[Sca-cooks] Hot off the presses: A new Feudal Gourmet pamphlet!

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Mar 31, 2006, at 12:55 PM, Susan Fox wrote:

>> Forwarded by request
>>
>> ---------------------
>>
>> Hot off the presses: A new Feudal Gourmet pamphlet!
>>
>> Researching a medieval Recipe: Condoignac - a Quince Paste from  
>> Paris, 1393-1394.
>>
>> Our latest pamphlet is not a recipe collection, but an example of  
>> how to meticulously reconstruct a medieval recipe, from  
>> researching each of the ingredients, to analyzing in depth the  
>> multiple translations of the recipe, and going through multiple  
>> combinations of the ingredients to achieve a happy final result.   
>> A great example of taking medieval cooking to a higher level of  
>> research.  $3.00
>>
> I did this once.  Came out well but I wish people had actually  
> eaten more of it.  I guess we stuffed the guests too full for the  
> Twelve Treasures of Christmas to go over all that well.   I hate to  
> think that I broke that apple peeler for nothing.
>
> Quince tangent:  MUCH harder to work with than apples.  I had one  
> of those hand-cranked peeler/corer gadgets which worked for about  
> two and a half quinces, then the spikes on which the fruit were  
> impaled broke clean off.  My SCA nephew Celleach drilled out the  
> nubs and installed steel nails instead.  That worked on the rest of  
> the quinces and I still have the rebuilt cranker to this day!
>
> Selene

I made a large, cotignac Godzilla for the Coronation of Horic and  
Leah way back in AS negative something, and worked hard on it, and it  
was pretty spiffy, if I say so myself, with candied-petal scales and  
all, but I think the presentation we came up with for the commercial  
stuff we bought for EK 12th Night a few years ago, was almost as  
spiffy and nearly without effort. We cut it into large, square  
"cheeses", one per table, and decorated them with candied roses and  
silver dragees. My goal was to have them register to the viewer's eye  
as "fancy" _before_ they said, "Oh, look, commercial quince paste in  
squares".  I mean, the commercial product was of good quality, and  
there was little or nothing in it (except, possibly, a tiny bit of  
citric acid) that wouldn't have been in my home-made version, and  
since I've made it several times before, I can honestly say, "Been  
there, done that," and move on.

I love the stuff, though...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04