[Sca-cooks] Perfectly Period Feast

[Donna Green]

> 
> Juana Isabella commented:
> <<< At a feast I cooked a couple of months ago
> (The Perfectly Period Feast II), I did make an effort to
> source some of the ingredients at the higher end of the
> quality/ expense/ spectrum. Certainly not all, but some ...
> for example, a whole, sustainably raised Atlantic salmon
> rather than a Pacific salmon even though the Pacific would
> have been cheaper. Period Europeans would have eaten the
> Atlantic species. (We almost didn't either, but that's
> another story.) >>>
> 
> OH! You were the cook for The PPF II!
> 
> There were a few comments given here, but not many and not
> enough for me to create a nice article to encourage other
> folks to have a similar feast. I'm assuming that your feast
> was similar to the First Perfectly Period Feast but I've
> never heard the details or even a menu.
> 
> If you have created a report on this feast, or would be
> willing to, I'd love to have it to create another file
> similar to this one. Maybe we can give folks the
> encouragement that another similar feast will be done in the
> future. I would love to attend such a feast in Ansteorra!
> 
> For instance, I'd like to hear more about what happened
> with this Atlantic Salmon. At the least, perhaps it would
> give someone else thinking of doing a whole salmon a heads
> up on what to be careful of.
> 
> Perf-P-Feast-msg (40K) 11/28/09 "Perfectly Period Feast"
> cooked by Mistress Crystal of the Westermark. A medieval
> feast, with atmosphere, 'done right'.
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FEASTS/Perf-P-Feast-msg.html
> 
> Thanks,
>   Stefan

Yes, the PPFII was done by much the same crew (in different roles) as the PPFI. PPFIII is now at the idea and tentative date stage ... a couple of years out.

The group is considering doing a Compleat Anachronist on the PPF's ... along the lines of "how to" so that you too can play at home :-)

I'll put some stuff together for you Stefan for your wonderful florilegium.

> <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > For instance, I'd like to hear more about what
> happened with this Atlantic Salmon. At the least, perhaps
> it
> > would give someone else thinking of doing a whole
> salmon a heads up on what to be careful of.
> 
> What happened with the Atlantic salmon is that a fishmonger
> was faced
> with a cook in her wrath.
> 
> Brighid ni Chiarain, glad to have been the witness and not
> the target

Ha ha ha :-) Yup, that's a good sum up.

I ordered a whole Atlantic Salmon from my local fish monger. They get their fish from CleanFish, a company that raises fish sustainably. Anyway, I'd made it quite clear to the guys I'd spoken to, several times, at the fish mongers that I needed a whole, head tail and everything but guts big fishy. I had told them about the feast and they were well aware of my needs.

So, Brighid and I went to the market to pick up the fish before heading off to the feast site 50 miles away. I get there and the boss tells me that one of his helpers was too helpful and had cut up the fish. The guy who cut the fish came up and apologized. I looked at them both a told them in my best pissed off duchess mode that this was not acceptable. It was interesting to pull rank on people who didn't know I was doing it and have it work anyway :-) I didn't give them an out. The boss had been expecting another batch of fish that afternoon. He got on the phone and told the supplier that the afternoon order needed to come right now, not this afternoon. The boss asked if 15 minutes (I think that was the amount of time) was OK. I said yes. Brighid and I walked around the market. We came back and there was our big beautiful fish. The delivered it to the car for us. When we got to the site, I kept taking people into the kitchen and opening the custom
 styrafoam case to show off my beautiful fishy. It was also very tasty after it was roasted whole, carved in the middle of the hall for the amusement of the diners and served with green sauce.

Juana Isabella
West