[Spit-Project] Pennsic cooking

Tue Aug 12 10:09:37 PDT 2008

Well, we have a fairly comfortable camp, usually. Unfortunately this
year, Margali's father died a few days before Land Grab, which meant
that Rob, her husband, who usually handles our plumbing couldn't come
out, so instead of our usual sink with hot and cold running water, and
attacxhed shower, we simply had cold running water to the sink, as
none of the rest of us are quite sure how he hooks everything up. We
still had our propane freezer and range however, and we actually did
quite a bit of cooking over our double firepit- one fire pit burns the
wood into coals, the other we rake the coals out over for actual
cooking.

And, we had what has become a bit of a tradition on Monday evening- an
experimental open fire cookery session. We had formerly been inviting
SCA-Cooks to join us for the Potluck, but when my query earlier this
year met with resounding silence, I had thought to cancel it, but...

First Michael, the archaeology professor, showed up, wanting to
experiment, then Lynn, who has been making the clay pots we've been
experimenting with arrived with the two ceramic tuyeres I want to
experiment with for my period forge, then I ran into Brighid and her
mother-in-law, so we stopped by the Enchanted Ground and invited
Cariadoc, and Dee, Andrew MacRobb's wife bought her first period
cookbook, Cindy's "Take 1000 Eggs or More", and next thing I knew, we
had a Cookery Thang going on.

My student, Ben, was in camp on the forge, and he made a simple trivet
fot Micheal, at his request, and I bought a leg of lamb, and well, one
thing led to another...

I'll have more details later, and will give you an URL for pictures,
as soon as I have it, but it all led to usa producing and sharing a
very tasty meal. The lamb was dead simple- I boned and butterflied the
leg, added the bones and excess fat to the pot of stone soup, browned
the lamb in olive oil, with assorted handy herbs, then let it finish
cooking over a grill laid over the wood fire pit, since the pit with
the coals was pretty full of pottery cooking other stuff. It was
pretty good. Andrew MacRobb made his spring rolls, first time he'd
tried them over a real fire, and his lady wife, Dee, made the cabbage
with marrow from Cindy's book- quite good, and an excellent attempt,
for her first ever endeavor with either period cookery, or medieval
pottery in the coals. Christianna joined us towards the end, then
Cariadoc showed up, rather late because he had to take care of
Elizabeth and his daughter- were you taking him somewhere? I don't
remember. Anyway, we restarted the fires for his oat cakes.They were
quite plain, but quite good.

During a lull, Micheal showed us (me) copies of a book he had acquired
from his last trip to Russia, which included quite a few pictures of
various metal items he wanted identified, so I helped him with that.
And, when Ben finally gave him the trivet he'd made, it seems that
that trivet had solved a mystery that the edumacated folks had
developed. It seems that the style of trivet, if broken in half (as
can happen quite easily with that style) looks like a pair of staples,
that the archaeologists were thinking were used to hold logs together.
Michael went home with his trivet, no doubt to rearrange the thinking
of assorted scholars ;-)

And I did stop by Ansteorra Royal, Gunthar, to congratulate you, and
invite you down, but you were busy being princely, so we missed you.
Maybe next time?

And we had a bit of bardic, as has become usual. Need to learn more
about that, to do it in a period style. Cariadoc, will you help? And
Brighid? Filks are fun, but I think a saga or two would be more so...

Good time, good friends, great evening.

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Michael Gunter
<countgunthar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ok, the war is over, so does anyone have pictures or
>> accounts of neat cooking or dining over an open fire?
>> Flickr account photos and links are ok.
>
> I didn't get to see or participate in any outdoor cookery.
> We were pretty busy just being Heirs.
>
> So, taking this in another direction:
> I'm pretty amazed at the modern conveniences that
> camps have set up. Most major camps now have
> showers with hot water heaters and propane. Solid
> wall structures are beginning to replace period tents
> as the housing status symbol.
>
> Our camp kitchen was in a very large Grimm's tent
> and included two full stoves with ovens (we had
> homemade bread and rolls pretty much every day)
> and a full hot water double sink.
>
> Things have gone a long way from the crowded
> shower houses with questionable water temperature
> or "Sun Showers" of a 5 gallon black plastic bag
> hung in camp. A really fancy kitchen used to consist of
> cajun cookers and stockpots.
>
> I can only imagine what next year will bring.
>
> I did walk past an earthen bread oven at one
> point. There were several outdoor cookery classes
> posted but I never got to attend any.  :-(
> Someday I swear I will attend Pennsic and not have
> to fight the entire time!
>
>> How did people cope with the rain?
>
> Like we always do. We coped. Some open firepits
> were under awnings and no time was lost. Others
> ate at food court or there were kitchen tents with
> modern stoves.
>
> The rain was only bad one night, and as the previous
> poster noted, otherwise not bad at all. MUCH better
> than last year.
>
>> Johnnae
>
> Yers,
>
> Gunthar
>
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-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Priorities:

It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.

.I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary
notices I have read with pleasure. -Clarence Darrow