[Sca-cooks] Period vegetarianism

[Marilyn Traber]

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OK, major problem.

In Europe, western area [england, france, italy, germany - the ones that are
typically where people have personas from and where we tend to 'base' our
feasts.]Very broad generalizations.

Meat is good. No meat is bad - fasting or poor.
Eggs, dairy good. Meat broth excellent.

Thigs for feasts that are considered good [and if you are fasting, stay in
your monastary and pray.]:
meat in chunks with sauces
meat in puree in sauces or pastries
meatloaf eqivalents [meatballs, hedgehogs, scotch egg sort of things, many
sotleties and warners fall in this province.]
soups sops and porriges based on meat broth, with varying percentages of
meat and other floaties.

Yes, many of the recipes call for a fish day or fast day variant. BUT
<underline several times> most of the fast day variants are fish or
embryonic. Don't know about you, but I know an aweful lot of vegetarians who
won't do fish, dairy, eggs. What the hell are we supposed to cook them out
of the period corpus? I will be most happy top make the ale onion sops, or
the white wine fast version of peasen, or the makke.....but on the whole
there are NOT a lot of main dishes that can be made anywhere close to the
original AND totally vegan.

The only remedy I can offer is dressing it up by making special presentation
- like that pastry castle that holds 4 sauces can be made smaller and hold 4
portions of different vegan brown glops.

margali

the quote starts here:
Regardless of other peoples' ideas on vegetarianism, I would like to
provide enough vegie dishes (and enough range of vegie dishes) that I
can cater for vegetarians without having to make separate dishes for
them.  Some of my close friends are vegetarian, and I'm pretty used to
cooking for them, and would like to be able to provide for them in this
case.  I'd also like to showcase some more unusual vegetable dishes that
are appetizing to non-vegetarians, to show people that period food can
be good even if it's not all meat.  I want to avoid the old traditional
veg dishes of armored turnips, baked carrots, and something
indeterminate and sloppy with cabbage.  And I want to stick very closely
to my Elizabethan food theme, using recipes published in England
between, say, 1550 and 1620.  My barony has pretty eclectic tastes, and
doesn't have a strong "meat and potatoes" fighter contingent.  Finally,
my idea for this feast is that it would be a "food only" event... show
up Saturday late afternoon to evening, get fed and entertained, chill
out and have fun.  Small numbers, small site, quality food, good
company, and a bit higher price than the general feasts that are often
held.
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