[Sca-cooks] Siege Cookery at Talonvale - The Dishes & Notes

[iasmin at comcast.net]

Although abysmally late in coming, I've finally gotten enough breathing space at work to sit down and detail something about the actual dishes that were served at the Siege on Talonvale event held in the Middle Kingdom this past weekend. (For those of you outside the Kingdom or not attending, I was one of the judges along with two other territorial baronesses of the baronies surrounding the shire hosting the event.)

The list of ingredients was posted previously but the notable highlights for those of you just hopping in on this thread, there was goat as the only meat (with or without bones), a few types of berries, goose eggs, beef fat (but no other oil), asiago cheese, a mix of a few vegetables, a small collection of spices, and a mix of barley and rye flour as one of the grain choices.

Each team created as many dishes as they felt necessary to be judged on taste and appearance on a scale from 1-10 (with 10 being the best). One thing I do not know are the names of the team's members. We only labeled the presentations by number so that's how I wrote my notes.


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TEAM 1
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Lovely wood bowls and a nice terracotta pitcher with water, with all food protectively wrapped in some  very nice woven napkins. Three major dishes were presented:

-- Berry compote. A simple selection of the mixed berries that they could choose from.  The perfect use for the naturally ripe fruit. Simple and unadorned.

-- Bread balls. Rather bland. A unique use of the grains available. Unleavened. Would have benefited from more moisture.

-- Braised goat with onions and spices. Quite possibly my favorite dish of the entire judging. Of all the entries this one cooked the goat to perfection. If I hadn't known it was goat to begin with I wouldn't have known it when I tasted it. Filling. I went back to this one for 3rds after all the judging was done. And the cook sent me the recipe yesterday. WOoO! I win!

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TEAM 2
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Of special note here is the fact that this team's entry CAUGHT ON FIRE just before the judging. That is, one of their display candles lit a small napkin on fire in a freak flip of the wind that had otherwise been non-existent for most of the day. The non-natural fibers are probably what saved the entry because the fire was put out with large amounts of water. The napkin had charred and melted into very large pieces that were peeled away from the entry and other than a bit of water-logged cloth and charred silver trays, no harm seemed to have come from it.

Silver trays and glass dishes for display. Charred remains of napkins as well. :)

-- Barley cakes. Possibly with onion. Needed salt (and I'm not a salt girl very often). Great texture.

-- Mock meat balls with chunks of turnips and rutabagas. Very nice subtlety. The meatballs should have served as mere decoration (though the judges did taste them). It looked much like a sweet&sour pork ball dish. Very pretty.

-- Mock ham slices. Perhaps my favorite looking dish on the whole table. Steamed slices of rutabaga were laid out with a small cutout slightly off center that had been filled with a small slice of parsnip. The judges had to look several times at the entry to be sure additional ingredients hadn't been added. These looked *fabulous* and exactly like ham slices you get in the supermarket. Taste again was a little bland. Needed more salt.

-- Cabbage soup. Made with both red and green cabbage which, unfortunately, turned everything quite gray. Unappealing to look at. Watery in flavor and appearance (though possibly because of the dousing from the fire; we're not certain).

-- Cabbage salad. A simple salad of raw, chopped salad and vinegar. Quite tasty.

-- Roasted goat with herbs. A nicely roasted chunk of meat that was probably a bit over-cooked. The flavor was good, but the meat a bit tough from the cooking method. May have benefited from a bit more moisture.

-- Cheesecake. Yes, Cheesecake. Though technically it had the texture more of a pudding but it was a wonderful little treat and absolutely beautiful. The goose eggs made it so very rich. And the berries decorating the top were so delicate. We almost wouldn't eat this and we stared at it for quite some time before I "took one for the team" and cut into the first slice. :)

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TEAM 3
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Although this team presented only three dishes like Team 1, theirs too was quite lovely and we appreciated the little gourmet twist these cooks gave us in the presentation. It brought smiles to our faces to see.

-- Berry tart. Looked almost looked as if the berries had been placed by hand, except that they'd been made into a paste mixture. The crust was a bit different, not being made of any traditional flours, and so the texture was odd and a bit flat in flavor. It was beautifully presented though.

-- Lentils and goat soup with cheese and mushroom to add once plated. This soup was the second best on the table. It was very well spiced, salted, and presented. Everything was very well balanced and incredibly pleasing to my palate. The gourmet touch of the mushrooms and cheese for sprinkling after the soup was in our bowls was a wonderful little addition to the presentation.

-- Goat medallions with fresh mushrooms. Flavor was good, texture was only ok. The small pieces of meat seemed too delicate for the cooking method they used. That aside, this was possibly the most artistically presented dish of the entire competition. The dark plate set off the goat medallions wonderfully and the mushrooms contrasted very nicely on the plate. If we hadn't been in a campground, I suspect this dish could have easily been photographed for a magazine. I wished I'd had a camera. I hopeful one of the event organizers posts the pictures or makes them available.

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TEAM 4
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This team had the fewest dishes, but the best soup of all the entries. I wish I'd thought to ask for the recipe, darnit.

-- Goat soup (MORE GOAT SOUP!). I loved this dish. Loved it. Went back for seconds. Goat, vegetables, broth, spices. Everything in a perfect balance.

-- Mixed berry drink. Sweetened with the precious little sugar they were given, this was surprisingly tasty though I didn't drink much of it. I don't drink sweet drinks (not able to tolerate the sugar). The other judges were happy to drink my portion of it (I used it as a bribe for another dish that we were all eyeing). The mixture of berries and water and sugar seemed to settle a bit while waiting to be judged so we had to stir it to get the full flavor.

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TEAM 5
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Of all the entries, this one had the largest number of dishes. In terms of "impressing the lord of the castle" this one definitely would have done so on numbers alone. How the cooks managed to get that much food out of so little is a source of amazement for us. We were shocked when they arrived. It took two people to carry everything. This team won the competition in both the taste and appearance categories. Everything displayed or presented mostly in wood.

-- Roast goat rubbed with garlic, rosemary, and sage (I think). It would be hard to call this the centerpiece of the entry. In my opinion it wasn't, but the other judges seemed to prefer calling it that. Nicely roasted, though tending to a bit dry. The flavoring was quite good. There was a mixed berry "jelly" to be served with the roast that all the judges thought was astounding.

-- Fried cheese flatbread and carrot flatbread. Almost like the little pancakes from the German corpus. Bland. I used the sauce from the meat on this in addition to the dip. The carrot versions of these were quite a bit softer than the cheese version.

-- Lentil Dip. We were like kids with this. Grunting and stuffing out faces and gesturing wildly to the other judges to try more. God this was good. Like a "hummus" style mix but chunkier. Excellent flavor. We ate it off the flatbread and this paired nicely.

-- Goose egg salad. The goose eggs given out for the cooking (if it was a chosen item by the team) had to be broken up ahead of time in case the eggs were bad (with ... uhm...goose bits). Despite this, team 5 managed a bit of an egg salad. Tart and buttery. We also ate this with the flatbread. I enjoyed the simplicity of this dish.

-- Goat stew with vegetables. Very oddly flavored. Perhaps it was one of the herbs used but the stew had a very bitter tang to it that hung on my palate. The other judges really liked this dish though.

-- Two porridges, one sweet, one savory. As porridges go, the texture an appearance of these were both outstanding. Not too glutinous and not too watery. The savory was a bit bland but nicely herbed. The sweet version was much tastier. We were getting hugely full by the time we tried this dish.

-- Mixed berry crumble. A sweet little dish of toasted oats, sugar, and mixed berries. Quite pleasant. Had there been more of it, we would have passed this dish around for people to try.
-- Vinegar and rosemary drink. I was probably the only person who liked this. Very refreshing, not at all sweet. When the judging was done, I filled my mug with what was left and ran as fast as I could so no one could take it away from me. I didn't run fast. I was too full of goat.

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OVERALL NOTES
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Once everything was said and done, we couldn't help but be terribly impressed by everything the teams tried and accomplished. We begged the event coordinator to allow us something...anything...to award each team because of how wonderful we thought their work was. We negotiated free passage and camping to the event for each team of cooks for next year.

There were almost 6 teams (one team had to withdraw due to hospitalization, unfortunately). With only 3 judges nibbling and sampling, we were very very full by the time we were done. And with as much food as the cooks managed to produce, we felt like much of it was wasted on us. We wanted to give a lot of it away to passing event goers saying "Hey come try this.....uhmmm. goat. No no! You'll like it! Trust me!" :)

Assuming the competition happens next year (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease) there will likely be some changes, though nothing was decided. We suggested the organizers review the judging categories. Our desire to award each team some sort of prize made us wonder if the categories needed to be added to. We suggested an overall winner and a best single dish winner with an award for the "WOW" factor of any one particular dish.

The idea of serving the judges was proposed, but the discussion didn't indicate to me that everyone thought this was a good idea. We liked the idea of grazing. We also noted the teams weren't told if they should stick around to see us judge or not. Some teams did, some didn't. It was a little disconcerting to judge food with someone watching you. And few women like to have their pictures taken when they've just stuffed their mouth full of goat. (Okay, maybe it's just me that doesn't like it....*grin*).

Overall we had a fabulous time. I would absolutely do this again. And the other baronesses agreed they would love to as well. Congratulations everyone! You did great things!

Iasmin
Iasmin de Cordoba, Baroness Roaring Wastes, Middle Kingdom
iasmin at comcast.net