[Sca-cooks] The Feast of St. Martin

[Philip & Susan Troy]

>--- Barbara Benson <vox8 at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>  So far I have determined that he is known as the
>>  patron saint of both wine
>  > makers and drunkards.

<snip>

>  the French ate Goose
>  > and the Anglo-Saxons ate pig. Apparently a Cock was
>>  also sacrificed on this
>>  day. Also, I have found one reference to Venetian
>>  children running through
>  > the streets and banging pots & pans in celebration.

<snip>

>Well, specific dishes served for a Saint's day are not
>as common as you seem to think. There are numbers of
>saints, and some are associated with particular
>foodstuffs and meals, and some aren't.

True. Think of Saint Patrick's Day. In Ireland, until very recently,
it was celebrated solely by going to Mass. A parade was optional.
Traditional Saint Patrick's Day dishes in America tend to be either
simple Irish dishes, or more likely, bastardized, Americanized (or
even worse, given the history, Anglicized) versions of Irish food.

>
>From the associations you have found, it would appear
>to me that the appropriate things to serve would tend
>to be post-harvest items from the area in which you're
>focussing your feast. Geese, pigs, and excess cocks
>tend to be slaughtered in the fall after they've been
>fed by summer's bounty. Preserved foods tend not to
>need fodder in the winter ;-)
>
>Why not just serve a course based on one of the meats
>you mentioned, and see if you can find an appropriate
recipe which uses wine?

Hmmm. Why not Ropa Vieja? (Reference to the story of Saint Martin of
Tours --was this the Saint Martin in question?-- and the cloak.)

Seriously, you might look at the various online texts and check for
references to Tours; see if there's a mention of how certain dishes
are prepared in Tours, in, say, Le Menagier, Chiquart, etc.

Adamantius