[Sca-cooks] Medieval cooking for non-cooks

[a5foil]

It is easier to come up with veggies that main dishes for an inexpensive
potluck. May I suggest these period foods:

Roast Chicken (you can make it fancy - and a little more expensive - by
cutting it up when it is done roasting and finish by simmering it for a few
minutes in milk sweetened with a little honey and seasoned with herbs). Turn
it every 15 minutes while roasting.

Roast Beef - use a less expensive roast and slow cook it to tenderness,
turning every 15 minutes. Rubbed with a little salt and pepper. Serve with
Mustard.

Roast Pork - get a whole picnic shoulder (about 80 cents a pound, here), rub
the flesh with salt and pepper, and cook it for 70 minutes per pound at 225
(F) degrees, or until fork tender. You can serve this with mustard, but you
may not want to...

Mustard for the roasts: Use Coleman's mustard powder in a 1:1 ratio with
liquid (e.g., 1 tsp mustard to 1 tsp ale). For period mustard, you can use
ale or beer, or red wine vinegar, wine or broth. If you make it with vinegar
or broth, try sweetening it a little bit with honey. Let them sit for about
10 minutes before serving. The sweet-hot mustards are particularly striking
with the pork. The ale mustard will take your head off.

The slow cooking and turning simulates spit roasting. Spit roasting meats
are specifically documented in the Catalan cookbooks I'm working with,
1323-1450. The mustards are found in English, French, German, Spanish,
Catalan and Italian cookbooks of the period. The mustard made with broth and
a little honey is Catalan style. The mustard made with vinegar and honey is
French style (according to the Catalan, anyway).

Yes, it is work, but it is also a gentle introduction to cooking and an
understanding that medieval food isn't necessarily all that different from
what we eat, today.

Regards,
Thomas Longshanks