[Sca-cooks] Northern Italian Feast - commentary

[Debra Hense/Kateryn de Develyn]

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.