[Sca-cooks] Partial feast debriefing

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius posted a message about the Icelandic feast he served this  
past weekend.

I hope your legs are feeling better and I hope when you can, that you  
will post the menu from this feast and perhaps some of the recipes. I  
thought the event announcement(s) would include the menu, but  
unfortunately they didn't. I like the way the East Kingdom web site  
shows by default only the events from the current date on. At least I  
do *after* I realized that was the case and that someone just had been  
super efficient and removed the events from this last weekend  
already. :-(

Where did you find Icelandic cheeses? Although I guess you are a bit  
closer to Iceland than me. I'm not sure how you could afford that on a  
feast budget.

On Nov 8, 2009, at 1:43 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
<<< Congratulations on what must have been a most interesting  
experience.

Thanks! It was interesting; it's a not-hugely-well-documented slice of
period life that we don't always have much a venue to visit, so I was
grateful for the chance. >>>

I agree. For those who have only joined this list in the last couple  
of years, for a while on this list we had an Icelandic native and  
cookbook author on this list, Nanna. She filled us in on a lot of the  
unusual traditional foods of Iceland. Some of which showed up in  
Adamantius' feast. Iceland was pretty cut off from the outside world  
for a number of centuries after it's founding. While some things  
changed, much of the change was due to the changes that the Icelanders  
were making to their own enviornment, coupled with the "Little Ice  
Age", which was one reason communication almost ceased with the  
outside world. As a result the settlers diet changed from those of  
their homeland.

Nanna has written several books in Icelandic and one in English. While  
the English one is "traditional", because of Iceland's isolation much  
of the traditional recipes in the book are probably period. I heartily  
recommend the book to those interested in a different food culture or  
those just interested in Iceland.

I did save much of Nanna's comments about Icelandic food and cooking  
in this file in the FOOD-BY-REGION section of the Florilegium:
fd-Iceland-msg    (84K)  9/ 7/08    Food of medieval Iceland. Recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BY-REGION/fd-Iceland-msg.html

Also these files in the CULTURES section might be of interest:
Iceland-msg       (34K)  6/25/09    History and culture of Iceland.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CULTURES/Iceland-msg.html
Iceland-bib        (5K)  4/21/95    Bibliography on Iceland.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CULTURES/Iceland-bib.html
Greenland-msg     (20K)  9/28/02    Greenland history. Period points  
of interest
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CULTURES/Greenland-msg.html

<<< One must ask -- Do people in the East kingdom usually eat the sauces
as soups?

As far as I know, not generally. I suppose if the sauce is fairly
thin, there's enough of it, and the little card falls down or
something, it's an easy mistake to make. >>>

I do wish more people would make such labels for their foods,  
especially at pot lucks. If I'm bringing something for a pot luck I  
always try to at least have a label and usually a listing of  
ingredients. And if it is a period dish, I often try to include the  
recipe and what book it's from. Part of my education program. :-)

Because Iceland has been so badly hit by the recent world recession,  
I've heard that now is actually a very good time to visit Iceland.  
Although perhaps not in the winter. Unfortunately *my* economy doesn't  
seem to be doing any better than Iceland's. :-(

And anyway, I've heard they have this cold, white, wet stuff which  
falls out of the sky. I'm not I want any of that!

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****