[Sca-cooks] Holiday Meal with Medieval Dishes

[Sharon Gordon]

Hmm....you have an interesting challenge here.  Before I get to the food
with some modern, perioidish, and medieval ideas, let me add a few thoughts
about the diners.

1) When your nephews are 13 and 15, they are highly likely to be in the
hollow-leg-eat-everything-in-sight stage.  Also once children are about 9,
the hyperactive bitter taste buds tend to lessen slowly over time, so more
foods will taste better to them than they did when they were younger.
2) You may be able to get your mom to stop whining by pointing out that when
she does it serves as a poor role model for your brother's children.  You
could request her help in modeling good adult guest-restaurant behavior.
3) You may be able to enlist your brother's children in a sort of grown up
conspiracy by talking to them beforehand, and explaining that their
grandmother grew up in conditions where she learned that you could buy
(apparent) love from people by serving them sweet foods.  You could then arm
them with some statements they could use to have a healthier relationship
with their grandmother such as:
a) Grandma, I need to keep my food in a healthy balance to keep my good rank
on the cross country team, so I could I please have more ____and less______?
b) Grandma, may I please have some sweet potatoes to go with the
marshmallows?
4) If you can figure out some of the other dynamics of your mother's
behavior, you may be able to explain them to your nephews and enlist their
help in responding in adult ways to her inappropriate behavior.  It's not
clear to me if she thinks that Thanksgiving is a time when it's ok for
everyone to act like bratty four year olds, or if she's trying to make them
like her better by acting as if she is their same age, or if she is trying
to damage their relationship with their parents, or if she is passively
aggressively trying to disrupt a pleasant time at your house by doing things
which will increase the odds that the boys will be disruptive, or something
else, or all of the above :-).
5)  Assuming your mom and brother are nonsmokers, your mom's and brother's
inability to taste food very well may be due to a zinc deficiency or an
inability to metabolize and use zinc properly.  It would be worth having
this checked out.  There are serveral other medical conditions that
interfere with the ability to taste if zinc doesn't turn out to me the
problem, but that is a common cause.  Once the doctors figure out what is
going on with your mom and brother, your nephews could be checked for the
same things.
6) It's been my experience that until anorexics realize they need treatment,
there's not much you can do with them.  Sometimes though if I am cooking
food for a group of people where some are very interested in eating healthy
food and some refuse to eat healthy food or if something is healthy they
insist they "don't like" it, I will some times make a food that is healthy
but appears not to be.  Then I tip off the healthy eaters ahead of time and
ask them not to tip off the people who only like unhealthy food.  However
this strategy can be an amusing challenge or an annoying pain :-).

Some modern things that might go over well:
1) Make a few tablespoons of  some kind of honey vinagrette for your mom's
salad.
2) Gingered pear cranberry sauce.
3) The cheese crackers that are sort of like a shortbread cookie, but
savory.
4) Raisin rice pudding
5) I have seen a number of festive vegetarian recipes for things baked in a
pumpkin such as soup or a casserole like dish.
6) You might look at recipe books from Colonial Williamsburg in the
thanksgiving and christmas recipes for ideas.
7) Gingered candied yams (no marshmallows involved)
8) Ambrosia( freshly cut up oranges, grapefruit, cherries, and bananas) with
flakes of coconut as one of the dessert offerings. Cut up the grapefruit and
oranges ahead of time and leave them in their dish in the refrigerator.  Cut
the cherries in half and pit them and put them in a separate dish in the
refrigerator.  Slice and add bananas to individual servings and add drained
cherries and coconut just before serving
9) A sweet and vinegary cabbage based slaw, possibly using one of the
lighter tasting asian cabbages like napa.

Some perioidish things that might go over well:
1) A glass or cut glass serving dish with small bunches of a mix of purple,
green, and red grapes artistically arranged.  This is very festive looking.
I only make this when I can find good grapes.  When I take it to potlucks it
disappears in a flash.
2) A mix of root vegetables for the armored turnips to make it lighter such
as a) irish potatoes and turnips
b) irish potatoes, turnips, carrots
c) irish potatoes, turnips, red radishes (white cheese for this one)
d) irish potatoes, turnips, red radishes
and white cheese.  Then sprinkle broccoli which has been briefly steamed or
boiled, drained, and finely chopped over it after it comes out of the oven
just before serving
3) More flavorful homemade bread
4) A small vegetable stuffed with the insides of tart for ember day.  Maybe
topped with buttered bread crumbs. Possible vegetables: mushrooms, miniature
pumpkins, potatoes, baby squash
5) Warmed olives
6) Olive tapenade on bruschetta

Some medieval things that might go over well:
1) Pear mustard as a sauce for the turkey
2) A mesclun type salad.
3) Less cheese sauce on the armored turnips to make the dish lighter.
4) Anthimus's Mustard greens, with bacon left out of a serving for your
daughter
5) Pears with a fruit sauce
6) Spiced cider or apple juice
7) Onion or onion-leek soup with the onions/leeks caramelized to make the
soup sweeter
8) Gnocchi--though it's not period, I have had some excellent pumpkin
gnocchi.  No recipe, alas.

And a question--would you like to focus your thanksgiving meal around the
food bbbbbof any particular region? With where you are, it seems like Italy
would be a good match for corresponding in season food.
Sharon
gordonse at one.net