[Sca-cooks] roasting meat question

[Stefan li Rous]

Isabella asked:
> A while back I read about a feast where they roasted a steer, stuffed with =
> a deer, stuffed with a pig, then a lamb, then a goose, then a ...... I am s=
> ure none of this is in the right order, but it was a bunch of animals, a sm=
> aller one in the cavity of the next larger, and so on and so on, etc.
>
> Question..Does anyone have any idea what I am referring to? Any idea where =
> or even how I would check?
I believe one period scenerio starts with a camel, not a steer.

Where to start? You might try the Florilegium...

Here are some messages I found using the search engine:


> From: "Marcus Antaya" <mjantaya at home.com>
> To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Massively expensive feast WAS: Smithsonian Stuff
> Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 12:19:40 -0400
>
> The actual recipie (and I do have it somewhere) is
>
> 52 Hard Boiled Eggs
> 26 Chickens
> 2 goats
> 1 camel
>
> put 2 eggs per chicken, put the chickens equally in the goat (or sheep) and
> stuff all into camel.  Roast on a spit for 2 days...
>
> it's a bedouin wedding feast. Documentable, I think....grin
>
> Gyric

and:

> Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 13:45:49 -0500 (EST)
> From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>
> Subject: Re: SC - lamb recipe
>
>> Once upon a time we had a cooking workshop (this was in the days when we
>> wondered how practical 'field cooking' was. In my Backyard, over an open
>> fire, I prepared the following recipe (with changes as noted)
>>
>> Take one camel. (I couldn't find anywhere to take it from, so I skipped
>> that bit. Plus we were feeding 20 people, all of whom were cooking
>> something. It seemed like overkill.)
>>
>> Take one sheep   (which I did. without the neck opened. The butcher
>> kindly got me one like that)
>>
>> Stick it in the camel (No camel. Well, what can you do)
>>
>> Take some ducks, geese, or chickens. (I got some chickens, and a buch of
>> bits as well.)
>>
>> Put capons or quail in them. (quail went into chickens, ducks got capons
>> filled with chicken breast)
>>
>> fill the rest with rice, pistachios, sultanas, figs and some other nut (I
>> forget. I partially cooked the rice first)
>>
>> Put it on a spit over the fire, and cook it.
>>
>> What was amazing was that over about 8 hours, we ate nearly all the lamb,
>> all the quails and most of the rest. It was really good.
>>
>> Unfortuantely I don't have any documentation.
>
> I'm glad to see that somebody has actually tried this.  Here's your
> documentation.  The following appears in the 13th-century Arabo-
> Andalusian _Manuscrito Anonimo_, and is reprinted in Cariadoc's
> Collection, volume II:
>
> Roast Calf, which was made for the Sayyid Abu-L-'Ala in Ceuta
>
> Take a young, plump ram, skinned and cleaned; open it deeply between
> the thighs and carefully take out all the entrails that are in its
> belly.  Then put in the interior a stuffed goose and into its belly a
> stuffed hen and in the belly of the hen a stuffed pigeon and in the
> belly of the pigeon a stuffed thrush and in the belly of this a small
> bird, stuffed or fried, all this stuffed and sprinkled with the sauce
> described for stuffing; sew up this opening and place the ram in a hot
> tannur  and leave it until it is browned and ready; sprinkle it with
> that sauce and then place it in the body cavity of a calf which has
> been prepared clean; sew it up and place it in the hot tannur  and
> leave it until it is done and browned; then take it out and present
> it.
>
>                                         mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
>                                                  Stephen Bloch
>                                            sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas         StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****