[Sca-cooks] Re: [Sca-cooks) onion soup...

[Stefan li Rous]

Elizabeth mention when asked where her feast was going to be from:
> Closer to Moscow, they had more variety.
Hmmm. What are you basing this on?
In the Middle Ages the transportation networks were primitive. With a 
few exceptions, such as wine, honey or spices, most foods were eaten 
fairly close to where they were grown. Being close to a waterway made a 
big difference in the availability of items from far off. I'm sorry, 
but I don't know enough about Russian geography or history to know 
whether Moscow fit this or whether Moscow was even a major urban center 
at this point. I thought much of Moscow's climb in importance happened 
since the medieval time period.

The growing season around Moscow isn't that long. I would think the 
more southerly regions or even the more westerly ones such as Kiev 
might actually have more variety. And I suspect that many southern or 
western areas might have had more trade with Byzantium.
There is a small section on Russian food in this file in the CULTURES 
section of the Florilegium:
Rus-Handbook-art  (97K)  9/ 2/99    Rus' Handbook from the Eoforwic 
Novogrod
                                        event AS 24. Edited by Nicolaa 
de Bracton
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CULTURES/Rus-Handbook-art.html

This handbook was put together for an event centered around Novogrod, 
but I don't think they even tried to differentiate
between the food of Russia and that specifically of Novogrod.

I'm certainly not trying to steer you away from making this feast from 
a particular area but I'd be happy just to see a feast from Russia, 
much less a smaller area. I'm not sure the definitive material exists, 
but perhaps with the knowledge of medieval Russian food we do have, and 
some reasonable guesses about transport, growing regions and such, you 
can come up with an appropriate feast for the region.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****