[Sca-cooks] Lent continues

[Sue Clemenger]

Hi, Christianna!
I'm doing the Lenten thing, too.  Guess that makes me one of the 6? <g> 
At any rate, I'm sorry I haven't posted anything about what I'm doing, 
but I've been completely caught up in some local issues, and haven't had 
much time or energy to do any posting of value.
Since my persona is mid/late 14th c. (Irish), I'm using 14th c. 
(English) sources--borrowed my friend Annys' copy of _Forme of Curye_, 
plus I'm using a copy of _Ancient Cookery_ that I happen to have.  I 
just bought groceries for everything last night, so today is my first 
official foray into Medieval Lent, although I've been doing the 
no-meat/no-dairy thing since Sunday.
These are the dishes I'm trying:
For breakfast, I'm doing Tostee (honey with wine and spices on toast), 
and will be doing a frumenty using almond milk.  ISTR seeing a recipe 
for sweetened almond milk in _To The King's Taste_, so if that checks 
out, that's what I'll be using.
I'm trying a blancmanger with fish tonight, using cod, and a 
cabbage-leek-onion potage.  Later this week, I'm doing another fish dish 
that has a wine sauce (using salmon), Funges, and Rapes in Potage, using 
Parsnips.  This weekend, I'm going to make one of those oyster/mussel 
dishes and Lombardy rice.  If I feel so inclined, I'm also going to try 
one of the recipes for pea pottage--keeping in mind the recent 
discussions about period-appropriate peas, I decided to use dried green 
split peas, rather than frozen fresh ones.
The lentil dish sounds very tasty! I'll have to keep it in mind <g>.  I 
did find it interesting, though, that I didn't find a single recipe for 
lentils in the two books that I'm using for my dishes...is this an 
oversight on my part, do you think? Or were lentils just not common in 
English usage in the 14th c?
I'm planning on writing this all up in some fashion, once I'm done, for 
our local (baronial) newsletter, but it occurs to me that it might be 
Tres Cool if the 6 or so of us wrote up something jointly, and submitted 
to _TI_ or something.  (with a copy to Stefan, of course!) What do the 
rest of you think?
--maire
p.s.  For the spiritual part, I'm sitting quietly every morning (sort of 
a zen thing, I think).  For a charity, I'm donating money equal to what 
I'm spending on groceries this week, to our local food bank.

kingstaste at mindspring.com wrote:
> Still no word from other Lenten fasters?  Aoghann and me, what about Lainie
> and Urtatim?  I just re-read all the messages leading up to this idea, and
> Lainie said there were 6 that had expressed an interest.  So, what's up?
> I made my blancmange last night - and went ahead and used brown rice, more
> because I try not to eat much white rice these days than anything else, and
> I'm not serving this to anyone but me.  I cooked the brown rice in
> commercial almond milk, salt, and ginger.  I poached some sole fillets in
> almond milk and let them cool, then combined the cooled rice and fish.  It's
> ok, blancmange is a bland dish anyway, so it's ok but not a real remarkable
> dish.
> I have recently discovered these little green French lentils that are
> wonderful, I have some left over from last week that I cooked with carrots,
> onions, and a few spices, with some shredded spinach stirred in at the end -
> yum!  I have some shrimp thawed that I want to do something with, but other
> than this mention - Shrympes - Harleian MS 4016 (Austin p. 103), I haven't
> found anything I want to try with them yet.  Cooked porridge of mixed grains
> and dried fruits with apple and grape juice for mornings.
> For the spiritual side, I have done my stretching exercises each morning,
> and I'm glad of the excuse of this fast to get me motivated to do them.  In
> re-reading previous posts about this topic I've run across a concern though,
> is one supposed to abstain from sex during Lent as well?  (I may have to get
> an indulgence here... ;)
> 	But, I really want to hear what others are doing, part of this is to be
> part of a community, right?
> 	Christianna
>