SC - The Hamburger Feast

[Christine A Seelye-King]

Our Baronial 5th Wednesday night Social was last night, and things went
swimmingly.  For about a week and a half, I have been posting period
recipes for foods like stuffed eggs, mushroom pasties, apfel frittors,
cheeses, sauces, and yes, hamburger meat.  Two nights ago I posted the
quick shopping list that has been seen here.  
	I prepared the following:
	Ramequin of Fleshe (V40 p102)
	"A Dish Made From Meat" - Platina
	Casola De Carn - Libre Del Coch
	Beef y-Stywyd. Harlian MS. 279 TATEOM
	A Garlic Sauce with Walnuts - Platina  book 8
	Barbe Robert ( Sauce ) (1583 cookbook quoted by Pichon et  al, p. 109)
	Garlic Jance - Taillevent 
	Cameline Sauce - Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks, & TATEOM
	I also had about 8 pounds of the smoked, pulled pork shoulder meat,
	and Tara did "Meat Roll from Tame Animals - Platina Book VI, #9".  

	I brought the Baronial tablecloths and set up several nice serving
dishes, and a chafing dish for hot meats.  We also had lemonade and apple
cider to drink. We set up a modern food table, but the only thing that
got brought that got relegated to that table was the leftover cans of
softdrinks, and one container of Chex Mix.  EVERY OTHER THING THAT GOT
BROUGHT WAS A REASONABLE ATTEMPT AT PRE-17TH CENTURY FOOD.  I was so
proud. <sniff>  We had about 3 different versions of stuffed eggs, one
made with goose eggs that the cook just happened to have laying around!
<snort>  We had several platters of meats, cheeses, and breads, but at
least they were attempts at the period stuff.  A couple of people brought
bowls of various dried fruits.  One lady had asked me about oatcakes, and
I sent her everything I had from Cariadoc's recreation to the
archealogical finds, and she made up a batch that were quite tasty,
served with honey on the side.  All in all, a terribly successful outing
for folks that have been bringing potato salad and chocolate chip cookies
to everything for the last several years.  The most amazing thing,
though, was when we were cleaning up and I said "Please come take the
leftover beef home, I don't even EAT beef" and at least 3 different
people came up and said "Where was the beef? I didn't see any" (!)  Oh,
well, even with the discussions about what to do with the leftover
hamburger, the posted recipes and ingredients on every dish, and the
unmistakeable (to me) aroma of beef coming from the dishes, some people
just don't get it!  
	I followed the original recipes in most cases, while looking at some of
the redactions that were with a few of them, I didn't follow most of
them, except Cindy's Beef y-stewed (and then the amount of salt it called
for was too much, I ended up boiling a very non-period potato in it to
lessen the salt- which I removed and ate in the non-period privacy of my
own home ;).  
I grouped the spices in several of the dishes so that I didn't have
cinnamon in every one, or eggs or breadcrumbs or even verjuice (for which
I substituted white wine vinegar with a splash of white grape juice), all
of which seemed to be in every recipe for beef I found!  Since most of
the recipes give some leeway for spicing, I felt fairly justified in
moving around the combinations somewhat.  I posted the originals with a
listing of the ingredients actually used in each dish right in front of
each serving vessel, so that folks could see exactly what they were
eating.  Some paid attention, whether for allergies or actual period-food
curiostiy, but most just skimmed over it, content in the fact that they
were eating recipes from period sources (I hope, a few were probably
clueless, but they seemed to enjoy it anyway).  
	So, strike one for the cause, I think I may have swayed a few.  
	Christianna
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