[Sca-cooks] French Veggie Dishes / Burgundian event menu

[Generys ferch Ednuyed]

| > Generys gave her feast menu:
| > First Course
| > Soupe Flemande (Flemish Soup)
|
| What type of soup is this?

This is actually a somewhat loose interpretation of a recipe found both in
Le Menagier and Le Viandier - it's a "dish for the sick" called a Flemish
Caudle by Le Viander, and just a Flemish Soup by Le Menagier.  Basically,
the original calls for either egg yolks mixed with white wine to be slowly
stirred into boiling water, or alternatively, egg yolks slowly stirred into
a mixture of white wine and water.  When you try it, it actually comes out
very very similarly to egg drop soup.  However, it was rather, um, bland
(since it's a dish for invalids) so, since there will be no invalids at the
feast, we're substituting a flavorful homemade vegetable broth, with herbs,
for the water. I'll post the redaction on my web site after the feast.


| > Cive de Bouef en Bols de Pain (Beef Stew in Bread Bowls)
|
| Have you found evidence for use of "bread bowls" in period? Or is this
| just a convenience measure? We have discussed trenchers before, but
| those are just flat slabs of bread. No one previously could give any
| evidence of hollowed out bread being used to serve food. Stuffed bread,
| yes. Bread bowls, no. Unfortunately, because they are handy in some
| situations.

This is purely a convenience / spiff factor measure.  Basically, I
personally hate having to eat food out of a bowl I already had soup in, and
since we're already serving soup, I wanted the beef stew to be in it's own
serving container - and in this case that was more important to me than pure
authenticity. I couldn't think of any non-messy way of doing trenchers (I
was picturing stew dripping EVERYWHERE), so we decided to go with the bread
bowls - though if I'm feeling really adventurous when we make them, they may
become swans... :-)

| > Frumenty avec Venaison et Sauce Royale, dans un chateau de patisseri
|
| What kind of sauce is this?

This is a sauce I had at an event once and snagged the recipe for - it's got
a lot of honey and vinegar in it - I don't have the recipe with me right
now, it's at home, but I'll post it when my computer and the piece of paper
it's on are in the same place... :-)

|
| > Porc Rost
|
| roast pork? - Yes.
|
| > Sauce Vert et Sauce de Poivre et Ail
|
| Green sauce? - Yes, Green Sauce - a nice tart one.  And the other one is a
Pepper-Garlic sauce, which is very very spicy - it's the one that's redacted
in The Medieval Kitchen - though with fewer bread crumbs, their version
comes out very very thick.

|
| > Desserts
| >
| > Hypocras (Spiced Wine)
| >
| > Taillis (Bread Pudding with almond milk and grapes)
|
| What kind of grapes are you planning to use? Some of those tiny
| champagne grapes seem like they might be nice in this, but maybe too
| expensive.

We were planning on cut up red grapes, both for color, and because we are
also using them in the sausage.  Which champagne grapes do you mean? I'm not
sure I've ever seen them...

| > Wafers
|
| I'd be interested in hearing which wafer recipe/redaction you use. I
| assume this is a "sweet" wafer and not a "savory" one since it is under
| desserts.

It is a sweet wafer, and I will let you know what recipe we go with - that's
one of the things we're still testing. :-)

| Thanks,
|   Stefan

Oh, and thanks for the suggestions on the veggies everyone - assuming
testing over the next week or so works out, we're going to go with adding
turnips with sage to one course (there's a suggestion in le Menagier that
turnips be boiled in water first, then cooked again with wine, water and
sage) and escarole to the second course - escarole is a fried endive pie,
also from Menagier (the original calls for herring or eel, but since I'm
making it for people who have vowed not to eat meat or fish...) And after
the feast I'll be posting pictures and recipes to my new web site... :-)

Generys