[Sca-cooks] Requirements for a Laurel

[Jeff Gedney]

Thank you Kiri and all others who have responded to my query.
You are all very kind.
I DO share the fruits of my research at every opportunity I can 
when I am not prevented by attacks of mundane life. 

As far as contests go, I do not participate in them. They dont 
feel natural, and I feel that there is something inherently 
antithetical to the nature of research and information sharing 
to make a contest out of it. 

I teach regularly, and do so often at Pennsic. 
Unfortunately, my research topic (maritime life and ships) is 
generally not something that is easily displayable, since my 
topic is something rather difficult to make a set "display" 
from. 
I am currently writing a CA, but that project has been on hold 
pending my ascertaining the original sources of the 
Illustrations I am using so that I can credit them correctly.  
I just have not had the time/mental energy to do that.  

Maye I'll do a couple of TI articles to get into the swing of 
things... Do they even still publish TI?
Publishing opportunities are pretty few in my kingdom (East). 
We dont have an Arts/Sci newsletter that I am aware of.

I am the Eastern Patron of the nautical guild, and I do answer 
questions on nautical subjects with regularity, and am known in 
several kingdoms for my ability with the topic. 

I receive questions regularly from all over the known world and 
am partly serving as a technical resource for a graphic novel. 

But with all that, my topic is not very popular in the SCA, and 
is often fraught with misunderstanding ("Pyrates") and it is 
therefore easily overlooked or outright dismissed ( I have 
actually heard said "we dont DO that in the SCA, the SCA is 
about Horses and Swords" ).  
I really suspect that there are a lot of niches in the SCA 
widely overlooked in the Laurelling process. This is not 
intentional, I am sure, but more an effect that Laurels, by the 
main, are generally wise and will not comment on topics they 
feel unqualified with, and therefore "Fabrics Laurels" tend to 
protege and help elevate fabrics artisans, etc. 

It is rare to see new sciences get pulled in to the Laurellate 
tent(though it DOES happen).    

ObFood content:
I created a recipe for "ships biscuit" reconstructed from 
numerous sources, including the analysis of existing biscuit 
survivals from the Mary Rose wreck.

In Elizabethan England, the Wheat flour was very often extended
with cheaper barley and rye flours and bean and pea meal, as the
purer flours were saved for the nobility. There ar a number of 
complaints in the Admiralty records about the substandard flour 
used in biscuit supplied to the ships in the Armada blockade, 
as well as during the 1540's campaigns in which the Mary Rose 
sunk. Sometimes Rice or barley hulls were tossed in to extend 
it further ( you can get rice hulls from some Brewer supply 
stores) Spent malt after brewing the brewing process is a good 
additive, and sweetens the flavor a little, but while period 
was not often used in ship's biscuit, it was more valuable to 
save for livestock feed than to waste on common sailors!


So to make a period sort of biscuit (there are no existing 
recipes), that would have been eaten on, say the Golden Hind:

3 1/2 cups Whole wheat flour
1/2 cup dark Rye flour
4 teaspoons salt
2-2 1/4 cups water

Optional:
replace one cup flour with
3/4 cup dried peas, and
1/4 cup Dried Fava beans, hulled, crushed, and processed as 
fine as possible in a blender
(and add a pinch more salt as the starches in the beans will
offset the salt a little).

Preheat oven to 400-450 degrees. (if you have a Pizza stone, or
quarry tiles for baking use them,. you'll get a more "period"
effect.
Mix dry ingredients, and then gradually knead in enough water to
make a dough. It should not stick to hands and rolling pins.
Roll to 1/4 to 3/8 inches thick ( no more than twice the 
thickness
of a pie crust), and, using an empty coffee can, cut out dough
into rounds.
using the end of a wooden spoon, press six or seven holes all 
the way through the dough, one in the center, and the rest 
evenly in a circle around that (half way from the center to the 
edges). place directly on the hot oven stone, or on an 
ungreased cookie sheets, into hot oven. And bake 20 - thirty 
minutes.
They should not burn on the bottom.
Take them out and let them cool a little on a rack or on towels,
while the rest of the batch bakes.
Put racks back in oven, and set the temperature down to 250-255
Cook a one to two hours or until the biscuit is evenly light brown
all the way through.
It should not be crumbly, but dry as the captain's humor, and hard
as a bosun's fist.

Place twenty or so to a burlap sack, and tie shut, and stuff as
many sacks as you can into clean drycasks, and seal.

According to the results of some experiments done with this 
recipe, the result is best described as "wheat jerky", and even 
after soaking the texture is pretty close to wet leather.

yum

Capt Elias Gedney


--------------------------------------------------------------
The Purpose of the First Amendment is not to protect only 
comfortable speech. Such speech needs no protection. It is, 
rather, the daring, the profound, the probitive, and yes, the
offensive, that needs that shield.  For nothing significant, 
not in art, culture, or even in politics, has ever arisen 
from pandering to the whims of majority.