[Sca-cooks] A Question

[Craig Daniel]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM,  <chawkswrth at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Let us say that the Event Stewart comes to you and requests a Feast based on the poem/song, the 12 days of Christmas for a
> 12th Night Event for a many months in the Future Date.
> Setting aside the possible Non-Period question, as well as budget concerns, what would you do with it?

If we're setting aside the non-period question *completely* it's easy
enough to compromise on certain things and produce undocumentable
recipes. Making a period or even mostly conjecturally period-plausible
feast is harder.

Some thoughts

1. A subtlety, clearly, and one involving both pears and partridge or
other small fowl.

2. Squab.

3. Cornish game hens, or just whole roast chicken.

4. More poultry. Ideally songbirds, though unless you count squab
(which are already playing turtledove here) those can be hard to get.

5. Angel food cake. Pineapple rings. Doughnuts. Bread, formed in
circles and dyed yellow with saffron. Paella or manjar imperial
(saffron-tinted blancmange, out of De Nola), served in a ring shape.
Perhaps of the above, in one course, giving you five total, or perhaps
stick with the period option and go with the manjar imperial and the
bread. You can probably come up with more - if it's yellow, a round
presentation isn't too hard. Paella appeals to me despite not being
documentable just because it's got seafood, and a feast of nothing but
birds is unpleasant. But this is also a good excuse for a vegetable
dish - got a ring-shaped pan you can make savory toasted cheese in?

6. Goose, obviously. And eggs, since they're geese a-laying. Pick your
favorite period egg dishes and make them all, and serve them alongside
a small amount of goose to give people a break from all the freaking
poultry.

7. Yes, it's time for more poultry. This time it's clearly a soup
(since they're a-swimming); I don't think I'd bother with actual swan,
since you won't be able to appreciate the sheer size of the bird in
that form. Duck soup, maybe?

8. Either pick a good dairy dish (some sort of cheese pie?) or inject
some red meat into the feast at this point.

9. Hey, the feast needs some entertainment, doesn't it? You could
either get actual ladies dancing or make a delightful subtlety out of
marzipan.

10. Look for foods with aristocratic names, especially ones that don't
involve poultry. I'd probably be serving king crab for this one.

11. Well, you'll get a good laugh out of the foodies if you serve
steak au poivre and other peppercorn-intensive dishes, but nobody else
will get it. This one I have no idea what to do with.

12. Remember how we were talking a few days ago about the timpano
served in The Big Night? They're totally OOP, but I think it's either
those or chicken drumsticks, and this feast has more than enough birds
already.

 - Jaume