[Sca-cooks] Re: German Feast Formats, Digest, Vol 13, Issue 3

[Martina C Grasse]

Greetings from Gwen Cat

I have translated one section, the 4 banquets for kings (an early and a 
late meal for a feast day and same for a fast day).  They are webbed at:
http://clem.mscd.edu/~grasse/GK_ASkings1.htm

I did a feast based on selections from said banquets and the originals, 
translations and redactions for that feast (along with pictures) are 
webbed at:
http://clem.mscd.edu/~grasse/GK_ASnovfeast.htm
Unfortunately Rumpolt rarely gives any special instructions for fancy 
presentations, just "bring it warm to the table, so it is good and 
welltasting."

I also have the book on Tafelzeremonie.  I have not taken the time to 
read much of it, but if there are pages or phrases you would like 
translated please let me know, I will try to assist as time permits.  I 
THINK it dealt mostly with the tableware (pretty silver sailing ship 
salt cellars and such, but there might be more to it.)

In Service (and still shaking Grand Outlandish SANDgrit out of 
EVERYTHING)
Gwen Cat
who has 4 days of use-it-or-lose-it vacation to take in June and HOPES 
to get caught up on lots of things including webbing Volkers 
translations

PS, I would translate Krug as pitcher rather than pot or crockpot 
(which here is an electric slowcooker), but it is a recipe I have 
always wanted to try (OH and I think I know a potter who might help 
GRIN).  And Im very curious about the chicken in the jar .... 


>   9. Re: German Feast Formats (Volker Bach)
>>Message: 9
>Date: 2 Jun 2004 07:07:35 -0000
>From: "Volker Bach" <bachv at paganet.de>
>Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] German Feast Formats
>To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>Message-ID: <20040602070735.28241.qmail at dserv1.dnsworld.de>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
>
>On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 18:45:08 -0400, "Barbara Benson" 
<vox8 at mindspring.com> 
>wrote :
>
>> Greetings,
>> 
>> I have become very involved in German Cookery, and now I wish to 
branch 
>out
>> a bit and find out more about the German Feast presentation and 
formats 
>that
>> were common (or not so common). Now, I know exactly where to look for 
this
>> information on French, Italian and English, but I was hoping that some 
>good
>> gentles on this list might be able to point me in the approprite
>> direction(s) for sources for German.
>> 
>> The caveat is that I do not read German. I would like to plan a 16th 
>century
>> German Feast with as much in the way of entrements and presentation as
>> possible to work out while remaining as authentic as possible within 
>reason.
>> Any assistance would be greatly appriciated.
>
>Your first point of interest would be Marx Rumpoldt's 1581 "New 
Kochbuch" 
>which gives a collection of banquets suitable for IIRC emperors, kings, 
>electors, archdukes, dukes, counts, gentlemen, burghesses, and peasants 
>(the last seems a wee bit facetious). The usual format is three courses 
of 
>various mixed meats and side dishes, followed by a fruit course 
augmented 
>with various sweet bakes goods. There are woodcuts in the 1581 edition 
>(available in facsimile through ILL, if you're lucky. The ISBN is 3-487-
>08112-1), butthey are of limited value as they seem an eclectic mix 
>selected more for general theme than specific appropriateness. Being 
>german, I never bothered to translate much of it, but Gwen Cat has an 
>ongoing translation projecton the web and may already have done the 
>banquets. 
>
>>From the impression I get,. presentation pieces do not seem to have 
bneen 
>that important in medieval Renaissance cuisine. There were usually 
things 
>like beast-shaped pastries (chicken pastries shaped like chickens, fish 
>like fish etc.) and often you see the head of a boar (presumably with 
>gilded tusks and egg eyes), but the pictures I know of normally show 
rich 
>tableware filled to overflowing with pretty food rather than artful 
deceit. 
>Museum collections often have things like golden saltcellars, fruit 
bowls 
>etc. from the 16th century. 
>
>One trick that was popular at least into the 16th century was the 'fire-
>breathing boar head'. The boar's head has a bowl or boll of wool soaked 
in 
>spirits placed in its mouth which is lit. the server then blows through 
a 
>hidden tube to make flames billow out of the mouth. 
>
>Several recipes for chicklen-in-a-jar survive, ther aim of which is to 
have 
>a cooked, deboned chicken served in a glass jar with the head sticking 
out 
>the opening. 
>
>The 'Kuechenmaistrey' lists a method for gilding cookies and I 
distinctly 
>recall having read something about letter-shaped fritters, though I 
don't 
>know where off the top of my head. 
>