[Sca-cooks] Feast in Nithgaard (State College, PA) Sept. 14, for Henry V's birthday

[Alexander Clark]

On Wed Sep 18 22:15:22 PDT 2013, Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at
austin.rr.com> wrote:
> Uh, what is "aftermilk"?

This was the milk made from ground almonds that had already been
milked, by adding another lot of liquid.

> Henry/Alex said:
> <<< Instead we made do with noumbles and egerdouce of a kid, >>>

> How did this go over with the feasters?

Very well. The main recipes consulted were Curye on Inglysch IV 15 and
IV 23. For numbles I started with the chopped liver and kidneys, then
added sliced heart and tongue when it was nearly done.

> <<< Anyway the plan was to start each roast on the grill and then finish in the oven, >>>

> Everything being equal, is it better to roast a meat on the grill and finish in an oven? Or to cook it a while in the oven and then finish browning it on the grill?

> What about on a stove top?

The idea was to impregnate each roast with hardwood smoke (and get the
cooking started), then let the smoke flavor get through the meat
during the rest of the roasting. I assume that this works best with
grilling at the start. I understand that our site has smoke alarms
that would preclude any attempt to use wood on the stovetop.

> <<< I didn't realize at first that the pheasants that had just been butchered that
morning still had their necks on. When I took out the spare bird that
I'd brought home I found that it also had its crop in. >>>

> So the solution is? Just cut off the necks and crop? If so, was this more than just an irritation?

Once the bird had been roasted it was a bit late for a solution.
Apparently the neck and crop insulated the area around the base of the
neck so it got less cooked. With the leftover one, where I found the
crop before roasting, I just cut it loose at the sides and drew it
out.

> I thought the crop was attached to the head. Is it attached to the neck?

It's an enlarged part of the esophagus, and seems to be at the base of the neck.

> Newbie question. Just how big is a pheasant? How many did you have? Are they more of a game bird/dark meat taste?

About like a smallish chicken, but built sort of like a turkey, with
the tough drumstick tendons. We had three for the feast, and one spare
that I took home. They're lean and relatively dark; how gamey the
taste is seems to depend on various factors such as age, lifestyle,
and hanging.

> <<< I cheated and did the viand rial anyway because it's small and light and
quick and easy, and it rounded out the course nicely. >>>

> What is this "viand rial" again? Recipe? Perhaps this is a good recipe to keep in mind for pot lucks and quick meals and such?

Curye on Inglysch IV 102. It's a wine potage with sugar and spice and
pine nuts. I recommend it for any feast that is at least somewhat
English. It's a tasty thing to nibble on, not something to fill you
up.

> <<< the best of the lot were the brawn with mustard (salted boar mini roasts with honey mustard) >>>

> Was the original meant to be made with salted (as in preserved) boar/pig? If so, did you create salted pork to start this with? Or were you using fresh pork but adding salt?

I didn't have any recipe, just some menus that said the first course
started with brawn with mustard, or that it came just after the first
potages. I got two wild boar mini roasts (~ 3 lb. total), pulled off
the netting because I didn't figure I'd need it, and rubbed them with
coarse sea salt, rather more than I would consider using to season
fresh meat. Then I left them in an uncovered pan in the fridge and
turned them a few times, and covered them the next day. They cured
from Wednesday until Saturday, which is a rush job, but seemed
adequate for small pieces. They were rinsed in simmering water before
roasting, to try to reduce the saltiness of the outside.

The honey mustard started out to be the Lumbard mustard of Curye on
Inglysch IV 150, but since it was started a few days too late to get
really mellow, and was a small amount with a coarse texture, I mixed
in some store-bought organic honey mustard.

> <<< and the pomys en gele (which I didn't make or supervise, just provided instructions and whole spices). >>>

> Recipe/instructions?

Again, no period recipe, just an item on a menu. This was from the
John Chandler menu of 1417, in MS Harleian 279. It was apples
(braeburn, I think?) with apple juice and sugar, and whole cassia buds
and cloves and cinnamon sticks that were steeped in a bit of the hot
apple juice. The apples were peeled and cored (if I'd found the corer
we might have cored them whole), put into the hot juice for a brief
cooking along with the spice, then whole spice and apples put into
plastic microwaveable storage containers while the juice was mixed
with unflavored gelatin, then the juice poured on and the lot chilled.

This was intended not to be perfectly period, but to produce a result
that I'm guessing might be close to period in style.

> Actually, since I've saved your message to create a feast review file for the Florilegium (The detailed feast reports on this list really have dropped off a lot in the last year or two), I would love to get more of the original recipes and redactions. :-)  Although I also don't know if anyone reads them or not. :-(

I hardly wrote any modern interpretations of the period recipes, and
what I did that I would have called "redacting" was comparisons of
similar period recipes, little of which was done in writing. The main
recipes I consulted for the feast, including those followed, those
adapted or approximated, and those planned but not made and served,
are:

Curye on Inglysch by Hieatt and Butler IV 1, 7, 22, 39, 78, 102, 149,
150, 172, 182, 189, 192, 197, 204 & V 19

Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books by Austin p. 8 cream boiled, 12-3
compost (to be used as a basis for dates in compost), 34 blanche
braun, 35 leche lumbard, 70 frumenty, 73-4 long fritters, 81 kid &
stuffed chickens, 116 pheasant

MS Arundel 334 (published in 1790 as Ancient Cookery) 138 (382)
mawmenny, 204 (440) leche lumbard

-- 
Henry/Alex