[Sca-cooks] Northern Italian Feast - commentary

[Nick Sasso]

I know I am way late with this request, but could you send copy to me . . .
pretty please?

niccolo difrancesco


-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces+franiccolo=mindspring.com at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces+franiccolo=mindspring.com at ansteorra.org]On
Behalf Of Debra Hense/Kateryn de Develyn
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 6:47 AM
To: Group-SCACooks; Group-CCooks
Cc: Group-Authentic Cooks
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Northern Italian Feast - commentary


Greetings to one and all,

Well, I've finally recovered from traveling 12 hours to, cooking the feast,
and traveling 12 hours home again.

I've posted a pdf file at SCA-Authentic Feasts and at Calontir Cooks Guild
websites.

The menu was:
Recipes are taken from the Libro Novo (Banchetti) by Cristoforo Messisbugo
from the 1557 edition of the Libro Novo printed in Venice
as translated by Master Basilius Phocas (MKA Charles A. Potter)

On the table:  Appetizers
Puff pastry in the Catalan Style  #41B
Puff pastry with Proscuitto ham  #42B
Cheese pastries, #47B
Green olives/Black olives

First service/course:
Roasted Pork,
Maccaroni  #52B
Pie of Cherries  #55B
Small Stars of Another Kind #48A
Roasted Asparagus
Garlic sauce #88B, Mustard sauce #85D, Sweet sauce #88A

Second service/course:
Capon with Peas, #94D
Ravoli  #51C
Marchioness pie  #62C
Stuffed Savoy Cabbage  #81E
Golden Baloney  #96A
Lemon sauce, #85F

Final service/course:
Fresh Strawberries
Tarts of Milk in the French Style #56B
Marzipan pastry disguised as beans #49C
Perfect cookies #40

A discussion of how it went - the Golden Baloney and Marzipan Pastry
disguised as beans didn't get made.  We just plain ran out of time. I don't
think too many people missed them though.

The Marchioness pie got a tad overdone and was dry.  Some of the pastries
were dried out.  I was using convection ovens at a high altitude and while
my dough puffed into beautiful flakey layers - it also severely dried out
and so was crunchy.  One of the pastries (in the Catalan style)  - I
completely spaced off my own instructions/redaction and just threw it
together like the other two.  The cheese pastry and the meat one were still
both very good.  They would have been excellent if they had had just a
little more moisture.

I had someone else make the sauces according to my instructions.  I tried to
adjust them the day of - but was only successful with the mustard one.  I
never before realized how much I taste foods as I am going along and adjust
my recipes on the fly to account for any differences in fresh ingredient
strengths/flavors.  I cannot fault my helpers - I was the one who forgot to
allow for my adjustments.

The stuffed cabbage didn't have enough garlic, and was overcooked. This was
my fault as I forgot to watch them and didn't assign someone specifically to
watch them.

We didn't have enough aspargus. I didn't realize so many people would like
aspargus - I'm more used to dealing with the eww! more green stuff attitude.
They by the way turned out exactly as planned.

The ravioli had a substitution of kale instead of red chard as the chard
couldn't be found in the grocery store. But, other than a trifle thick -
they turned out extremely well.  I don't remember too many (if any) of them
coming back anyway.

We had to throw out the first batch of perfect cookies as they got overdone
(hockey pucks). These cookies are very finicky.  They must be thick and
chewy or else they get hard enough to chip a tooth when biting into them.
They are supposed to be peppery in flavor.  The dark muscovado sugar adds to
the gingerbread cookie flavor.

Other than that - Dame Alys gave me some excellent pointers for the
rendition of this feast (Calontir Coronation in September where I will be
cooking a subset of the above for feast).

I would appreciate any comments/guidence anyone can give me on cooking with
convection ovens - as I will again have them for the Coronation feast and do
not want to recreate the dried out the pastries again.

Thank you
Kateryn de Develyn

I can mail the .pdf format of the feast to anyone who asks.
_______________________________________________
Sca-cooks mailing list
Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks