[Sca-cooks] apple pie seasoning

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>Brekke gave the menu for a recent feast. Among the items was:
>>Course the First
>>Fish Pudding
>>Wine sauce
>How well did this fish pudding go over? With the usual comments about
>fish not being well eaten at SCA feasts I'm curious. I'm not sure that
>mashed up fish will go over any better that recognisable fish, but maybe
>because it is *not( recognisable as fish...

As far as I could tell, these went over well because people that like
fish recognized it, and those that don't, didn't ;-). It was
inoffensive white fish fillets, either something vaguely floundery
(flounder, fluke, turbot, etc.) or something codlike (cod, hake,
pollack, etc.), processed till almost smooth with what looked like
eggs and cream, possibly some starchy element but I doubt there was
much, if any, of that. No bones, no scales or skin, and not much of
the much-maligned and often completely appropriate "fishy" aroma. (My
G-D!!! I roasted beef last night and the whole place STANK of
friggin' BEEF!!! And this is a problem HOW???) I'm sure if you do a
Web search you'll find recipes for Norwegian fiskeboller or fiskegrot
(these spellings may be mangled); that was the mixture used, I'm
pretty sure.

I gather that this was (along with the presence of Honey Butter) a
dish that goes way back in East Kingdom history, more so than into
the Middle Ages, although there may be some kind of period
Scandinavian precedent.

>Could you post the recipes for both of these?

No, not me, but I'm the one here at 7AM, so I'll talk until someone
better qualified shows up. For a description of the fish pudding
(baked in a  hot water bath, to keep it smooth and custardy), see
above. The sauce was based on dry white wine and cream, thickened
with roux, and, as I recall, spiked with dill. As far as I know,
modern Scandinavian. (You know it's not French because there's no
stock ;-). Early versions even of bechamel sauce contained stock, if
not actual meat.) In retrospect I would have used more cream and less
wine. As I recall, we made a roux with flour and butter, added the
wine and the cream, whipped smooth, and simmered for about 20
minutes, seasoned (salt, pepper, and dried dill) and served. The
sauce tasted very winey, which was no surprise since wine was pretty
much the chief ingredient. We kept simmering it, waiting for the
powerful wine flavor to diminish, but since, if wine isn't supposed
to taste like wine, what _is_ it supposed to taste like, we waited
more or less in vain. Finally we shrugged and said, "Hey. It's a wine
sauce, ent it? It tastes like wine."

Adamantius