Presentation, was Re: [Sca-cooks] Vegetarians

[Kirrily Robert]

Anahita wrote:
>>(I have noticed more people complaining that their food is not
>>attractively arranged lately.)
>
> Few of the feasts i've attended in my 2-1/2 years have been arranged
> attractively. One standout was the Iron Chef competition - every team
> had very nicely presented food. I'll confess that at the Boar Hunt i
> was just concerned with getting the food out so it didn't look
> particularly nice, unless the dish was intrinsically attractive, like
> the cherry-rice.

This is a pet peeve of mine.  It's not hard to present food
attractively, and it's even quite easy to find references to
presentation in period recipes.  Why don't people do it!?!?

One thing I've picked up from my work with Elizabethan recipes is a
tendency to arrange dried fruit attractively on/around meat cooked with
the fruit.  For instance, I'll serve a chicken with a fruit-and-almond
sauce, and arrange dates on and around the chicken, perhaps in a little
star design on top, if they'll balance.  Another thing I once did was a
sallet based roughly on some recipes in The English Huswife.  I started
with mixed greens tossed in a little vinegar/oil, then added a layer of
sliced cucumbers and radishes with the same vinegar/oil and some dill,
and then finally arraged orange and lemon slices around the outside,
alternating them and overlapping slightly, and then sprinkled the fruit
with sugar.  It looked great, it tasted great, and it took sod all
effort.  The oranges and lemons presentation is now one of my
favourites.

(The English Huswife sallet recipes are at
http://infotrope.net/sca/texts/english-housewife/sallets.html -- look at
the one called "Another compound Sallet" for a truly over-the-top
sallet!)


Yours,

Katherine

--
Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert)
katherine at infotrope.net  http://infotrope.net/sca/
Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere
"The rose is red, the leaves are grene, God save Elizabeth our Queene"