[Sca-cooks] siege cooking ingredient ideas sought

Ian Kusz sprucebranch at gmail.com
Fri Jun 25 13:17:23 PDT 2010


Well, presuming they are IN the castle, cooking for the siege, and assuming
they are down to the dregs, I'd include items that are
preserved/preservable, secondary-use (as in, not the stuff you'd cook
first), cheap (for medieval times), likely to roll into unlikely corners and
be missed until you're searching EVERYWHERE, and multi-purpose (as in, also
fed to animals, or used in other processes, like brewing).

so, for my money, I'd include salt pork/pickled or salted fish, barley or
oats (I'd likely make this the bulk of the "found food"), a withered turnip
or two (Pliny mentions these as being stored over the winter to prevent
starvation), a withered carrot, a half-dried apple, beans or lentils (small
amounts), dried-out bread, a jar of either pickled veggies or jam, maybe a
dried-out cheese, possibly a couple of eggs (if the castle kept chickens,
and they hadn't been et yet), and maybe goat's milk (sour, possibly, to make
things really challenging).  To spice things up, you could add some other
odd vegetables.  Say, a parsnip, or some kind of fennel root, or something.
Maybe rose hips (if they raided the queen's flower garden in desperation).
Or, if someone raided a bramble bush, some blackberries.

On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Honour Horne-Jaruk <jarukcomp at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Respected friends:
>     Once again, I prepare for Maison Rive's annual Pennsic siege cooking
> contest. This year, in addition to the usual request for judges and
> participants, I've finally realized I need to pick your collective brains...
>     Where-and when-ever your persona/specialty/cookbook collection is from,
> what would you give out for the ten items provided in a siege cooking
> ingredient bag? (The contestants provide salt and herbs/spices.)
> I've always included a protein, a fat, a starch, a sweet, a sour, a
> vegetable and a fruit. The rest can get pretty whimsical.
>     Another version: the available foods would be quite different for a
> battlefield meal, since the scouts can buy (or steal) fresh items. What
> would you include in that bag?
>
> Yours in service to both the Societies of which I am a member-
> (Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk, R.S.F.
> Alizaundre de Brebeuf, C.O.L. S.C.A.- AKA Una the wisewoman, or That Pict
>
> FORTE EST VINUM, FORTIOR EST REX, FORTIORES SUNT MULIERES: SUPER OMNIA
> VINCIT VERITAS
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Ian of Oertha



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