[Sca-cooks] Imaginary list was Re: Irish Stew recipe

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Gorgeous Muiredach:
>>Very common dishes that might distinguish SCA cuisine from much
>>medieval European cuisine, by dint of overemphasis, or at least
>>extremely typical at SCA feasts:
>>
>>Roast Beef in almost any form, with or without sauces
>
>Ok, sooo, does that mean that roast beef should be out? :-)

No, people like it, and it seems to have been eaten in period, so it
needn't be "out", but its frequency at SCA feasts (at least in the
East) seems to suggest period gentry ate very little else. "Eeeoww,
the FIGHTERS will bi-atch if we don't give them hunk-o-beef!" Now, if
it were boiled beef, on the other hand, or boiled pork, or mutton,
that would seem more consistent with the omnipresence of beef broth
in many, many, many pottage recipes, as well as in keeping with the
"gross char" references in various menus.

The other day, I was reading Simmonds' "The Curiosities Of Food", an
1859 text along the lines of "Un- mentionable Cuisine", in that it
attempted to demonstrate to a relatively hidebound audience
(19th-century England being approximately as conservative about food
as, even, much of Middle America) that it is a very big world and all
kinds of foods that many of us might reject as being just too weird,
are eaten. Unfortunately, it's not so much advocating an open mind,
in the way that "Unmentionable Cuisine" is, but simply going for
gross-out, scare tactics, much of the time, with talk of monkeys
being skinned, looking like little humans, being roasted whole in a
sitting position, stuff like that. In some cases he appears to rely
on hearsay, and presents a fair amount of inaccurate rumor as fact.

[By the way, today's "News of the Weird Digest" has yet _another_
reference to haggis as being the most repulsive food in the world,
with yet another misrepresentation of its ingredients and
proportions, probably designed to increase the xenophobic reaction...]

Anyway, Simmonds speaks of the English superiority at Agincourt being
due (at least he kind of suggests this) to the [alleged] fact that
the English armies lived on beef. It was all I could do to keep from
bursting out laughing, although I suppose they may have foraged for
some sort of bovine meat. I really don't think that whole "Roast Beef
of Old England" bullsh-- I mean, stuff, goes back any further than
the 17 and 18th centuries. In fact, Simmonds seems to suggest that
the concept of castrating immature cattle to produce steers was
either new or unknown on much of the Continent as of that writing
(1859). He speaks of German and, I think, Flemish beef as being
distinctly substandard for this reason.

If he's right, medieval people might well have been better off with
boiled beef.

>>Maybe we should think about the things we ought to have more of...
>>I'll have to get to this when I get back...
>
>That would be an interesting topic indeed Master A.

Well, boiled beef and other meats, for a start ;-), in addition to the roasts.

More fish, prepared in ways such that people will eat them. (Even in
places where "people refuse to eat fish", I suspect grocery store
sales of frozen fish sticks, canned tuna, and fried or blackened
catfish suggest otherwise; that the cooks simply haven't found the
right method yet.

More egg dishes that aren't custard... not that I object to custards
in the slightest, but there are a fairish amount of egg dishes that
you don't often see in the SCA milieu: herbelades, melesade (a sort
of payn purdue variant, this is the recipe where the cook is
instructed to take a dowsand eyroun or more, although Austin assures
us this means a dozen), mustard sops, oil-poached eggs on toast with
an oniony mustard sauce made from the frying oil. And the list goes
on and on.

Obviously more fresh vegetables in season. (These appear to be rare
in some medieval menus, but not in others.)

More large pies made of real pastry, ditto small tarts. Too
frequently they both seem to revert to a default setting of the
eight- or nine-inch frozen pie shell.

Trenchers would be nice, where appropriate.

More game, when and where available.

There's more, but let's open the floor for others, howzzabout?

>>I have one foot out the
>>door.
>
>better than one foot in the grave!

That depends, surely, on what is just outside the door, and what door
we're talking about. But, in general, I agree.

Adamantius