[Sca-cooks] cooking sweets for vegans and others

Elyse Boucher elyseboucher at yahoo.com
Tue Mar 24 18:32:18 PDT 2009


Greetings from the humble scribe, Merouda Pendray, briefly delurking

My specialty is Lenten cookery and modifying non-Lenten dishes to "SCA compatible for Vegans and Piscetarians." I generally do this primarily for myself as a result of my own dietary restrictions, because there are few Event Stewards looking to produce an all Lenten feast, and so my repertoire of sweets is minimal--I prefer savory. However, I would like to make a couple of suggestions.

Almond milk is, of course, the standard milk in period Lenten cookery, but you can also obtain commercially made rice milk. This is a reasonable substitute for individuals with dietary restrictions looking to produce something period like, and even here, in America's Dairyland, most chain grocers carry it. It's also pretty easy to make at home, but it's more work. ;-). Oat Milk, Hazelnut milk, are also commercially available, although you might have to make a trip to a co-op/health food/organic/whole food-type store. These are also reasonable subs. Here in Wisconsin, these milks are at the more specialty types of stores and in the better stocked regular grocers. And, of course, there is always soy milk, which is ubiquitous, and hemp milk, which will more usually be found in the co-op clan. The use of one of these milks will make several cream-type of sweets available to you.

Various sorts of cooked fruits and pies will be, as pointed out, about the easiest thing for you to do, and my favorite is a prune compote based on a receipt in Sabina Welserin, #70, A tart of plums. It is unbelievably simple: Dried plums (prunes) seethed in wine until they can be mashed, then add sugar and cinnamon, and thickened with quick oats that I ground in a mortar to substitute for the eggs called for in the receipt. I use a red wine or a red sangria when I make it. It is wonderful spooned right from a dish, and if you make a little almond cheese with it... well, nom nom nom. It's also a fabulous tart, and it's really not hard to make an oil based pastry with rice & oat flour, if you would like to try that. Mixing and rolling it takes 15 minutes, tops.

Another favorite is Apples Royale/Apple Muse/Appulmoy, also fabulous straight from the bowl, and also made with ingredients you can find in any grocery store--use a white wine for this. (This is like an extra good apple sauce).

You can also just bake fresh fruits with appropriate spices without the tart shell, or sweetened, spiced rice served warm and drizzled with honey. Those are also easy, period, vegan and wheatless. If you need reference recipes for any of this, let me know, but the recipe search on Medieval Cookery should turn up something for you.

I could go on at length about this kind of restrictive cookery and the challenges of creating something period or period-like, but I'll spare you. ;-) 

Merouda, returning to lurk. 




Modern: Elyse C. Boucher, West Allis, WI
SCA: Merouda Pendray, Caer Anterth Mawr, Northshield
Per pale sable and Or, a gryphon segreant counterny within an orle of feathers counterchanged.

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