[Sca-cooks] fourth grade help

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 28, 2011, at 8:15 AM, Jo Foster wrote:

> 
> I[ve gotten an email from a fourth grade student regarding 'being a chef in the Middle Ages' no specific time period.  I am having difficulty with finding information that will help her.  The project is to prepare ahead of time to spend the afternoon 'being' that profession.  Being a cook, I could handle, being a baker, I could handle ... but she wants 'fancier' than that ..... and I dont know what to tell her.
> 
> She also needs something easy that she can make up ahead of time and offer to apx 200 people.  Small fingerfood type stuff.  No refrigeration availible on site.
> 
> I recall our discussion about 'vigil foods' a few months back but didnt retain much of it as I have not been able to attend events much since buying my house (amazing what regular morgage payments do to the budget).
> 
> Suggestions?

Aliki's "A Medieval Feast" might be of some help, and if the kids are smart (or mature, I honestly don't really remember what a fourth-grader reads) there is a wonderful single chapter in Terence Scully's ... erm... a little help here, someone, I'm out the door and am working from memory after three hours sleep... it's either The Art Of Cookery In The Middle Ages or Early French Cookery, which features a quite detailed fictional account of a typical day in the life of Maitre Chiquart d'Amiczo, beginning with him getting up at 3AM to make sure the fires were properly banked and restarted, the fish deliveries  in, etc.

HTH,

Adamantius