[Sca-cooks] Cooking questions from Teceangl

[Stefan li Rous]

Alys Katharine posted to this list that a friend was cooking a feast
and had various questions a week or so ago. This lady, Teceangl, and
I have been corresponding since then. She had already looked through
many of the Florilegium files and still had some questions. Some I've
been able to give her a little help on but she asked that I post her
questions here to see if others might be able to help answer them.

She is not on this list, having tried several times in the past but
gotten overwhelmed by the volume, so please copy any messages on this
topic to this list to her at: tierna at agora.rdrop.com

Teceangl asks:
1) Was the sublety of each course of equal quality or did one outshine the others?
Stefan> I believe there often was one soteltie that was more elaborate than
the others but couldn't point to any specific feast descriptions or menus
for this.

2) Were all dishes presented en masse or with a few minutes between them?
Stefan> Since, unlike the SCA, not every feaster got the same items as other
feasters, I don't think they were served en masse. In fact, I suspect
that dishes were served in order of rank with the highest ranks getting
their food first. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

3) Other than the Villiander and Menagier are there French menus of real
feasts of the 13-14th centuries out there at all?
Stefan>I pointed her to these files in the FEASTS section of the Florilegium:
p-Coronat-fst-art (22K)  3/26/01    The Coronation feast of Richard III.
p-menus-msg       (49K)  3/21/01    Examples of medieval feast menus.

4) Has anyone done a
study of what sauces were traditional with which dishes, since the
reprinted cookbooks just categorize sauces in a seperate chapter and the
original sources for the most part believed the cook knew intrinsically
which sauce went with what dish?

Stefan> I pointed her to this file:
The-Saucebook-art (33K)  9/ 2/99    "The Saucebook" by L. Allison Poinvillars
de Tours. Sauces and the humours in the MA.

5) What sort of rice is closest to what was used in 14th-15th C France?

6) Can you freeze almond milk and then thaw it as anything usable?

7) Do any of the sauces in _Early French Cookery_ or _The Medieval Kitchen_
freeze or otherwise keep, or shall I plan on making all sauces on-site?  Can
any sauces be frozen or kept before thickening is added and then warmed and
thickened on-site?

Thanks,
    Stefan
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas         StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****