[Sca-Cooks] period food preservation-- tell me about your experiments

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jul 25, 2007, at 1:25 PM, Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise wrote:

> Hey, everyone--- I'm looking for stories about your attempts to try
> period food preservation techniques. Yes, this is for my class.
>
> I know about Lord's Salt and am going to use it for some beef...
> Adamantius, you had very good luck with one of the compost recipes
> keeping for years in your fridge, didn't you? Which one was it, do you
> remember?

As I recall, it was sort of a synthesis of the FoC recipe (where  
everything is cooked, dried on a cloth, lightly salted, and conserved  
with spices in honey, Lombard mustard, wine, and vinegar), and the Le  
Menagier recipe with the green nuts. I just cooked the green nuts (I  
came into possession of some green almonds in the pod) like green  
beans and included them. The only thing I did really differently was  
to heat it all up and put it in sterilized canning jars. But the jar  
had been opened and still stayed remarkably intact for years in the  
fridge.

After having made the stuff several times, and also seen it made by  
others, I'm convinced that the key to a good and well-preserved  
compost is to use _plenty_ of honey and achieve a very thick sauce.

Adamantius