[Sca-cooks] Topics for Classes for Scholas

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 18, 2009, at 9:30 AM, Euriol of Lothian wrote:

> My kingdom (and of course there is always Pennsic) has several events
> through the  year where classes are taught. I would like to put  
> together a
> couple of new classes, and find myself stumbling for specific  
> topics. My
> question is then, what type of classes regarding cooking would you  
> like to
> see taught?

I don't know if this helps you (being more workshop-oriented), but a  
project I've been interested in is more in the nature of semi- 
intensive, immersion tracks in various subjects, such as pasta work,  
pastry work, sugar work, sausage making, etc.

These are all subjects that I keep hearing people don't do, but have  
either never tried anything like it, or tried one thing which failed  
for some reason, and now the entire category is a closed-door-subject  
to them: I can't do that, I just don't seem to have the knack for  
that, etc.

For me, the important question is finding something that the class can  
prepare in bulk and then use in six or seven (or more, or fewer)  
different ways:

*What can we do with this unleavened wheat-flour pasta dough?
	-- We can take some and make loseyns, some for macrows, some for  
hares in papdele, some for rauioles, some for kuskynoles, some for  
tartlettes, etc.

*What can we do with all this boiled sugar syrup?
	-- We can take some and make Manus Christi, some to make payn ragoun,  
some for penydes, we can cast some in pretty shapes in molds, etc.

I think spending a day in this way gives the student (assuming all is  
successful, no explosions, no fistfights, etc.) a sense of  
accomplishment because they made a bunch of stuff, but also a chance  
to see slightly different behaviors from the same materials, in order  
to get a better sense of how to control effects, deal with problems,  
etc. And at the end of the day, fewer people saying they don't make  
pastry.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter