[Sca-cooks] Around the Mediterranean in four easy courses...

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Well, i did it, i bought Scully's Neapolitan cook book... It's for
research purposes, really...

So, i'm cooking the Mists Principality Bardic feast - three or four
courses plus dessert with the different "tests" of the Bardic
competition between each course. This will be in early September -
the beginning of our summer weather.

The current Bard, who is the host of this feast, wants me to serve
the Bustaniyya i made for the Iron Chef Persian, but he doesn't want
an entire Near Eastern feast (after all, he's Irish). His idea was a
cooks' tour of the Crusades, beginning with English food, then
French, and ending up with Near Eastern for the last course, before
the dessert course (no, Sieggy, i won't be serving your wonderful
feast of the siege of Acre or was it Antioch...).

He also requested baklava, which he knows isn't exactly "period". I
can make something close by altering a "period" recipe or i can use a
recipe from my Eastern Mediterranean modern pastry book (some of
which are pretty close to the pastries in "the Book of the
Description of Familiar Foods").

I have suggested to him that a Mediterranean tour would mean more
compatibility among the dishes in the courses. We haven't yet reached
a final decision...

I haven't decided on the specific dishes yet, but i'd like to do
Catalan, Southern French, Italian (too bad there isn't a 12th century
Sicilian cookbook :-), then Near Eastern... I generally plan on 1
meat, 1 grain, 1 vegetable, and 1 fruit, plus a couple sauces for the
meat, per course, unless someone has other thoughts...

For the European legs of the trip i have Santich's Original
Mediterranean Cuisine; Sabban et al's Medieval Kitchen; Lady
Brighid's translation of de Nola; Milham's translation of Platina;
Scully's Neapolitan...

Any other books i really ought to refer to for this feast?

Also, any general comments or ideas - other than that such as feast
in toto is not "period"? I'm not asking for suggestions for dishes to
make (although i won't refuse them).

Anahita