[Sca-cooks] Danelaw feast - Take Two

[Stefan li Rous]

   Aoghann asked:
> Lard and other animal fats would be more period, but I have chosen to
> substitute oil for reasons of health. I am curious, what kinds of oils,
> if any, might have been used for cooking in 9th century "England"?

You might want to check some of the previous conversations on the use 
of oil that are in the file in the FOOD section of the Florilegium. 
Since olive oil would have had to be imported from the Mediterranean, I 
doubt that it would have been used in this area.
cooking-oils-msg  (59K)  5/ 6/04    Period cooking and food oils.

> I want to thank you all for the input so far. I am still working on
> this, trying to learn what would have be reasonable or possible during
> this period and at this time. I have also tried to keep to things that
> would be available the first weekend in October. However, being city
> born and bred, I have no clear picture. You mean, they didn't have
> strawberries to decorate their Yule puddings? :)

I doubt they had what is usually thought of as "Yule puddings". But 
perhaps they had an ancestor. However, no strawberries either. I 
believe that medieval strawberries were an Alpine fruit. They were also 
much smaller until they were hybridized with a South American version.
You might want to check these two files in the FOOD-FRUITS section of 
the Florilegium:
strawberries-msg  (52K)  8/19/03    Period strawberries. Recipes.
Period-Fruit-art  (60K)  1/13/02    "Fruit of Period Times" by Baron
                                        Akim Yaroslavich.

> At this point, I see
> two issues. 1) I may be pushing it with the cinnamon. 2) This is really
> a big feast. To the latter, this is the first feast being given after
> the investiture of our new Baron and Baroness. I intend this to be a
> display of their largesse. Surely a sentiment that would have been held
> at the time.

I don't think that the several tablespoons you mentioned is that big an 
amount for such a big an occasion. In period, the expensive spices 
probably didn't go on everyone's food, anyway. One thing we do 
differently is that most folks eating our feasts get the same foods. It 
appears that food was served very hierarchically in many medieval 
feasts and that only higher up folks got the fanciest food and the 
largest variety with this gradually reducing as you went down the 
social ladder.

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 ****