[Sca-cooks] A cooking tale - LOOOOONG

[Glenda Robinson]

A story of our weekend long 17th century camp (well, the cooking parts
anyway) for you ..

Our group numbered 23. Mostly large eaters. I'd volunteered to do the
purchasing for the person who normally does the organisation, as she had no
car that weekend.

Firstly: for the days:

We did a ration pack each - for two breakfasts and a lunch - a Cob loaf per
person (650g), a block of cheese (200g, but could have been a little less),
two apples and a chunk of bacon (4 slices each). We wrapped the bread,
cheese and apples in a cloth, distributed it to each person on the first
morning to be kept with personal belongings through the weekend. The bacon
was kept in a central position, to be cooked up for breakfast - we decided
that no-one wanted to keep bacon with their gear.
Anyone who wanted to could bring extra food - of the type that would have
been taken on a small mission for the trayned bandes - for example I 'found'
some eggs and mushrooms. A friend brought a string of dried mushrooms, and
another some sweet lemons off her parent's tree. Some of the larger eaters
were a little light on. Next time I think we'll arrange for people to book
two ration packs if needed and 'line up twice', as I'm sure soldiers would
have at the time.
The ration packs were unanimously thought to be a great idea, and we'll
definitely do it again.
We're thinking of including some nuts and/or dried fruit next time, and
perhaps some smoked salami type sausages for longer encampments. It also
meant that people could eat through the day when they felt like it, rather
than when the group was ready, and the cooks also had more free time.

For the dinner:
We envisaged a stew, with 5 extra loaves of bread.

Brought chicken legs (people have had problems previously when eating in the
near dark and nearly swallowing the smaller bones), barley, turnips,
parsnips, english spinach, orange carrots, celery, parsley, onions, and
assorted herbs, along with the standard box of cooking stuff we take to
events (oil, salt, pepper, honey etc).

No worries - right?

Ha!!!

Well, firstly, we went to get the cauldron out to make the stew, and found
that it wasn't brought from the common store! The captayne had decided
(without consulting the cooks first!) that we wouldn't need it, and could do
with the large fry pan (18" diam), and a couple of dutch ovens.

It was a 3-4 hour round trip to get the cauldron, so that was right out.

What to do? Well, we thought we could de-bone the chicken. Went to the esky,
and found that three of the six bags of legs had a nasty green slimy patina,
and they were all from the same deli tray, so all were suspect. [I'd had
them properly refrigerated since I'd bought them. I would have frozen them,
but I find that they never thaw evenly, then it's a pain to get them ready
for cooking.]

Wonderful! No chicken for dinner. No cauldron in which to cook. At least
nothing more can go wrong. The nearest shop was a 2 hour round trip, so we
couldn't reprovision in time to cook dinner.

The 4 cooks then had a brainstorming session.

We worked out that we could do a vegetable and barley stew in the two dutch
ovens, a salad, and take some of the bacon from the breakfast rations, which
had gone further than expected, as the shrink-wrapped packs I'd bought had
no tails - just eyes, and cook it with some of the other vegies.

Thankfully when we went for the vegies, the larger packs were only a few
cents dearer than the small, so we figured we'd distibute the leftovers (10c
more for an extra kilo of carrots - similar with onions!), and the celery
was the largest bunch I've ever seen.

So we ended up with the following:

2/3 of the onions, 2/3 of the carrots, 1/2 the celery, some parsley, thyme
and rosemary, and salt (some soldiers were suffering from muscle cramps
after training and skirmishing for many hours, so we added a bit more than
our normal not-much), and the barley in a stew, cooked in the two pots.

1/2 the spinach, some thinly sliced onion, 1/2 the celery, 1/3 of the
carrots (thinly sliced) and some parsley in a salad, served with an olive
oil, vinegar (from the box) and sweet lemon (from one of the cooks)
dressing.

A pack of eye bacon (800g), chopped, and fried with 1/2 the spinach and some
thinly sliced onion.

5 loaves of bread.

It turned out really well. There was enough to eat for dinner, with the
cooks getting a rousing thanks from the hungry soldiers for their abilities.

We knew that using the breakfast rations for dinner would leave us short.
The musketeer who'd brought a string of dried mushrooms offered them for
breakfast, which he rehydrated with water, and then threw in the bacon, with
the couple of onions left over, and eaten on our ration bread.

What I've learned from this:

Specify to the people who are getting the gear that the cauldron MUST be
brought at all times.

Ask to change organiser-requested meat for something that's not so touchy -
I think beef may be best, and get a big hunk that, if it goes slimy, will be
able to be cut off and still used.

A group of good cooks can make something out an 'interesting' situation.

Being conversant with many period recipe books is always a good idea, so we
could still get as-good-as-authentic foods.

Glenda.