[Sca-cooks] Favorite Food Gift Ideas & mix idea

Sharon Gordon gordonse at one.net
Mon Aug 14 10:19:27 PDT 2006


Mix of simple and more complex ideas

Olive Oil
Vinegar
Flavored vinegars, but not flavored oils
Wine/Beer/Mead
Verjuice
Cheese
Breads with fruit in it
Rose hips
Live herb plants
Garlic
Ginger
Some really good apples or pairs
Live heirloom fruit or nut trees/shrubs/plants or similar modern variety
Live rose plants with good rose hips
Heirloom seeds for period or period-looking vegetables
Honey, honey with comb
Period food cookbooks
Period herbals
Modern herbals for safety checks
Books about period dishes/pots or kitchens
Books about period gardens
Books about period or natural dyes
Books on period or modern beekeeping
Pottery
Glassware
Silverware
Cooking utensils
Iron cookpots
Grates, pot supports, raised fire pans
Dried fruit
Dried vegetables
Sourdough starter (dried or fresh)
Linen napkins
Linen tablecloths, embroidered or not
Fruit syrups
Less common bottled fruit juices
Baskets for holding produce, picnics, or shopping
Cloth for straining items or making cheese (not the cloth labled
cheesecloth)
A basket with the nonperishable ingredients for a meal and the recipe
Mortar and pestle
Beeswax candles
Candle lanterns
Candle lantern hangers
Hand salves
Food safe firewood
Cookfire tools
Nuts
Marzipan
Commercially dried meat or fish
Food safe string
Linen pouches for food storage
Linen dish towels
Pennsic camping kitchen, cabinet, or chest
Trestle or folding table, folding chairs
Natural sea salts
Nut cracker and nut picks
Copies of redactions plus originial recipe) you have worked out and tested
Natural food dyes
A selection of 3-7 packets of herbs/spices on a theme

Another thing that I think would be really fun is to make up spice mixes or
just add water and a perishable food mixtures.  I would love to hear
different ideas for these and what you'd name it if you were the marketing
guy/gal in the middle ages.

Take Bear's version of Brodo of red chickpeas for example
*******************************
Brodo of red chickpeas.  To make eight platefuls: take a libra and a half (1
libra = about 10 1/2 oz. (300 g.)) of chickpeas and wash them in hot water,
drain them, the put them in a pot in which they will be cooked.  Add half an
oncia (1 oncia = about 1 oz. (30 g.)) of flower (of wheat), a little good
oil, a little salt and about 20 crushed peppercorns and a little ground
cinnamon, then thoroughly mix all these things together with your hands.
Then add three measures of water, a little sage, rosemary and parsley roots.
Boil until it is reduced to the quantity of eight platefuls.  And when they
are nearly cooked pour in a little oil.  And if you prepare this soup for
invalids, add neither oil nor spices.

 I didn't have red chickpeas, so I substituted dried yellow.  The soup was
to
feed 24, so I cleaned and soaked 4 cups of chickpeas overnight.  Should I
prepare this again, I'll use 5 cups of chickpeas per 24 people.

I crushed about 25 peppercorns and stirred them, about 4 tablespoons of
flour, and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon into a 1/4 cup of olive oil.  I
drained the chickpeas and mixed them and the spiced oil in a large pot.  I
covered the chickpeas with water and brought it to a boil. A gray-brown
scum formed on the surface and was skimmed off.  I had to add more pepper in
the cooking, so if I make this quatity again, I'll start with about 40
peppercorns.  The heat was set set to low and the soup simmered for about
two hours.


I added a teaspoon of rubbed sage, a teaspoon of rosemary needles crushed
into the pot and 3 tablespoons of fresh parsley (no root available).  Toward
the end of the cooking I added about a teaspoon and a half of salt for
seasoning.


The soup is rich and flavorful.  Everyone at the dinner tried it and the
majority found it to be excellent.  It reheats well.  I would be tempted to
use this recipe at a feast.  As I prepared it, the recipe makes just under a
gallon or one cup of soup per person.  Using 5 cups of chickpeas per 24
people insures that everyone will get fed without having to scrape the
bottom of the pot.

****************************

For the gift you could have a glass jar with chickpeas in the bottom.  For
visual interest you might even mix red and yellow chickpeas if you can find
some of the same size.  Very different sizes are likely to result in the
smaller ones being overcooked.  In tightly woven small fiber foodsafe
unbleached cloth pouches:
Pouch 1: peppercorns
Pouch 2: flour, cinnamon, sage, reosemary, chopped dried parsley root

Instructions on an illuminated recipe sheet in an easy to read calligraphy
hand (color photocopied) that tell how to make it and how much olive oil,
water, and salt to add.  Sheet folded, and tied to jar with string.

Sharon
gordonse at one.net




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