[Sca-cooks] Spanish Vigil Food

[Elaine Koogler]

lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:

> A friend is getting her Laurel for Textile Arts and i offered to cook 
> for her vigil. Her persona name is mixed Islamic/Spanish name, so i 
> thought, hmmm, Islamic and Spanish food...
>
> First, since this is for a Vigil, we want to serve "finger food" 
> (loosely defined), not a whole balanced meal.
>
> Second, we'll be doing this in a hotel during Twelfth Night, where 
> we've been told by the management that we can't serve hot food 
> (insurance reasons?). So no cooking on site. I'm imagining bringing 
> precooked food in a cooler, filling the bath tub with steaming hot 
> water, and warming up bags of food. And i do have a crock pot, so 
> unless they've got special hot food sensors in the rooms...
>
> And third, we don't want really messy stuff. We want to keep the room 
> clean and make eating and discarding comparatively simple. And not 
> have folks dripping all over their nice Twelfth Night garb. So not a 
> lot of really wet stuff, except for beverages.
>
> And finally, we don't know our budget, so we don't want to be 
> selecting the most expensive stuff.
>
> I have a bunch of Islamic recipes i've sent to folks in other Kingdoms 
> who have asked for period Islamic food suitable for Vigils. A friend 
> who also cooking and i have gone over them and chosen a nice selection.
>
> Now i'm trying to make a selection of Spanish food.
>
> I found a few possible recipes in the Manual de Mujeres.
>
> Now i'm going through de Nola. I've found a few dishes that look 
> usable, such as the sweet Torta Genovese.
>
> But it looks like a huge percentage of the recipes are for sauces, if 
> i'm reading right - all those Potaje/Pottage - many appear to be 
> sauces rather than soups. And I'd like something other than cooked 
> meat with dippin' sauces from the Spanish corpus.
>
> Can any of the Spanish specialists suggest some other things? Other 
> Spanish cookbooks are fine.
>
> I have Libre de Totes Maneres de Confits in Spanish. I could probably 
> translate a few recipes, but my Spanish isn't good enough just to scan 
> through it and pick out potential recipes. So i need some guidance.
>
> Let me add that here in The West folks are quite happy to eat real 
> SCA-period food and even "weird" period food.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions,
>
> Anahita
>
I did a wonderful recipe from the Manual de Mujeres...it is a 
sweetmeat/cookie/cake made with almonds, walnuts and honey...recipe below:

*/Manual de mugeres/* translated by Meisterine Karen Larsdatter (a 16^th 
C. Spanish manuscript)

*Recipe for making a conserve of /alajú/ (a delicacy of Arabic origin, 
basically a paste made of almonds, walnuts, or pine nuts, toasted 
breadcrumbs, spices, and honey).

*Knead together well-sifted flour with oil and water. And leave the 
dough somewhat hard and knead it well. And make thin cakes and cook them 
well, so they can be ground; and grind them and sift them. And then take 
a /celemín/ of ground cleaned walnuts, and two pounds of ground toasted 
almonds. And while you crush the walnuts and almonds, mix them. Put a 
well-measured /azumbre/ of honey to the fire, and the best that you can 
find, skim it and return it to the fire. And when the honey rises, add 
the walnuts and almonds in it. And cook it until the honey is cooked. 
And when it is, remove it from the fire and put with it a half a 
/celemín/ of the grated flour cakes, and mix it well. And then add a 
half-ounce of cloves and another half (ounce) of cinnamon, and two 
nutmegs, all ground-up. And then repeat the stirring a lot. And then 
make it into cakes or put it in boxes, whichever you desire more.

My redaction (with the assistance of Mistress Rose of Black Diamond):

1 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup Walnuts, ground
1 cup almonds, toasted and ground
1cup honey
1/8 tsp. cloves, ground
1/2 tsp. cinnamon, ground
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

 

Toast almonds.  Grind almonds and walnuts together. 
Heat honey until it boils up.  Add the almond/walnut mixture and 
continue cooking until 250º on a candy thermometer. 
Add the breadcrumbs, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix together well.
Press into molds or a pan, and turn out to finish drying.

Made 3 doz. Small heart cakes.

Hope this helps...

Kiri