spices (2 15th Cent.)

Third Course (Formerly the Second Course)

Buttered Wortys -- mostly kale, I believe, with
Buttered Pasternaks [mashed] -- our Provincial colors being Green and White
Pies of Paris

Chamber Service/Dessert Board

Poppy Seed Cake
Wafers, largish (Markham)
Wafers, smallish (Menagier)
Shortbread
Gingebred rolled into little balls, courtesy of our own Lady Vika,
which, apart from causing people to sing about Vika's Spicy Ginger
Ba-a-alls ("put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em"), were absolutely
wonderful! Not even a smidge of ooginess...

There were also several subtleties, mostly in tribute to our Viceroy's
(proper Hieland Chief and Laird that he is) uh, great reverence for, and
affinity with, um, sheep. Many were in highly questionable taste, but
all tasted good, including a lovely little placard in Spicy Ginger
Ba-a-alls of the Provincial Seahorse. 

Overall, for simple quality, this was one of the best feasts I've been
to in quite a while. I actually got to sit and eat some of it! My only
regret was that, due to a minor emergency, I somehow missed the caboges,
which I'd been looking forward to for some weeks.

The chicken was, as always, simple but exceptionally good, as was the
cheese goo, although unaccountably served over green beans. Probably
because they were cheap and Digby says you can use the butter left over
from any buttered, boiled sallet you have and you might as well throw in
the veggies as well. Certainly they tasted fine, and it helps to repeat
the mantra, "20 years ago": things were a little different then. The
Steaks, which proved to be browned-but-rare slices of beef round served
with a sauce of drippings augmented with a little beef stock, sharpened
with wine, vinegar, and verjuice, and sprinkled with ground cinnamon,
were a big hit as well. The kitchener came out and announced that the
sauce was a little piquant, and if you put a spoonful of it in your
mouth it was indeed quite sharp. On the beef, however, it was sublime.
Lessee now, the kale was the designated dish that tried really hard to
burn, but didn't make it, so it ended up being pretty tasty*, as were
the buttered pasternaks, which had somehow been scratched from the menu
due to their staunch refusal to cook in the simmering milk. I was able
to point out that in the interval between their being scratched from the
menu and the intended service time, they'd had time to cook, and were at
least soft enough to mash, if perhaps not quite achieve the perfect
fluffy puree. Certainly people ate them.

*Note: Once again, for the umpteenth time, this brings out my love for
Le Menagier, whose six-hundred-plus-year-old words are as fresh, as
vital, and as useful today as they were when they were written. When the
kale began to stick and burn, several different voices from all over the
kitchen yelled, "DON'T SCRAPE! Don't stir! Just slide the loose contents
into a fresh pot and put it back on the burner...". As I've said before,
it's this kind of living advice, the voice of cooks past calling out to
cooks present, that puts a lot of the thrill, for me, into this game.  

As I say, a good time was had by all, it seems, and there were quite a
few noble hands involved in making it happen, including the kitchener,
Countess Brekke Franksdottir, her student, the Lady Vika we on the
cooks' list all know and love, Baron Sean de Londres and his lady wife,
Sir Sirhan Ciani al Diabhlu, his squire, whom I've known for years but
only by his mundane name of Django, who apparently spent virtually the
entire day in the kitchen washing pots and such, and then stayed to help
run cleanup. And who doesn't have an AoA, in spite of this being pretty
standard behavior for him, hint hint to all of the Easterners on this
list. There were others who made things happen, such as Mistress Anne of
Hatfield and Mistress Margeurithe, both, I believe, of Storvik in
Atlantia, and a host of others who contributed to this
history-within-a-history event.

I expect Lady Vika could offer a better blow-by-blow account, when she's
sufficiently rested. But this was a _good_ job.

Adamantius      
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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