[Sca-cooks] My first Aten event

[Mark.S Harris]

Gunthar reported:
> I must admit that Atenveldt will take some getting used
> to. The baronial feast that night was chili dogs, Fritos
> and green jello. I hear this was a bit of a joke but it
> wasn't deemed too far from the norm. Other groups had a
> bit better I hear. I wish I could have seen what was served.

Uh oh. Hopefully they didn't pretend this was period.

Which barony in Atenveldt was this? I'm no longer sure which
baronies are still in Atenveldt, now. I know of the three in
the Phoenix area now, but that is it.

> There was a tavern on site that sold various versions of
> corned beef that looked good but I never managed to try it.

Different kinds of corned beef? Or do you just mean corned beef
with different side dishes.

> The dessert competition was a bit of a disappointment to me.
> I had researched and redacted a Lombardy Custard with documentation
> and presentation.

Unless it has been presented on this list previously, what is your
redaction. How did you present it?

> Still, a disappointing start. Some good news is that there are
> some folk here who are interested in period food so much that
> they are holding monthly seminars on different aspects of period
> food. I'm scheduled to host a class on meat preservation techniques
> not including salting or smoking. So it will basically discuss
> brining, honey, butter and potting techniques. It should be fun.

How do you mean using honey and butter? If you mean immersing the
meats in the honey or butter, aren't these just two different types
of potting? The idea being to exclude air (and the bad beasties)
after killing the bad beasties with heat? What evidence have you
run across that this was done in period? What I've seen shows
potting the meat in honey or butter, but after the meat had
cooled, therefor allowing the meat to get infested again. It appears
that it took half a century after they started potting in the
middle of the 16th C for them to start potting the meat while it
was still hot. Most of this, I think, for Ann Hagen's books.

Are you going to pot some meat and then taste a little at
succeeding meetings to find out how long it will stay safe? :-)

Stefan li Rous