[Sca-cooks] Iron Chef at Highland War

[Susan Fox]

This was my first camping trip as a single traveler, make possible by the
kind folks of the Shire of Al-Sahid, the hosting group. Lady Alix, in charge
of this contest, invited me with an offer I could not refuse, an Iron Chef
contest; Lady Valdis and Lord Martin Monteyro made it possible for me to
stay onsite with my own little dome tent and Martin's strength and
persistance, carrying my copious boxes of kitchen stuff around. My heartfelt
gratitude to all of them.

LONG Frickin' Drive, which would not have been so bad if not for Holiday
Weekend Traffic. I did try to get out of town earlier but you know my last
minute flurrying. At least I made it before dark.
I went into this at a few disadvantages and really needed to have done more
confidence building beforehand. No assistant, all my "evil minions" were at
other events or had moved away. No books except for CARIADOC'S MISCELLANY
that I could download and print out, since my SCA cookbooks are still hidden
in storage. Very poor sleep the night before; sleeping on the ground is no
longer an option for me. Frickin' OWCH. Curiously, my problematical spine
gave me less aggrevation than usual the next day, thank goodness for small
mercies. Well, I didn't sit down much and that must have helped.

The Iron Chef Contest was loads of fun, even despite the stress. The
defending champion was Lady Muririath MacLabhrainn, pronounce that as
Ma-RYE-ah Mac Laren. A high-end realtor from Lancaster/Palmdale area [YES,
smarty, there are such!], good mom, excellent fencer and baronial officer
type who's going places. Her hubby is a multi-baronial champion of fence,
which just shows to go you that the family that slays together, stays
together. She had as assistant Lady Meala, the perky fencer who always wears
bright pink. I never knew how much of a foody she was, we must hang out and
bond more some time! We put our kitchen areas together at adjacent picnic
tables, each bringing a two-burner propane camp stove, sharing a "larder" of
standard ingredients as well as the spices and stuff we had each brought. A
friend of hers was shooting video for their family website. I suggested that
the completed version be sent to Food Network for their "How Do You Iron
Chef?" promotion; they seemed interested.

Unlike the TV version, we were each presented with a basket of ingredients.
Each of these had to be used within the whole meal; every dish presented had
to include at least one of them.
1. A whole chicken. A true luxury item before the era of poultry factory
farming! It was still a bit frosty on the inside but we coped.
2. A head of curly kale, purple at the ribs and heart shading to dark green.
Beautiful to look at and delicious.
3. Fresh Rosemary, the promised Fresh Herb.
4. Pears, dull green-brown on the outside, juicy-sweet.
5. Brown lentils, a good choice for a legume for their quick-cooking
qualities.
6. Walnuts, harvested locally.

The shared larder included such items as sea salt, red wine vinegar, olive
oil, "stale" rolls which actually hadn't hardened all that much in two days
on the counter, cone sugar, honey and some eggs fresh from the hens
belonging to one of the local shire folk. I so love fresh eggs from birds
with names and these were brown and green and rich.

The judges were TRM Dietrich and Adriana, she is a "foody" and they both
value good documentation in artistic endeavors; and Baron Jamal of
Lyondemere, one of the few cookery Laurels in Caid. He is blunt-spoken but
will tell you what he honestly thinks so I was satisfied.

I made:

1. Fresh cheese infused with rosemary. Put rosemary sprigs into the pot with
1 quart raw milk, scalded it, dropped in 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar,
stirred the mixture and watched it curdle as I stirred a bit. Strained the
mixture and let it hang for a bit. This turned out a bit too chewy according
to Judge Jamal, he recommended less vinegar. All liked how the rosemary was
present but not overwhelming, I will make this on other occasions!

2. Pear Oxymel. A drink syrup, related to Sekanjabin, of vinegar, sugar or
honey and fruit, documented from Al-Andalus. I needed more sugar but there
wasn't enough, which Jamal noticed. The pear flavor could have been more
pronounced, alas for time limits. Still tasty and refreshing, I would have
brought more home if the wasps had not invaded the pitcher before I could
find a bottle.

3. "Cresses In Lent" from Two 15th Century Cookbooks. Greens sauteed in
olive oil and cooked a bit more with almond milk. They all seemed to liked
it except Jamal thought it too salty. His Majesty commented then and later
that I had made a Kale Believer out of him. [beam!]

4. Moorish Chicken, a Portuguese dish of fried-then-stewed chicken pieces in
onions and spices, egg-yolk stirred into the dish and then served over
sippets of toast . Used rosemary, saffron, ginger and long pepper instead of
the spices specified in the recipe. This was OK by the guidelines of the
contest, the scenario said we had to use what we had, right? Good flavor
balance, Jamal thought there was too much saffron. Sigh. It's a royal table,
sumptuousness is the rule, right? Um, not quite. Well I tried.

5. Rishta, from Al-Baghdadi. This is the earliest pasta recipe I've ever
found, dated 1228. Rishta means "thread" and mine looked much like my
drop-spindled yarn, lumpy but friendly. Usually made with lamb but I did it
with chicken giblets, which really worked nicely. Cooked them in water, the
resultant broth with a bunch of cinnamon is used to cook lentils until just
done and then home-made noodles cooked therein. Her Majesty liked it
particularly, appreciated the home-style quality. Jamal said the noodles
were under-done. I don't think they were, the ones I tried were not, but
they were pretty thickly cut and a lot of people don't care for that.

I will update with Muiriath's dishes when she writes them down. Her whole
menu highlighted the fine Cabernet wine that is produced in her home barony,
good theme! I do recall we did similar things with the Kale. She did a thing
with braised onions and red wine over sippits of toast that I liked very
well but Jamal didn't, saying that un-toasted bread was "horrible." Eeep,
that is not a word I would have used so frankly for a junior artisan. Pear
wardens in wine, the obvious Medieval go-to which I deliberately avoided,
but she did execute them well, with a hard-crack honey candy with walnuts. I
forget the exact chicken dish but I could have sat by the leftovers and
sucked up all the broth with dry bread sops, lovely. Lentils were done with
onions but underdone and a little too crunchy.

I was pooped and washed up my dishes languidly and a bit clumsily, allowing
a lot of water to slosh on my dress to cool me evaporatively. I did decide
to go home after Court, I was NOT going to endure another night on the
ground. Wanna know how tired I was? I didn't even buy anything on Merchants
Row, not a frippery. Nothing looked worth taking home even at merchants I
liked.

We got to wait until Closing Court for the results: Muiriath was the victor
by one single point. Whew! I do not begrudge it of her, not a single bit,
but I want to ask for the point breakdown after everybody is home. I thought
my notes and comments from the judges sounded more promising than hers...
not being a bad sport, just wondering where =I= fell short.

I have volunteered to help judge the contest next year, which will feature
an awesome cooking herald, Lady Illuminada, facing off Lady Muiriath for the
title. I'm taking a hotel room in town this time however. The war will still
be Labor Day Weekend but WorldCon will be the week earlier, if memory
serves.