[Sca-cooks] Period Portable Lunch Foods

[Barbara Benson]

Kingstaste: What I'm looking for now is suggestions for other period
prepared foods that would do well in our bento lunch boxes while at
the war.

Smoked Salmon would work nicely, rolled with lettuce on the outside
and tied with a chive it makes a lovely presentation for a bento. They
are even better with cream cheese betwixt the salmon and lettuce, but
you said no dairy.

Bento is one of my auxiliary food obsessions and there are plenty of
resources on-line for them. Again, none of it particularly period but
could serve as inspiration. One of the best sites is Lunch in a
Box:http://lunchinabox.net/ which has recently been receiving national
attention. A perusal through Biggie's archive has some wonderful
thoughts.

One of my other favorites is Kitchen Cow: http://www.kitchencow.com/
which is where the salmon idea came from. There is a beautiful picture
of these rolls as the header for her blog. Also worth investigating
are "Tiffins", being the Indian version of the Bento box.

Tiffins are usually cylindrical in nature and stack as stainless steel
columns. They are often insulated and can keep foods at appropriate
temperatures. They frequently feature curries in one section and rice
in a second - to be combined when eaten. I can see many of the "brown
glop in a bowl" style medieval dishes working well in this style. And
you could substitute frumenty, millet or any other cooked grain for
the rice (not that rice would be bad).

Egg based items are frequently seen in Bentos, a nice fritta style
dish would hold up well. Any of the egg based "quiche" style pies
could be easily made without crusts and placed in a box. I think the
idea of Pickles as you mentioned could be extended to some of the
prepared "pickle like" salads like those found in Rumpoldt. For my
recent Italian feast I made an Onion, Cucumber and Basil pickle-ish
salad that was delicious - and I think it would hold fairly nicely. It
might get too tart, but you could pack the "dressing" separately to
avoid this.

Which is another major feature of bento packing - they sell these tiny
squeeze bottles to pack sauces to go with foods. It helps prevent
things from getting soggy and such.

OK, I have babbled on too much, my apologies to the list.

--
Serena da Riva