[Sca-cooks] Illusion feast was Portuguese Cookbook

[Robert Downie]

Olwen the Odd wrote:

> So tell us more about this illusions feast you are planning.  Or just me if
> you want it kept a secret for a while.  And MAKE SURE TO TAKE
> PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!  Or I shall have to send some poison marzipan along...
> Olwen the very curious.

We're working around a love theme for Bardic Madness, since it's being held on
February 14th. The actual menu posted to the Principality and Baronial lists is
much more mysterious, and leaves much more to the imagination.  First of all, I
need to thank the many knowledgeable and helpful individuals on this list that
helped set me on the right track to researching illusion foods!  We're working
on a feast booklet with recipes, sources and thank you's.  Once the event is
over I'll post it to the Yahoo group files.  Right now I'm concentrating on
getting all the non edible aspects done before proceeding to the actual foods.
I also want to borrow my brother's digital camera and take many pictures to
also post to the group files.  Oh, and yes, I am insane...just in case the menu
didn't tip you off.
Faerisa

On the Tables:

-"Redressed" Peacocks:  bread bodies adorned with papier mache wings and
necks/heads with skewers of vegetables, cheeses, eggs, 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 _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 tin foil) covering Chicken with
Orange Sauce
-Heart shaped mushroom and cheese pasties
-Sausage ‘snails’
-Plums (or acorns) and oak leaves
-‘Apple’ eggs (thanks for the cool idea Olwen!)
-candied walnuts in sugar paste shells

2nd Course

Presentation: Neptune serves head table.  He rides a chariot (piece of plywood
with carpet glued on the bottom, fuzzy side down and cardboard waves on the
sides) pulled by 2 seahorses (two people wearing masks and scaly tabbards).

-Mock Turtle: a beef stew hidden in a pastry turtle
-Rice served molded into the shape of a fish
-salmon ‘carrots’
-beef  and/or marrow ‘peascods’
-faux oysters (aquapatis in sanitized oyster shells) with carved almond pearls
-a sugar plate crab filled with compost
-‘fish newtons’ (fritters in the shape of fishes from Platina)

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 they can of the
food, appologetically presenting the remaining desserts along with the entrails
of the beast.

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