[Sca-cooks] Siege Cookery at Talonvale: Amounts of Ingredients

[iasmin at comcast.net]

Friends,
A short while back I reported on the siege cookery competition that happened at the Siege on Talonvale event here in the Pentamerean region of the Middle Kingdom. For those of you who have been waiting for the ingredient amounts, I now have them. They were as follows according to the competition organizer:
MEAT - For the entire competition, the competition organizers picked up rear quarter of a goat. That quarter was then cut off the bone and "eyeballed" into roughly equal portions of around 10-12 ounces of meat. The organizers were unsure of how much of the bone was given out in weight. The organizers also believe they won't be as generous with meat next year when they hold the competition again but because goat was a new meat for many cooks, they believed the generosity would help. I'm certain they wanted to ensure continued participation in future years of the competition, a wise choice in my opinion.
DAIRY - The competition organizers said that they believed that at this point in the "siege" of their keep, the only cheese left would be the hard cheeses. This is why they chose the Asiago. They chose Asiago over a Parmesan because of cost. 
Competitors could also choose to use 1 pint of buttermilk as a dairy. The theory behind the amount and the type was that by this point in the siege, the milk would be far from fresh and hardly plentiful. 
The goose eggs, I'm told, were purchased in Detroit, Michigan at the Eastern Market (one of the nation's oldest continuously running farmer's markets). The goose's owner was surprised that the geese had started laying again in mid-summer. The eggs were fresh and each team got two eggs to use if they chose.
GRAINS - Teams could choose 2 of 3 grain types for their entry. The choices were 6 ounces of rolled rye, 8 ounces of whole millet, or a 50/50 mix of buckwheat and rye flour. The organizers said this amounted to about 2 cups total of grains which were purchased at Whole Foods Market.
LIQUIDS - Each team received a bit more than a cup of apple cider vinegar. They also could choose to use 8 ounces of solid beef fat that needed to be rendered into oil. They could use as much water as they wished, though this was not provided for them.
FRUIT - The white currants were picked from the competition organizer's yard and amounted to approximately 1.5 cups for each team. The raspberries that could be used amounted to a little under a cup each. I have no amount available for the mulberries they were able to use, but I suspect a similar amount to the other berries.
VEGETABLES & LEGUMES - Teams could choose up to 4 vegetables from the list. The amounts were small, compared to how the final dishes appeared to my eye. 3 small carrots (with greens) 2 medium-sized parsnips, 1/2 of a rutabaga, 2 ounces of enoki mushrooms, 8 ounces of dried lentils, 1 small white onion, 1/2 bulb of garlic, and half of a red or a green cabbage.
SPICES - Each spice amounted to between 1-2 teaspoons. The nutmeg was 1 nut, the juniper berries were 6 whole dried berries. The salt was generous: a full tablespoon plus of rock salt. And teams could also choose 6 ounces of cone sugar. In all, they could choose 7 of the total spice choices available.
And I received this blurb from the competition organizer which I thought I'd share with you:
"I was surprised by how many people assumed that I would have gotten beef and called it goat, or that I would have gotten jumbo chicken eggs and called them goose eggs. It never even occurred to me. For me, the point was to use 'peasant' ingredients, as opposed to things like white flour and cream and so on which I figured would have been used up by now, and to give them out-of-the-ordinary things that they wouldn't have worked with before - all while staying period and in keeping with the season as much as possible. After all, what is the point of calling it goat if you don't have all the attendant difficulties of actually cooking with goat? In truth, I was pleased to have several of them tell me they had no idea what to do with millet, rutabaga, juniper berries, and so on. I figured I'd succeeded."
I'd say the competition was most definitely a success. Kudos, Talonvale. I can't wait for next year. :)
Iasmin
Mistress Iasmin de Cordoba, Baroness Roaring Wastes, Middle Kingdom
iasmin at comcast.net