[Sca-cooks] 'feast of the twice-cooked dishes'

[Barbara Benson]

> Stefan> These were dishes that were specifically supposed to be cooked twice?
> Like "twice cooked potatoes"? Or do you mean this were dishes left
> from a previous feast and saved and warmed up again? :-) Or was this
> feast connected with a very long court and you are referring to the
> fact that by the time the court was over all the feast dishes had to
> be reheated? :-)
> Oh? Can you give us more details about this feast? Serena, are you here?

Greetings,

I am leaving for Pennsic in a matter of hours, but still here.
  Maestro niccolo is teasing me it what it pretty much boils down to
;)! He is referring to the first feast I ever did independently
(without a co-cook to mentor me). It was not done on purpose, but it
seemed that almost every dish had to be cooked, and then cooked again.
I tend to follow the medieval instructions almost exactly so if it
tells you to boil it, then fry it, then bake it - well that is what I
do.

The feast was presented at our Kingdom's A&S competition, which at
that time was over a long weekend. So there was a Saturday night feast
and a Sunday night feast. Maestro niccolo was running the Saturday
night feast and therefore the kitchen - so he asked me to do the
Sunday night feast.

For example, I did Filets in Galentine (now known as Pork in Ale
Sauce) in which you have to grill the pork lightly before you braise
it in a sauce. I served a whole fried onion that had to be boiled
before it was fried. The Stuffed cabbage leaves had to have the
filling and the cabbage leaves cooked before and after assembly. The
beef had to be seared before it braised.... I hope you get the
picture.

The entire menu can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/822w6 if you are
interested. The actual theme of the feast was The Feast of Three
Dances. I had noticed that there were many dances that had something
about food in the title (the first one that started the ball rolling
was Gathering Peascods). So I recruited some dancers and developed a
feast around the dance titles: Aniseed Robin, Jenny Pluck Pears and
Oranges and Lemmons. Each course had a dish that featured the namesake
food and the dancers performed the dance within the 'U' formed by the
head table and large flanking side tables.

At the end of the feast I had a table carried out to the center of the
'U' and the dancers were  served all three courses at the same time
during everyone elses' third course. In a position of honor.

But, back to the subject, since niccolo was also in the kitchen, we
were both very involved in the preparation of each others feasts. I
believe he got a bit tired of thinking he had cooked a dish and then
myself coming back and telling him to cook it again! So, he always
refers to it as the feast of twice-cooked dishes.

Glad Tidings,
--Serena da Riva


> > Then there was the roasted orange salmon Serena de Riva foisted off
> > to huge
> > success  at the 'feast of the twice-cooked dishes' :o)