[Sca-cooks] Musing on Mongol

[Elaine Koogler]

If you look at some of the recipes that Paul cites in his information about
the work prior to the actual translation, you will find some recipes that
influenced what was done.  IIRC there is at least one really wonderful fried
spinach dish that's very similar to a European one, only differing in
seasonings.  It would also not be unreasonable to include a Middle Eastern
veggie dish or two.  Same, same with using the Cloud Hall ms.  Mongol
cookery was heavily influenced by both of these, so their inclusion would
not be much of a stretch at all.  In fact, in the feast where I featured the
Mongol recipes, I did just this to get a few vegetarian dishes.

Kiri

On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Lilinah <lilinah at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I'm one of those who believe in serving historical food at SCA events. I'm
> working up a Mongol feast, based largely, of course, on the 14th C. book, "A
> Soup for the Qan", for late next year.
>
> I'm in California and i think the biggest problem i face is finding
> offerings for our local vegetarians. They've always been more than gracious,
> no whiners or grand-standers. In all my previous feasts except one, i've
> always made sure that the vegetarians could eat just about everything but
> the meat.
>
> But Mongol dishes are either meat, meat plus grains, or meat plus grains
> plus vegetables. Not big on dishes without meat. The recipes reflect
> Chinese, Turkish (i.e., Central Asian), and Southwest Asian (i.e., 'Abbasid
> Arabic) influences, strongest on the Turkic and Chinese - the Southwest
> Asian tends to be in spices used in a basically Mongol dish.
>
> So i'm trying to decide:
> -- Should i adapt some Mongolian recipes and make one table's worth of
> dishes using non-meat substitutes?
> -- Should i make some Southwest Asian (i.e., Arabic) dishes for the
> vegetarians? They're also not big on proteinaceous vegetarian offerings, but
> there are some...
> -- Should i just just apologize and say, sorry, this is a meat-heavy feast?
> -- Or are there other options?
>
> I'm not asking for folks to decide for me :-) but i'm looking for
> suggestions, especially anyone who has worked with those Mongol recipes.
>
> And please, no rants about vegetarians. The ones around here are fine folks
> who do not expect exceptional treatment, and have always been appreciative
> that i've given them consideration.
> --
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
> the persona formerly known as Anahita
>
> My LibraryThing
> http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah
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