[Sca-cooks] Kitchens

[Stefan li Rous]

Alban said:
> >Hrm.  *sigh*  I don't *want* to break my medieval mood every few days
> >and get changed into modern clothes and get in a car and drive to a
> >supermarket.  I *really* don't want to have to do that.
> Can't do much about the car, obviously - but downtown New Castle
> is sufficiently accustomed to us that they won't even blink at people
> wearing garb.

Yep. Often the folks in garb outnumber the folks in mundane clothes at
the stores surrounding major events such as Pennsic and Gulf Wars.

> >The point, for me, isn't that it's not possible to get food offsite and
> >keep it in coolers.  The point is that getting food offsite and keeping
> >it in coolers doesn't feel "right" for me when I'm deep in medieval
> >mode.
> Coolers? Why not dig a pit, line it with a couple of tarps, put the food in,
> and put ice on top? I've seen it done often enough at Pennsic; the Coopers
> don't mind, as long as you remember to remove the tarps and replace
> the dirt just before you leave. Think medieval ice box, in the original
> sense: a box, food, and lots of ice.

Well, late Renaissance perhaps. I've still not seen any evidence of
European ice houses prior to 1500 AD.

How do you drain such a pit as the ice melts? If you don't, your food
items are likely to get a bit wet. Or do you place the food items on a
rack or something and just let the melted ice soak into the ground
beneath. Which won't work with the tarp unless it is a cloth tarp or
a plastic one with holes punches in it.

> And I know what you mean about going offsite; I've tried, for the last
> <mumble> Pennsics, to stay on-site as much as possible. The last four
> or five, I've succeeded in not going off site once after Land Grab weekend
> is over. That's the advantage to being 50 yards from the laundry room;
> I can get up, have a bit of breakfast, and still get to the washers and dryers
> before The Line shows up <grin>, thus obviating the need to go into town
> to clean my garb.

Since I fly in I'm rather limited in the amount I can bring. I used
to just bring enough clothing for all of Pennsic. There's always
the period solution - a bucket and water and soap. Although I usually
use a plastic tub.

> Hmmm. Maybe we should get into a thread about medieval vegetable
> preservation techniques? And whether or not they had cold cellars, for
> long-term storage of things like onions and carrots and whatnots?

Cold rooms and cellars, yes. It was the ice I was not really considering
period. I suspect that the ice was so expensive, even in the 16th
century that it was used mainly to keep food cold, but for things like
iced beverages and iced cream and such. Onions and carrots and such
work plenty well in cellars and cold rooms.

--
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 ****