SC - My upcoming feast

[Stefan li Rous]

Tyrca said:
> Our Knight Marshall, who is the autocrat, is really excited
> about the deep-fried turkeys because I could cook them on site,
> in a matter of minutes instead of hours, and could keep doing so
> until I collapse and run out of turkeys.
> 
> So what I am looking for is suggestions.  I want to do a
> documentable feast, but with this group, I will be lucky to keep
> the baked beans out of it. (sigh)
> 
> What do you think?  Am I completely crazy?  I got this job
> because I protested some of the food choices they were talking
> about (the above mentioned beans, along with corn and potatoes).

Sigh. You are probably not going to like my comments, but you did ask.

I wouldn't do this. While there is some documentation for Turkey late
in period, to me, it still seems modern and not medieval or even period.
If you were doing a late period meal in southern(?) Europe then maybe.
For the evidence we have discussed on this list on Turkeys, see this
file in the FOOD section of my file, but I doubt any of these recipes
are going to be as easy or quick as deep-frying turkeys.
turkeys-msg       (34K)  7/20/00    Use of turkeys in Rennaissance Europe.

And I still don't think there is evidence for deep frying within period.
There is another thread on this. Others may disagree with me but I've
seen no evidence to convince me otherwise, yet.

Since you want to do a documentable feast and since you were protesting
other non-medieval foods, I think you really want something else.

Pots of stew or pottage don't take that much care, although you'll
need to cook them longer. They do seem to work well at primitive
sites though.
stews-bruets-msg  (65K)  5/24/00    Period stews and bruets. Recipes.

The same comments also applies to most soups:
soup-msg          (92K) 10/18/00    Medieval soups. Cooking soups at
events. 
                                       recipes.

It's going to take more work but if you are wanting to do something at
the site there is always roast meat which you could provide with a
variety of sauces.
roast-chicken-msg (39K)  8/31/00    Period and SCA baked or roasted chicken.
roast-meats-msg   (66K)  7/ 3/00    Hints and period recipes for beef roasts.
roast-pork-msg    (39K) 10/13/00    Cooking pork roasts. Medieval recipes.
mustard-msg       (83K)  7/11/00    Mustard seed in period. sauces. recipes.
sauces-msg        (89K)  7/26/00    Period sauces. Sauce recipes.

To make this easier at the site, you could cook this ahead of time and
simply warm it up at the site. My barony has done this several times for
primative sites.

I hope this gives you some ideas, whether you stick with deep-fried
turkey or not.

- -- 
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****