[Sca-cooks] Unexpected bounty has me in a quandry--Help....

[Elizabeth A Heckert]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2001 18:38:03 -0600 Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com>
writes:
> So I'm asking the list...which are your favorite recipes that
>include fava beans???

     For this demo I'm doing at the end of October, I wanted to include
Favas, 'cause two archeological reports mention them as specifically
known to the Vikings.  I looked at fried bean and fried peas recipes in
the Forme of Cury, Ancient Cookery, and A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye in
Cariadoc's cookbook collection.  They all seemed to include unspecified
beans and onions, or beans onions and bacon.  I figured if I'm gonna
guess, I might as well look at recipes out of date by 300-400 years as
opposed to a 1000 years out of date.

     So I tried it out at Crusades, and it was pretty well recieved.  I
fried most of a pound of bacon, and added two mostly drained cans of
favas and a can of northern beans--I was afraid I didn't have enough
favas.  I had an onion, about three inches in diameter, that I sliced and
added.  Then I added honey, about two-three tablespoons --not in any of
the original recipes, and mustard powder, also not in the originals.

    The favas were more strongly flavoured than most other beans I've
tried, but the dish turned out to have a mild flavour, very gloppy
looking.  I used the honey  because the Forme of Cury recipe called for
powder douce, and sugar was sometimes used in that mixture, but would
have been little known--Bede left his brother monks sugar in his will,
which makes me think it was valuable and unusual.   I used the mustard
because I've been trying to stick more to herbs than spices for the food
for this demo.  Everyone enjoyed it, including the two newcomers who
hadn't eaten any period food yet.

   Elizabeth

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