[Sca-cooks] Spanish recipe question.

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 14, 2006, at 8:06 AM, Bronwynmgn at aol.com wrote:

> So, I have offered to do Sunday dinner at our Convivencia event to  
> be held
> Labor Day weekend in Silver Rylle, East Kingdom.  Jadwiga's doing  
> the big
> feast on Saturday, so we are looking for something simple - a  
> hearty pottage and
> vegetarian alternative.
> This is a strongly Spanish-themed (13th century specifically)  
> event, but  I'm
> a strongly English in persona person.  So I'm thinking that if you  
> ask  an
> Englishwoman to cook for Spaniards, might she not find a recipe  
> somewhere in
> her English or French cookbooks called "pottage in the Spanish way"  
> and use
> that?
>
> Is there anything of that sort?  I myself tend to go 15th century or
> earlier, but if I need to use something later, I'll deal.
> Alternatively, since I'm not familiar with the Spanish corpus, is  
> there
> something suitable there?  Obviously it wouldn't be an English  
> recipe "in a
> Spanish manner", but it would be quite appropriate.

Later than the 15th century, there are English recipes for olla  
podrida, which some English cooks felt called upon to be able to  
prepare, either for reasons fashion-related, diplomatic, or to  
appease in-laws (which I guess is the same thing). I STR Gervase  
Markham including a recipe that has a decidedly English slant on the  
ingredients, but still, nominally, olla podrida.

I think Robin Argylle and I perpetrated this at an event a few years  
ago which featured an SCA wedding of two locals with Spanish and  
English personae.

As I recall, the dish is pretty modular: you start a pot boiling and  
add things in order of how long they take to cook, then remove the  
meats and serve them separately, possibly with a green sauce, and the  
rest as a soup.

You could make an almost identical vegetarian soup for non-meat- 
eaters, possibly augmented with a more substantial vegetable dish on  
the side, and create the illusion everybody is eating more or less  
out of the same pot.

Adamantius