SC - Help!!!!

[Bernadette Crumb]

Christina Nevin wrote:
> 
> Saluti everyone!
> 
> Due to various catastrophes, I have just this week accepted position of Head
> Cook for Drachenwald Coronation on March 18. Yes, two months - eeeep!

And I thought that I'd had it bad with only three and a half
months to prepare!(Axel and Jeanmaire's Investiture at St.
Briavel's Castle back in 1988) :)
 
> The 'theme' of the weekend is to be medieval courtly love, especially the
> importance of one's own consort, not just those of the fighters in the royal
> list. So I have said I'll do it as though it were a feast at Queen Eleanor
> of Aquitane's court (i.e. latter half of the 1100s). Now comes the fun
> part...

Nice theme!
 
> I know very little about that period (Tudor England/Renaissance Italy is my
> thing), medieval courtly love (again, "The Courtier" is a tad late) and the
> type of feast this will entail - both in structure and typical dishes.
> 
> So if anyone has any relevant feast info or URLs they can send me online,
> and suggestions about feast structure and appropriate recipes or in-season
> foods, I will be most humbly grateful. Things which have worked well for you
> at past feasts especially.
> 
> Also any suggestions for subtilties, illusion foods or 'nice touches'. I
> know this is cheating a bit, but I really don't have the time to research
> like I usually do (i.e. no time to read the Capellanus book or others, but
> thanks for the suggestion <smile>), as I need to start working out costs,
> quantities and drumming up appropriate recipes for the (as yet non-existent)
> assistant cooks.

Well, if you do get the chance to read Andre Capellanus, do so...
as much for the humor factor as anything else. :) I did a ten
page paper on THE ART OF COURTLY LOVE for a comparative lit class
called "Love in the Middle Ages" this past semester and really
enjoyed it.  See below for suggestions on the feast.

> In terms of relevant cookbooks I have Take 1000 Eggs, Maggie Black's two,
> Pleyn Delit, To the King's Taste, The Medieval Kitchen and The Original
> Mediterranean Cuisine and online access. This should be French, rather than
> English medieval though???

Well, Eleanor did bring the concept of the Court of Ladies to
England, so an occasional English Dish should not hurt.  When I
feastocratted in Insula Draconis back in the late 1980's I only
had Pleyne Delit (first edition) available to me. Would have
loved to have had the stuff we have now!:)  Might I suggest for
your theme that you look at the idea of shared dishes?  Two
people sharing a larger serving on one plate/trencher?  Items
that encourage flirting would be good too. :)  (And I'm not
talking about cloved fruit!)  The Twelfth Night I made up
syllabub, and had reserved a bowl of it in the kitchen for me
stands out in my mind as a great "courtly love" experience. :) 
We didn't have enough bowls and spoons in the feast gear for
everyone to have an individual serving, so the servers presented
the syllabub to every second person and they had to share with
the individual on their right. :)  Since it worked out that the
ladies were all seated to the right of their lords that time, it
was a great success.  As for a subtletie, Something that would be
really neat would be to make a Dragon's Head.  In Gottfried's
TRISTAN, Sir Tristan slays a dragon that is terrorizing Ireland. 
He is sorely wounded but cuts out the dragon's tongue before he
staggers away to collapse out of immediate sight of the dragon. 
Meanwhile, another, lesser knight comes upon the dead dragon,
whacks off its head and heads for the court claiming to have
slain the dragon and demanding reward (to marry the princess). 
Meanwhile Tristan is found by Queen Isolde and her daughter
Princess Isolde (who will marry King Mark) and is healed by
them.  He gets back to the court in time to challenge the
imposter knight who shows the dragon head as his "proof."  But
Tristan pulls the dragon's tongue out of his pouch/bag and asks
to see if the dragon head has a tongue.  Of course the imposter
is exposed for the fraud he is and Tristan is more of a hero. 
Anyway, we made the dragon head out of ginger cake that was cut
to shape with eyes, ears and spines made of hardened
gingerbread.  We used a thin coating of marzipan over it and used
a knife point to sketch in scales.  There was no tongue because
of the story.  The platter the head was on was sprinkled with bay
leaves, rosemary sprigs and some other branched herb I can't
remember.  It looked really nice and we had no leftovers once it
had been cut. :)

Another alternative would be to do a subtletie that echoed the
Grail Procession in the Fisher King's Castle in PARZIVAL.  In
Wolfram's work, the "Gral" was NOT the cup from the last supper
(that was a Malory invention), but a magical stone that was
essentially a horn of plenty.  You held your empty cup toward it
and the cup would be filled with wine, or mead or whatever it was
you wished.  Empty platters would fill with marvelous and costly
foods and so forth.

Since fighting for a lady's honor is such an integral part of the
courtly love thing, you might wish to consider something that
reflects knighthood or the weapons a knight bears...

> Other problems include the fact the feast will be held somewhere in Wales -
> whereas I live in London and can't drive (one of my New Years resolutions -
> learn!). So kitchen facilities are currently unknown. Dishes which require
> large amounts of on-site preparation are therefore Not A Good Idea. Easily
> pre-prepped dishes would be ideal. The feast will be for 80. And just to
> liven things up even more - HRM Elffin is a meat kind of guy, and HRM
> Melusine is a vegetarian (of the non-fish/chicken but diary OK flavour).

Where in Wales?  I ran two (non-investiture) feasts at Caerphilly
Castle... (one was a "Royal Progress" event where not only were
the Prince and Princess of Drachenwald in attendance, the King
and Queen of the East were there as well, plus a handful of major
peers from Middle and East Kingdom) where we did have a kitchen
in the old medieval kitchen spaces off of the great hall--the
place was used for wedding receptions on a frequent basis. :)  We
did about half the prep in my tiny little London flat and
finished it all up on site.  As far as the dietary preferences,
you might wish to consider having a more cosmopolitan selection
of dishes for the feast, as vegetarian isn't something that the
English, and even the French did back then... Hmmm. I'll think
about it and see if I can come up with any more suggestions. I do
strongly recommend that if you can arrange it, to get there the
day before the event to arrange the setup for the kitchen. 
Caerphilly in 1987 allowed us to drop off the bulk of our raw
stuff in the big fridge that was in the kitchen there the night
before, which made the morning of the 

One thing that helped me was that one of my assistant cooks was a
student at Cordon Bleu and she took a huge load off my
shoulders!  We also made sure to set aside portions of each dish
so the kitchen staff and servers got to eat.  I've worked the
kitchen at several feasts where the attendees ate everything up
and there were no leftovers for us to enjoy.   Being stuck with
going on a McDonald's run when the rest of the shire had venison
really stinks! :\

Please let me know how it goes--both prep and execution. :)

Bernadette Crumb
(Lady Sarra Bradhurst, formerly of Insula Draconis)
- -- 
Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool.
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