[Sca-cooks] Drunken Royal Concubine Chicken, was mongolian meat cakes

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Aislinn wrote:
>There is another recipe from this book (I think) served at the same 
>feast that may help you recognise the book. It's called "Royal 
>Concubine Chicken". Here is the intro:
>
>The royal concubine referred to in this case is Empress Yang 
>Kwei-fei of the Tang Dynasty, 618-905 C.E. She was a great beauty 
>but also a drunkard. Hence the chicken dish named after her was a 
>dish which could be called 'Inebriated chicken", as it had a high 
>alcohol content.
>
>The recipe is a 3 lb chicken cooked in 24 oz wine, chicken stock, 
>ginger and onion.
>
>The chicken should be very winey but pure in flavour and tender 
>enough to take to pieces with a pair of chopsticks, symbolical of 
>the qualities of the royal concubine and her tragic life. Although 
>frequently drunk, her love for the Emperor was pure. In the end she 
>was exectuted by the military leaders who demanded her life for 
>having led the Emperor astray, during a rebellion which eventually 
>spelled the doom of the once-powerful Tang dynasty.

Stories are nice, and often used to "justify" recipes, but is this 
actually an ancient or SCA period dish?

-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita