[Sca-cooks] Bardic Madness Feast Pamphlet

[Robert Downie]

Well, this was my first time as head cook.  It was a friday the 13th Event
from the start, but luckily evrything turned out OK in the end.  Here's
the feast pamphlet that never materialised:

Bardic Madness Feast - February 14th 2004
Barony of Castel Rouge, Pricipality of Northshield, Midrealm

Head Cook: Baroness Faerisa Gwynarden
Co-Cook: Kolbrunna Gisladóttir

Many thanks to Mistress Hauviette D'Anjou and Mistress Sinciefu for
sharing their research into period illusion foods and sotleties.

Listing of aphrodisiacs: (many of which appear in the menu)
Aniseed, Almonds, Asparagus, Basil, Beavers, Bulbs, Bulls, Carrots,
Caviar, Chick Peas, Corriander, Cucumbers, Eels, Eggs, Figs, Garlic,
Ginger, Honey, Liquorice, Lobster, Mustard, Nutmeg, Oysters, Peaches, Pine
Nuts, Rabbits, Snails, Snakes, Spanish Fly, Strawberries, Sparrows,
Truffles

Platina on Right Pleasure and Good Health
http://www.florilegium.org/files/PERSONAL/aphrodisiacs-msg.html

Menu:

On the Tables:

-Peacocks:  bread bodies adorned with papier mache necks/heads with
skewers of vegetables, cheeses, sausage etc. for the tails.
Inspired by salats for show only from _The English Huswife_ 1615

-Flavored butters piped in the shape of roses
Inspired by Hugh Plat's _Jewel-house of Arte & Nature_ 1594
And 'Wolfenbüttel Manuscript' aka 'Mittelniederdeutsches Kochbuch', North
Germany, mid-15th century

1st Course

Presentation: The servers will be hidden behind a cloth painted with an
underwater scene.  The swans will file out and wait on either side of the
cloth enclosure while the Castle of love is presented to the head table.
Then they will each place a 'swan' on their respective tables, unclothe
them with a flourish, and file back into the enclosure with the paper
mache swans to process out again.

-For Head Table, a Castle of Love inspired by De Fait du Cuisine 1420
escorted by a stream of paper mache swans (lined with foil) covering
Chicken with Orange Sauce to simulate redressed swans (idea courtesy of
Mistress Hauviette D'Anjou)
-Heart shaped mushroom and cheese pasties _Le Menagier_ de Paris 14th C
-Sausage 'snails' (idea courtesy of Lady Olwen the Odd)
-Oak leaves From _A Queen's Delight_, 1671
-'Apple' eggs (idea courtesy of Lady Olwen the Odd)
-candied walnuts in sugar paste shells _Menagier de Paris_, 1393 French

2nd Course

Presentation: Neptune serves head table.  He rides a chariot, pulled by 2
seahorses.

-Mock Turtle: a beef stew hidden in a pastry turtle
-Rice served molded into the shape of a fish (idea courtesy of Mistress
HauvietteD'Anjou)
-salmon 'carrots' _Das Buoch von Guoter Spise_ 1345-54,
-beef  and/or marrow 'peascods'
-faux oysters (aquapatis in sanitized oyster shells) with tapioca pearls
-a sugar plate crab filled with compost (sweet and sour vegetable pickle
with wine and honey)
-fritters in the shape of fishes Platina on Right Pleasure and Good Health

3rd Course

Presentation: a wild boar has been terrorizing the countryside.  He finds
his way into the kitchen, where he proceeds to devour the dessert course
until the cooks subdue him with pots and pans and manage to salvage what
the can of the food.

-mock entrails with "spanish" flys
-white gingerbread grapes
-molded cookies in appropriate shapes

Recipes:

Flavored butters- Wolfenbuttel Manuscript mid 15th C North Germany
59 you shall take cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, pepper and ginger in equal
weight, and add butter or cheese.

Flavored Butters- Recipe from Hugh Platt's "Jewel-house of Arte & Nature",
dated 1594.

"2. How to make sundry sorts of most dainty butter with the saide oils.
In the month of May, it is very usuall with us to eat some of the
smallest, and youngest sage leaves with butter in a morning... in stead
whereof all those which delighte in this heabe may cause a few droppes of
the oile of sage to be well wrought, or tempered with the butter when it
is new taken out of the cherne, ...as also with cinnamon, mace, and clove
butter (which are all made in one selfe same manner) ...Ore, if by som
means or other you may not give a tincture to your creme before you
chearne it, either with roseleaves, cowslep leaves, violet or marigold
leaves, &c. And thereby chaunge  the color of your butter. And it may be
that if you wash your butter throughly wel with rose water before you dish
it, and work up some fine sugar in it, that the Country people will go
neere to robbe all Cocknies of their breakfasts, unlesse the dairie be
well looked unto.

Chicken with Orange Sauce -The Medieval Kitchen Recipes from France and
Italy
p 115
To prepare roast chicken, you must roast it; and when it is cooked, take
orange juice or verjuice with rosewater, sugar and cinnamon, and place the
chicken on a platter; and pour this mixture over it and send it to the
table. (Maestro Martino, Libro de Arte Coquinaria).  Idea of the paper
mache reclothed swan courtesy of Mistress Hauviette D'Anjou.

1 free range chicken, 3 1/4 to 4 1/2 lb (1.5 to 2 Kg)
the juice of 3 bitter oranges or
10 T (5 fl oz) (or the juice of 2 lemons mixed with 6 T water) plus 1 T
rosewater
1/2 tsp sugar
1 pinch ground cinnamon
salt

Preheat the oven to 425 *F.  Wash and dry the chicken and salt the
cavity.  Place in a roasting pan and put in the oven, basting frequently
with the pan juices, until golden brown and nicely cooked.  Add the sugar
and cinnamon to the bitter orange juice or the verguice rosewater mixture,
and pour this over the roasted chicken (still in it's roasting pan).
Place the chicken on a platter.  Serve with the pan juices.  You can
substitute normal orange juice for the bitter orange juice, but in that
case omit the sugar and add the juice of half a lemon.

Mushroom Pasties  Pleyne Delit #2 from Le Menagier de Paris 160

"Mushrooms of one night are best, if they are small, red inside, and
closed at the top; they should be peeled and then washed in hot water and
parboiled, and if you wish to put them in a pasty add oil, cheese, and
spice powder.

Perhaps it was necessary to peel mushrooms and wash them in hot water in
14th C France, but we doubt that the kind of little button mushrooms here
described need to be treated so today: a scrubbing in cold water should
suffice.  Medieval 'pasties' were made like turnovers: put the filling on
top of a piece of pastry, then doulble the pastry over and pinch the edges
together.  The pastry must be very thin, or there will be too much in
proportion to the filling."

Pastry dough (I used a heart shaped pasty press to make these)
3/4 lb small button mushrooms
1-2 oz cheese (eg, 1 oz each of cheddar and parmesan)
2 T olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Wash the mushrooms and pare away the bottom of the stems, but leave
whole.  Parboil in salted water 3-4 minutes.  Drain, and mix with oil and
seasonings.  Make turnovers, mix the cheese in with the mushrooms.  Bake
in a 425*F oven for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

To make Apples look like Oak Leaves and Plums From A Queen's Delight,
1671;
(see also p 102 Banqueting Stuffe edited by C. Anne Wilson)

"Take Pippins pared and coared, and cut in pieces, and boiled tender, so
strain them, and take as much Sugar as the Pulp doth weigh, and boil it to
a Candy height with as much Rose-water and fair water as will melt it,
then put the pulp into the hot sugar, and let it boil until it be as thick
as Marmalet; then fashion it on a Pye-plate, like oaken leaves, and some
like half Plums, the next day close the half Plums together; and if you
please you may put the stones and stalks in them, and dry them in an Oven,
and if you will have them look green, make the paste when Pippins are
green; and if you would have them look red, put a little conserves of
Barberries [see insert] in the Paste, and if you will keep any of it all
the year, you must
make it as thin as Tart stuff, and put it into Gallipots."

Honey-Nut Conserve  Menagier de Paris, 1393 French -Early French cookery p
290

1 cup liquid honey
10-15 whole cloves
2 T finely sliced slivers of ginger
8 oz whole or halved walnuts

On low heat in a small cooking pot, combine honey and spices.  Let spices
marinate in warm honey for 5-10 min.  Add walnuts & bring to a boil.
Cook, stirring occasionally until honey reaches soft ball stage (approx.
10 min.).  Spoon out the walnuts (and include some cloves and ginger), &
set them to cool & harden on a piece of tinfoil or marble slab.  Store in
tightly sealed container.  We put these into sugar paste walnut shells.

We made sugar paste walnut shells using a metal mold and hid the candied
walnuts inside, sealing the two halves shut with a little royal icing.

Apple Eggs (Idea courtesy of Lady Olwen the Odd)

Hard boil eggs.  Peel, one at a time, and while still hot carefully pinch
the top and bottom between your thumb and fore finger until completely
cool (it helps to do this in a bowl of cold water).  Let dry, paint with
food colors and add a clove stem on top.

Sausage Snails (Idea courtesy of Lady Olwen the Odd)

Take raw pork sausage and remove it from the casing.  Knead in bread
crumbs (and additional poudre douce or forte, to taste) until the meat is
stiff enough to hold it's shape.  Fashion into little snail bodies with
raised heads, adding 2 cloves for the eyes.  Bake at 350 until set and
cooked through.  Top with real snail shells or shell shaped jumbal
cookies.

Jumbols Delightful Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen 16th C (adaptation
courtesy of Lady Bonne found in Stephen's florilegium)
1 cup flour (I used 1/2 cup extra flour)
1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt
1 tsp aniseed
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp rosewater (I used 2 tsp water + 1/4 tsp orange blossom water)
1 T water

Sift dry ingredients.  Beat egg whites till stiff, fold into flour.  Add
enough water to make a workeable dough.  Roll into rolls shaped like
letters and figures.  Bake on parchment.  Bake at 350*F 10-15 min. or
until done but not browned - remove to rack immediately.


Rice for a Meat Day - Menagier de Paris, 1393 French- Cariadoc's
Collection pg M41

Pick it over and wash in two or three changes of hot water and put to dry
on the fire then add boiling cow's milk and grind up saffron to color it
yellow soak with your milk then add in grease from beef stock

2 cups medium grain rice (we used Rooster Brand sticky rice)
4 cups water with pinch salt
1 cup whole milk
3 or 4 saffron threads crushed and soaked in milk
1/4 cup beef stock fat or salted butter
Fish mold, coated with food release or butter (we just used cold water)

Bring rice to a boil, reduce and simmer till water is absorbed (for large
quantities, bring to a boil, simmer 5-7 minutes then turn heat off  and
let sit for at least 45 minutes to 1 hour).  Add milk/saffron mixture and
butter. Stir to incorporate. Remove from heat and let sit for 5-10 minutes
to thicken and absorb all liquid. Pour  into  molded fish dishes.  Recipe
adaptation and concept  courtesy of Mistress Hauviette D'Anjou.

Compost of Pasternak and of Peeres - Forme of Cury:
See original at  http://www.godecookery.com/alabama/alabam01.html#compost

Gode Cookery translation:

Pickled Salad. Take parsley, carrots, radishes; scrape and clean them.
Take white radishes & cabbages, pared and cored. Take an earthen pan with
clean water & set it on the fire; and put all these in. When they've
boiled, add pears and parboil well. Take all these things out and let cool
on a clean cloth. Add salt. When cooled, place in a container; add
vinegar, powder, and saffron, and let sit overnight. Take Greek wine &
honey, clarified together; take "lumbarde" mustard and whole currants, and
cinnamon, "powdour douce" & whole anise seed, & fennel seed. Take all
these things and place together in an earthen pot, and take from it when
you need to, and serve.

    Modern recipe:

         2 lb. carrots, peeled and chopped into medium sized pieces
         3-4 pears, peeled, cored and chopped into medium sized pieces
         1 1/2 heads cabbage
         1 tsp. salt
         1 cup white wine vinegar
         1 Tbs. ground ginger
         1/2 Tbs. each anise seed & fennel seed
         1 1/2 quart white wine
         1/2 cup honey
         1/2 Tbs. mustard seed
         3 cinnamon sticks

Boil the carrots for several minutes, then add the pears, cook a little
more, then add the cabbage. Cook until tender; drain well. Lay carrots and
pears on a clean cloth. Sprinkle on the salt. Let cool, then place in a
large dish or container; sprinkle on the ginger & saffron then pour the
vinegar over all. Cover (the cloth works fine for this) and let stand for
several hours or overnight. Mix the compost with the seeds, place in a
non-metallic container that can be sealed, then set aside. In a separate
pot, bring the honey, cinnamon, and wine to a boil, skimming off any scum
until clear. Remove the cinnamon sticks and pour the liquid over the
compost mixture. Let cool and seal. May be stored for a week or more.

Aquapatys - Forme of Cury

Pill garlec and cast it in a pot with water and oile and seeth it. Do
thereto safron, salt, and powdor-fort and dress it forth hool.
To better simulate the look of fresh oysters, we decided to roast the
garlic with a little olive oil.
The dish is not a direct copy of a period dish, but is based on the period
idea of putting a filling into a seafood shell." - (Epulario, "p. 29; crab
variation, A Proper New Booke of Cokerye, p. 17 Inspired by the mushroom
variations of Mistress Sincgiefu and Mistress Hauviette D'Anjou.

Epulario pg 29
To dresse Oysters
They are to be roasted on the coales, and when they open they are enough,
you may take them also out of the shells, and fry them in oile, and eat
them with vinegar and pepper

A Proper New Booke of Cokerye - 16th C- Cariadoc's Collection pg C5
Fyrste take awaye all the legges and the heades and then take all the fysh
out of the shelle and make the shell as cleane as ye can and putte the
meate into a dysche, and butter uppon a chafying dysche of coles and putte
therto synamon and sugaer and a lytle vyneger and wehn ye have chafed it
and seasoned it then putte the meate in the shelle agayne and bruse the
heades and set them upon the dysche syde and serve it.

Beef Peascods- A Propre new booke of Cokery, 1545

Take mary bones and pull the mary hole out of them and cut it in two
partes then season it with suger / synamon ginger and a little salte / and
make your paest as fyne as ye can and as shorte and thyn as ye can / then
frye theim in swete suet and cast vpon theim a lytle sinamon and ginger
and so serue them at the table.

We duplicated this recipe using ground beef for the "peas" due to
availability.  We also tinted the dough green to better simulate the
effect.  We used the "Fine paste" recipe from All the King's Cooks by
Peter Brears.

1 lb  plain flour
1/2 tsp salt, 4 oz butter
pinch ground saffron
6 fl oz ale
1 egg, lightly beaten

Place sugar, salt, butter, saffron and ale in a saucepan, bring them to a
boil, stirring to melt the butter.  Put the flour into a bowl, make a well
in the center, pour in the hot liquid, and quickly beat it with a wooden
spoon, while pouring in the egg, to make a dough.  Knead the dough...Bake
at 400*F

This dough was a joy to work with. To avoid greasiness, we parboiled the
meatballs, then baked them (this also helped preserve the round shape),
and then encased the cooked meatballs in the dough and baked it at 400*f
for about 15 minutes.  The result was extremely realistic!


Roasted Carrots  Das Buoch von Guoter Spise Translation by Alia Atlas

23.A good food
Take of the breast of the hen. And cut it small. And pound it in a mortar.
And add thereto a little meal and large bread. (add) pepper or ginger to
mass. Salt to mass. (Add also an egg or two to the mix). Cook that
together well. Cut two little clubs of a fingers length and as an ulna.
flat and round in front. And take the boiled (mixture) as large as a
carrot and squeeze it out so that it is creased liked the form, in which
it was pressed. Lay it in a pan. Let it boil with the stick. (During) the
time that the first boils, work the other stick. As you take it out, let
the other in. And make it as full as you want. When it is  well boiled so
take it out. Stir a chopped puree with butter. Fill that in the "carrot"
and stick it upon the spit. Make it hot and sprinkle it with butter  and
give it out. Also, you may make carrots too of pike and of salmon and
where you want.

132. A dish
Rub garlic with salt. Shell the head well and mix with six eggs thereto
without the white. And take vinegar and a little water there to not too
sour and let that boil so that it stays thick. There with may one make
roasted chicken "carrots" or swan or what you want The "puree" to be puree
of carrots with recipe 132?.

Recipe adapted by Mistress Hauviette d'Anjou

The above recipe presented a few challenges as I set to work out the
details. There are several cooking steps involved. First of all , you are
asked to cook the bread/salmon mixture well then cut it mold it and cook
it again. Without further research into possible translation errors, I am
working on the idea that this either required you to work the mixture
meaning blend or, if actually requiring cooking, was maybe the same idea
as cooking a bread pudding. This step however seems redundant in my
redaction as the salmon I am using is already cooked as it were by
canning. Secondly, the recipe requires you to "boil" the mixture after you
have cut it into clubs. This I believed is boiling in oil not water as one
might first suspect. I tried the latter to find what results would occur.
As it was, the mixture disintegrated into the boiling water. When the
mixture was set into boiling oil, it browned beautifully, into a dark
amber crust. Perfect for mimicking "carrots".

200g can pink salmon (155 g drained)
3 TB bread crumbs
1 slice fresh whole wheat bread cut into small cubes
1/3 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs

Cooking oil (preferably canola)

Puree
2 cloves of garlic, roasted whole
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg  yolk
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp water

Combine first 5 ingredients well, then add eggs. Mix well. Partially fill
a small pot with oil and heat to 400 degrees or until a small piece of
mixture bubbles when dropped into pot. Using a wooden spoon, form the
mixture around the handle forming a conical "carrot" shape around the end,
approximately 5inches (10 cm) in length. Place the carrot into the hot oil
and brown. If necessary, turn and brown the other side. Using a soft edged
knife or spoon, slide the carrot off the spoon into the oil and let brown
a few minutes longer. As this is happening, make a second "carrot" on the
spoon handle, setting it into the oil to begin browning. Remove the first
and set it aside on some absorbent towel.  Continue until all the mixture
is made into carrots.

If you wish, make the puree recipe of garlic, egg yolk, vinegar and water
and fill the hole of the carrot. This provides a flavor punch, reminiscent
of a spicy mayonaise.

Combine the roasted garlic, salt and mash well. Add vinegar and water. Mix
well. Put on a low burner and add egg yolk and stir while it is heating.
Do not allow it to burn. Once it has thickened, remove from heat. Fill
"carrots". Place carrots in the oven at 425 degrees for 5 -7 minutes to
crisp and heat centres.

Serve with parsley poked into the large end of the "carrot".


Fritters in the Shape of Fishes
Redaction courtesy of Lady Ann-Marie and Count Gunthar (found in Stephen's
Floreligium)

To make fritters like fishes: [Epilario, #232] Blanch thy almonds [here is
a transcription error about adding chopped fish. It's not in the original
Italian] and stampe together with Currans, Sugar, Parsely and Margerum
chopped small with good spice and saffron, then have in a readinesse a
fine paste, and making it in what forme you wil you may fill them with
this composition, then frie them in oile: they make likewise be baked dry
in a frying pan, and when they are baked, they will shew like fishes.

Make a batch of your favorite shortbread cookie dough, or use refrigerated
sugar cookie dough.

We opted for shortbread instead, to allow us to bake it directly in the
cast iron fish molds I'd found.  However, I believe it would probably be
closer to the "fine pastry" recipe in All the King's Cook's by Peter
Brears, as described in the recipe for peascods.

Filling:
     1 c. blanched almonds
     1/2 c each raisins and currants
     1 c powdered sugar
     3 T dry marjoram, or 1 T fresh
     1/2 c. fresh parsley
     4 threads of saffron
     1 tsp "good spice", ie a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, etc

Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, and blend
until the stuff begins to stick together.  Makes 2c. filling.  Roll out
the pastry dough, and cut out shapes. Fish shapes are appropriate. Place a
dollop of filling on the bottom crust, cover with a top crust, and seal
the edges with a fork dipped in water. Bake at 375o for 10-15 min, or
until lightly brown.


Exerpt from Banquetting Stuffe, Rare Conceites and Strange Delightes by
Peter Brears p 67:
Cast sugar work was perhaps the most impressive, and the most difficult,
of all the highly decorated dishes that appeared at the banquet table.  It
was used to make all kinds of birds, beasts, fruits, and the other three
dimensional figures or "standards" necessary for decorating marchepanes,
etc., in which the cook could fully demonstrate his skill in technique and
design...eg. Hugh Plat 1600...
Work of this kind began with the preparation of a number of moulds.  These
might be made in stone, wood, or pewter by a craftsman with the required
skills, but probably most moulds were made of 'alabaster' or plaster of
Paris, by the cooks themselves.  Taking actual objects, such as a pheasant
with it's plumage smeared down to a smooth surface, or an orange or a
lemon, plaster was poured over first one section and then another to
produce a mould which could be dismantled to remove its contents.  The dry
plaster was then soaked in water for a period varying from an hour to
overnight, depending on the recipe.  Having been dried with a cloth, it
was assembled, its sections tied securely together with tape, and a syrup
of sugar boiled to hard crack (325*F) poured in.  The mould was then
rotated in the hand to spread an even layer of sugar around the interior,
allowed to cool, and then opened to reveal a complete sugar creature or
fruit.  This could either be decorated either in its natural colors or
with gold-leaf guilding.

Sugar Plate recipe from Banqueting Stuffe, Rare Conceits and Strange
Delightes
p 69
1/2 tsp gelatine (as an affordable alternative to gum tragacanth)
1 tsp (5 ml)lemon juice
2 tsp (10 ml) rosewater
1/2 egg white, lightly beaten
12-16 oz (250-450g) icing sugar
A few drops of food coloring if required
Stir the gelatine into the lemon juice and rosewater in a basin and place
over a bowl of hot water until melted.  Stir in the egg white, add food
coloring and work in the icing sugar, little by little, until a dough is
formed.  It can then be turned out on a board dusted with icing sugar,
kneaded until completely smooth, rolled out and used as required to make
(SEE DESCRIPTIONS IN BOOK)

We made sugar paste crab shells built around styrofoam bowls to hold the
compost (or "sweet and sour crab")

We also meant to make the turtles out of hot water pastry, but after some
logistical difficulties went with foil lined paper mache instead

Stewed Beef _Take a Thousand eggs or More_ vol 2

Take fair ribs of fresh beef, And (if thu will) roast it till it is nigh
enough; then put it in a fair small pot; cast thereto parsley and onions
minced, raisins of corinth, powdered pepper, cinnamon, cloves, sandalwood,
saffron, and slat; then cast thereto wine and a little vinegar; set a lid
on the pot, and let it boil soakingly on a fair charcoal till it is
enough; then lay the flesh, in dishes, and the syrup thereupon, And serve
it forth.

(we used a dry red with berry and oak overtones and a mixture of round
roast and sirloin roast for the meat)

Trayne Roste Take a Thousand Eggs or More p 255 Harleian MS 4016

         4 pieces heavy string 18" long
         1/4 cup sliced almonds, soaked in warm water and drained
         18 dried figs, halved
         6 oz dates, halved
         1/2 cup seedless raisins
         1 1/2 cups oil
         7 oz beer, ale or wine
         1 1/3 cups flour
         1 tsp sugar
         1 1/4 tsp ground cloves
         1/2 tsp ground ginger
         dash of salt

Using a sharp needle, thread the dried fruits and nuts onto the strings.
Alternate the fruits and nuts to achieve an uneven appearance. Set aside.
Beat together beer, flour, salt and spices. Dip the strings of fruit and
nuts in the batter to coat. Fry in oil over high heat one at a time. Fry
until golden and drain.



Fine Gingerbread: Hugh Plat's Delites for Ladies 1603

22 To make Gingerbread
Take three stale manchets and grate them, drie them, and sift them through
a fine sieve, then adde vnto them one ounce of ginger being beaten, and as
much Cinnamon, one ounce of liquerice and anniseeds being beaten together
and searced, half a pound of sugar, then boile all these together in a
posnet, with a quart of claret wine till they come to a stiff paste with
often stirring of it, and when it is stiff, mold it on a table and so
driue it thin, and print it in your mouldes, dust your moldes with
Cinnamon, Ginger and Liquerice, being mixed together in fine powder.  This
is your Gingerbread vsued at the court, and in all Gentlemens houses at
festivall times.  It is otherwise called drie Leach.

Adaptation of the above recipe given in: All the King's Cooks p86

8 oz (225 g) fresh white breadcrumbs
1 tsp (5ml) aniseed
1 tsp (5 ml) ground liquorice
1 tsp (5ml) ground ginger
1 tsp (5 ml) ground cinnamon
1 oz (25 g) sugar
1/4 pint (150 ml) claret

Dry the breadcrumbs under the grill or in the oven, without browning.  Mix
them with the remaining ingredients in a saucepan, and work with a wooden
spatula over a gentle heat until they become a very stiff red dough.
(This is a long and laborious process - hard stirring is necessary to
prevent the mixture from sticking and burning.)

Turn the mixture out onto a board dusted with ground ginger and cinnamon,
knead until perfectly smooth, then roll out to about 1/4" (7 mm) in
thickness.  Either cut them into squares, or press into small moulds and
turn out, then leave to dry on a wire rack.
Note:  I instead fashioned them into small spheres to cluster together
into faux grapes.