[Sca-cooks] FW: Elizabethans using Platina and proper cookware

[Steve Berry]

Greetings from Dame Arwen Lioncourt in AnTir (Portland, Oregon),

I am seriously considering a run at our Kingdom A&S this year, and I need
some help.  I want to cook a dish from Platina; Armoured Turnips.

I am going to translate Platina myself instead of relying on Cariadoc's
translation.
[Is the term "redaction" really appropriate, or is it an invented SCA-ism?]

Also, I have decided to use fontina cheese because it would have been more
available
in the 1470s, when Platina's cookbook was written, and it comes from the
Alps
near eastern Italy where the book comes from.

I'm working on researching my cinnamon, pepper, and other spices for how I
would
have obtained them.  I'm assuming I would have purchased them form a spicer
in London.  I want to know HOW they would have come to London.

I also bought my turnips and I'm keeping them in our cellar as an experiment
because the season is almost over.  I want to see if I can keep them until
March
when I would cook the dish.  I have to see if I would have been able to even
cook
this dish in March using turnips without them getting rotten.

Finally, I'm torn between trying to cook this dish in my persona as an
Elizabethan
noble and trying to cook it as a 15th century English noble.  I would rather
cook
it as an Elizabethan because I know the time period and culture better.  I
have
scoured all sorts of paintings by the Flemish and Italian masters looking
for images
of cookware, and I've found a few earthenware and metal ones.  I have
downloaded an image of an oval roasting pan with handles and a lid from
Stefan's Florilegium that I think would have been used for the dish.  What
do you think Elizabethan would have used for this type of cookware, metal or
earthenware, or either?

Emile Henry makes a nice earthenware oval brazier with a lid and handles, so
I'm wondering if that would be appropriate?  I also have some Pfaltzgraf
oval and round baking dishes without lids.  Armoured turnips is really like
a modern potatoes au gratin, which I wouldn't normally cook with a lid, and
I always cook it in porcelain.  Advice???

Please feel free to give me any other advice you can think of!  I know I
need it!!!!  I have always just cooked the recipes without thinking too much
about where they came from or HOW they got there.  This is a real challenge
for me.

Thank you for your time,

In Joyful Service to Amalric and Caia,
I Humbly Remain,

Dame Arwen Lioncourt  OP
Lioncourt Manor
Three Mountains
srberry [at] teleport.com