[Sca-cooks] Greetings

James of the Vayle jamesofthevayle at gmail.com
Mon Mar 17 20:40:44 PDT 2008


Thankyou for the warm welcome.

    I have been going throught the feasts I have cooked and figured I have
done six and assisted with one...I may have to be corrected with those
numbers, but my notes an recipe piles seem to indicate this is so.
   I believe that one of my favorites was a above the salt/below the salt
feast, and I only handled the above the salt, there was another cook who did
below the salt for ?? people..   I was very excited at having a budget of
$15 a person, the largest i had been allowed,  and went a little wild with
the menu.

First Course

(Delivered as soon as any business is taken care of or mostly on table)

Water to wash the hands (with fragrant herbs)
               Breads, butter, some fruit
               Salat (mostly pickles, herbs, and very little greens)
               A good mustard (with almonds, mustard seed, white wine...very
spicy
               A hard sausage (which was store bought but artisan made)

Second Course

               Small Birds (quail, grilled over coals with bacon wrapped
around it)
                          served with a mash of pears (pear slices dipped in
egg batter and fried)
               Sirloin of Beef (actually another cut, very basic roasting
with salt and long pepper
                                      then sliced just before serving)
                          served with a mash of ale
               Pottage of Noodles (hand made flour noodles cooked in beef
broth)

Third course

               Pastry of River Birds  (large ornate 'coffins' actually domes
of flour dough encasing                                    duck halves and
quarters with almond milk and spiced
pomegranite juice added halfway during cooking

               Pastry of Wild Mushrooms and Venison (similar to above but
added beef stock to the                                 pastries halfway
during cooking

               Pickled onions

 Fourth Course - Dessert

               Genovese Tart (my own donation as it was mostly almonds and
pine nuts, very                                       expensive, but quite
tasty)


    Being blessed with an amazing kitchen crew, which has helped with most
of my feasts, this was a smooth preperation.  Also my first foray into
trying to keep withing a specific time period which I was quite proud of.

   While making the river bird pastries which were quite large
monstrosities, weighing in at at least 12 pounds, I was honored to have Dame
Aoife offer to help in the decoration of the pastries.  Beautiful grapes,
ducks and deer now graced the pastries which other wise would have looked
like great mounds of golden crust.

   Having a kitchen with alot of workspace, a great stove, a small outdoor
wood grill, and three ovens (and more in remote cabins) really helped as
well.

  I hope to be doing something similar in June, but with more, smaller
dishes and am cooking the below the salt feast as well.

James

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Barbara Benson <voxeight at gmail.com> wrote:

> Welcome & Well Met!
>
> I for one would love to hear about one of your feasts - whichever one
> you feel like talking about. Everyone brings something a little bit
> different to the party, and that is what helps us all learn more.
>
> --
> Serena da Riva
>
>
> >  Hello,
> >    I have recently joined the list, and find the information here very
> >  useful.  I have been cooking feasts for the last few years now and hope
> to
> >  share information as well as learn from the many knowlegable people
> here.
> >
> >  Lord James of the Vayle
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>



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