[Sca-cooks] another wedding feast for Aethelwulf-

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Laura C. Minnick:
>In 1368, Prince Lionel, one of the younger extra princes of Edward III,
>married the 13-year-old Violante Visconti, daughter of the lord of Milan.
>Their wedding feast was 18 (!) courses, and in the barest of outline:
>
>1) suckling pigs, gilded, with fire in their mouths; porcelain-crabs, also
>gilded.
>2) hares, gilded; pike, gilded.
>3) a large claf, gilded; trout, gilded.
>4) Quails and partriges, gilded; roast trout, gilded.
>5) ducks and herons, gilded; carp, gilded.
>6) beef and fat capons with garlic and vinegar sauce; sturgeons in water.
>7) Capons and veal in lemon sauce; tench in lemon sauce.
>8) beef pies with cheese; large eels in pies.
>9) meat aspic; fish aspic.
>10) meat galantine, galantine of lampreys.
>11) roasted kid; roast garfish.
>12) hares and kids in a chive sauce; various fish in chive sauce.
>13) venison and beef in molds; fish turned inside-out.
>14) capon and fowls in red and green sauce, with oranges; tench turned
>inside-out.
>15) peacocks with cabbage, French beans, and pickled ox tongue; carp.
>16) roasted rabbits, peacocks, and ducklings; roasted eels.
>17) junkets and cheese.
>18) fruit, wine, and confections.

Very interesting. I've seen wedding menus something like this one
before, with what looks like an unusual number of courses, of one,
two, or three dishes per course, instead of two, three, or four
courses, each consisting of several dishes. I also note that each
course (except for the last two, meatless courses) ends with a fish
dish analogous to the meat dish of the course. So, should we view
this as a feast where fish dishes are offered as an alternative to
non-meat-eaters, or is this like Chiqart's proposed menu for the
feast that will be held on both meat and meatless days? Or is it
simply a matter of balance, with the fish being eaten by the same
people eating the meat? I do see that the fish dishes seem to be
pretty well outnumbered by meat dishes, so I would suspect that
they're not intended to be served alone per course; even over
eighteen courses, it looks a little skimpy in comparison to the meat
dishes.

Adamantius
--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER