More Braaaaaaains ...

I will admit that I'm not the most organized person in the world, and this very post is a good demonstration of both my lack of organization and what I do to compensate.

Back in 2008 (wait ... was that really 8 years ago?!) I blogged about how I used The Brain Book when cooking feasts to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. It's a neat little idea that has saved me all sorts of grief. I figured I'd follow up that post within a week or so with a link to an example Brain Book that others could use as a guide for making their own.

We can see how well that went. I got sidetracked into something else and ... well ... you know. Anyways, I came across a file while spelunking on my computer that turned out to be nearly complete. So I thought I'd clean it up and make it available before something else came along to distract me for another 8 years.

Let me know what you think.

The Brain Book

Recipe Interpretation

Last night I tried out a new recipe (a modern one for crab soup, from Chef David Young's cookbook), and that got me thinking about the process I used to interpret medieval recipes.  It's really pretty straightforward, but seeing as I'm not the most organized person in the world, it helps keeps me from making mistakes and makes sure I have all the information I need to put the recipes on my website.

[Note for any readers who participate in SCA Arts and Sciences competitions:  following this sort of process will also help you document your recipe properly.  I'll add notes in brackets where applicable.]

1. Select a Recipe

There are all sorts of ways to do this. You can use a medieval cookbook from a library or bookstore, use one of the many books available free online, or even use my searchable index of cookbooks to find recipes that use a given ingredient.

What's important here is to start with a medieval recipe. If you start with a modern recipe then there isn't much chance you'll end up with something medieval.

Write down or print out the recipe, making sure you spell the words exactly as given in the source.

[You should probably write down a sentence or two explaining why you chose the recipe, like "I had read that turnips were popular in the winter", or "I wanted to make one of the more popular medieval chicken dishes, but wasn't pleased with the versions I'd had before". Make sure you write down the source of the recipe as well.]

[It's also a very good idea at this point to look for versions of the same recipe in other medieval cookbooks. A simple Google search on the title will sometimes turn up . If you're using the Medieval Cookbook Search then sometimes links to other versions will be given at the bottom after the recipe text. Copy these down as well.]

the chosen recipe

2. Read & Markup

The idea here is to go over the recipe a couple of times, highlighting all the ingredients needed. This serves a number of purposes: it helps familiarize you with the recipe, it lets you know what you'll need to make it, and it identifies any weird steps or ingredients that you may need to look up. This step can be especially important for recipes written in Middle English or some equally obscure language.

[Here you might want to make a note about any hard-to-find ingredients, or unusual combinations of ingredients. Also, if there are other versions of the recipe, compare them to the one you've selected. You might want to combine them into an "average" recipe, or switch to use one of them instead.]

highlighting the ingredients

3. Print a Working Copy

It should have the recipe at the top, along with a list of the ingredients. Keep this close at hand in the kitchen, along with a pen or pencil.

working copy

4. Cook & Taste

Follow the recipe as written, even if you think it's a bit strange. Make sure to write down the quantities of the ingredients you use, along with any places where you did things differently from the original recipe.

Make notes about the good, the bad, and the weird.

not really the recipe above, but it's pretty

5. Share

While sharing the food is nice, sharing your final recipe is even better. Write out a final version of the recipe and post it on a website or email it to friends (or email it to me!).

[By this point you've got all the information you need for your A&S documentation. Add a couple of sentences to link the parts together, format it neatly, check the spelling, set the font to something readable, and you're pretty much done.]

Oh, here is the link to my interpretation of the example recipe above.

Apples, Quince, and Cooks

Some quick updates on assorted subjects:

A couple of weeks back I posted about apple pie recipes, where I'd picked out a few potential recipes to try. The one I settled on, Tartys In Applis, worked out pretty well. Grating the apples was really kind of strange, as was the addition of figs. Still it tasted good. better warm than cold in my opinion. I think a dollop of snowe on top would add some fat to make it even better.

I've posted here before about the quince tree I planted in my back yard. While it has flowered for the past two years and some fruits have formed, this is the first year that any have made it to harvest. I picked the two small quince from the tree last week, and last night I made them into marmalade. It's a small thing (the result is only a single pint) but it's still geeking me out. Hopefully there will be more next year.

Finally, the Middle Kingdom Cooks Collegium is this upcoming weekend in Chicago. There will be cooks from all over the midwest United States (and some from farther away) all gathered together to share their knowledge of medieval cooking. I'll be teaching two classes there - one on food safety and another that is sort of an overview on medieval cooking from a sort of holistic viewpoint. In spite of all that I still need to to to get ready for the event, I'm really looking forward to it.

Ceiling Wax

Ok, I admit it. Until about the age of twelve, I thought it was ceiling wax instead of sealing wax. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the nagging question, "Why would someone need to wax their ceiling." On realizing the correct spelling I had one of those "Duh!" moments. At any rate, this weekend I'm officially taking my second apprentice, Zophia Boreka. The plan is to have a reasonably authentic reproduction of a medieval apprenticeship contract, and for that I will need sealing wax.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, medieval sealing wax was made of a combination of beeswax and resin. Since this is a sort of cooking (kind of, maybe, well ... it's heated in a pot), I figured I'd give a step-by-step description of what I did, complete with pictures.

The Raw Ingredients

beeswax, about 40g

resin (frankincense), about 20g
purchased from Stony Mountain Botanicals

What Was Done

I put the wax and resin into a makeshift double boiler. While I used a bowl I didn't care about in anticipation of not being able to get it clean again, getting the wax off turned out not to be too much of a problem.

ingredients in bowl on top of pot of boiling water

It was at about this point that it occurred to me that it probably would have been easier to melt the wax first and then add the resin powder. It still worked, but probably took longer that it would have. I'll try it the other way next time.

the stuff melts slowly

As I stood over a pot of melting beeswax and frankincense, I realized that this stuff smells really good. It has a sort of sweet-citrus-piney scent that just begs to be a glaze for ham. Please note however that no matter how yummy this stuff smells, do not dip your finger into the hot molten resin and under no circumstances should you taste it.

(no, I didn't do either - but it was really hard to resist the temptation!)

I thought I had a picture of the wax all melted, but apparently the gremlins erased it.

block of commercial candle dye

This is the remains of the block of candle dye I bought at the local craft store. I suppose I could have used a medieval colorant, but then again most of the things they used back then to color sealing wax were really dangerous. I'm not sure how much of this stuff I used - I just kept putting in shavings until I thought it was dark enough.

all done melting and coloring

So all that was left was to pour the wax into a disposable muffin tray I happened to have handy and let it cool. You can see in the picture below where the wax is already hardening around the edges.

a convenient form for the seal blanks

all cool now

Once they're completely cooled, the seal blanks pop out of the foil tray pretty easily. There is something disturbingly familiar about their shape though.

not a peanut butter cup

When it's time to use the wax this weekend, I'll warm it up by putting it in hot water (or maybe in a microwave). This should make it soft enough to press around the pendant cord that is threaded through the document, and also to take an impression from my seal matrix. That's the theory at least. I suppose I should test it out beforehand, eh?

Apprentice Contract

On the 18th of this month I'll be taking a new apprentice (Zophia - I've already been referring to her as my apprentice for months now, but it'll be official on the 18th). Part of the whole apprentice thing (for me anyways) is getting a proper contract of apprenticeship. Below is a picture of my first apprentice's contract.

Avelyn's apprenticeship contract

Once again, I've gone to Mistress Hrefna in heppna Thorgrimsdottir (Raven Fagelson) to do the calligraphy. Her work is positively beautiful.

This time I'll be making the wax for the seal myself. I've got plenty of beeswax and have ordered some resin (frankincense) from Stony Mountain Botanicals (the place I normally get red sandalwood/saunders - excellent quality and fast service). I'll post a step-by-step when I actually make the stuff.

I suppose I could also braid the cord that attaches the seal to the document, and even reel and dye the silk myself, but in medieval Europe I'd have been much more likely to buy that from a silkwoman - convenient that I'm married to one.

Harvest Days 2008 - Feast Report

I guess I've recovered enough from the whole thing, so it's time to post my thoughts before I forget them.

The Menu
No big surprises here. Everything was reasonably well liked, with one exception - the Gelye de Chare. No surprise here, but most people just can't cope with meat-flavored jelly. I really didn't expect people to eat much of it, which is why I only made half a cup per table of 6. I don't think I'd serve the Boiled Sallet or the Frutours at another feast as they both need to be cooked just before serving, and therefore cause logistics troubles.

I did have one good-sized hitch here. The sotlties between the courses were all centered around a piece of food-art created by Wulfwen Atte Belle (Hi Wulfie!). Sadly, her car died early Saturday morning, which meant that the aforementioned piece of food-art was stuck some 5 hours' drive away from the feast. Without it, none of the other sotlties would make sense, so I decided to scrap them and just stick with serving food.

Planning and Prep
Here's where I really fell down on the job. Things have been really nuts for me the past month or so, and I didn't get things planned out as well as I should have. As a result, a lot of food prep that could have been done in advance was left for the day of the feast. If I didn't have the help of my apprentices and a bunch of amazing volunteers, this feast would have been a fiasco.

In specific: I should have had all the bread cooked (was 3 batches short), the needed eggs separated and stored frozen, the turnips roasted and peeled, the Leche Lumbard and Chardwarden made.

The other major planning problem rested with my lack of organization. When I got to the site on Saturday morning, I realized that I'd left the bread in the freezer at home. This meant I had to drive back home and return - an almost 2 hour trip - just to pick it up. I ended up finally getting to the kitchen and getting to work around 1:00 p.m. Again, if it hadn't been for my apprentices taking charge in my absence (and making good use of the Brain Book) things would have gone very badly.

Hall Setup and Service
The hall steward did an excellent job at setting things up and wrangling the servers. There was one issue though that caused continued problems. I had planned the feast to serve 100 (plus head table), but the total number of feasters was actually 90. If I had the presence of mind (or had built it into some sort of checklist) it might have occurred to me to drop two tables from the hall setup. That way instead of having 18 tables that were partly filled, I would have 16 tables that were almost completely filled (each table could seat 6). My failure to realize this meant that we had to dish up 2 extra platters of food for every dish and still have too much food at every table. Obviously I need a "Hall Setup" page for the Brain Book.

Gritty Details

The bread, cheese, and preserves were set out before the feast started. No problems here.

The first course had a couple of hectic parts. The beef in pevorade and blancmanger were pretty straightforward - apparently there were several people who really liked the blancmanger. I had the pety pernauntes made as individual tartlets, which caused some minor issues because of the seating, but it all worked out. The boiled sallet was a real pain though. It had to be cooked right before serving in table-sized batches. Zophia (second apprentice) did an excellent job of making sure this got done.

The second course was where things really started to go haywire. The jelly was sent out first while I plated the venison and frumenty. With the full kitchen staff preoccupied, the servers began taking the venison out while it was still being plated. This made it really hard to keep track of how many plates had been done. The leche lumbard went out sometime around here, but I missed it. Then Avelyn (first apprentice) plated the great pies - which looked really cool - and we sent them out. Life was good. Little did we know ... (insert ominous music here).

Finally, while Zophia was frying apple fritters as quickly as she could (the other pain-in-the-butt dish) and I was plating them, the Chardwarden went out. The fritters followed shortly.

It was then, while we were looking around with an eye to starting the cleanup and saying to ourselves something like, "Wow, we're done!" that someone noticed two big steamer pans. We'd (I'd) forgotten to serve the turnips. The diners were still seated and the servers were just coming back, so we grabbed some bowls and a big spoon and sent the stuff out. Apparently the feasters were amused to receive turnips for dessert. Then again, there is medieval documentation for serving turnips and cheese last at a feast.

Avelyn suggested that I make a huge copy of the menu to post on the wall for next time, so we can cross off dishes as they go out and prevent this sort of thing from happening. I thing that's a great idea, but I don't want to think about a "next time" just yet.

Conclusion
On the whole, I'd say the feast was a success. The food looked and tasted good, and people got fed to the gills. There were some behind-the-scenes problems, but (other than the out-of-place turnips) none of it was apparent in the feast hall. I can live with that.

Braaaaaaains ...

No, I'm not going to write about brains as food - at least not yet. What I'm talking about here is one of the most useful kitchen tools for cooks who have to make the occasional huge feast: The Brain Book™.

Background
I'm quite sure others have come up with similar concepts before - I don't claim at all that this is original - but I got the idea for The Brain Book™ after watching a good friend organize a miniature-painting competition. She had a box which she referred to as "the brain", which contained all the paperwork, reference sheets, rules and other documents. When one of the many people assisting her needed to know something, the answer was usually along the lines of, "I don't know, check the brain."

Now I'm one of the first people to admit that I'm not the most organized person in the world. In fact, my organization skills have been scientifically measured as being the third-worst in all of recorded history. This is why, when thought about "the brain" in terms of a way to organize cooking feasts, I immediately saw how useful it could be. So two and a half years later I finally managed to get around to putting it into action (which is a pretty good turnaround time for me).

So what goes into The Brain Book™? Good question!

What goes into The Brain Book™
I start with a thin 3-ring binder - one of the ones with a clear pocket on the front and two pockets on the inside - kind of like this one. All of the pages that go inside are put in clear plastic sheet protectors - an especially good thing in a kitchen, where a notebook naturally attracts substances like grape juice and peanut butter. The actual contents, in order of appearance, are as follows:

• Shopping list
• The Menu
• Pre-cooking and prep work schedule
• Cooking schedule
• Plating and garnishing guide
• Recipes
• Receipts envelope

Shopping List
This is one of the few things in the notebook that doesn't go into a sheet protector because it's a multiple-page document. Instead I staple it and put it into the inside-front pocket. I usually work up the shopping list in a spreadsheet. All the ingredients for each recipe are listed, with the quantity needed multiplied out for the entire feast. Then I sort by ingredients and total everything up. Finally I add a list of all the non-food items (e.g. paper towels) I'll need at the bottom. When things are purchased, I check them off on the list. This seems simple, I know, but it really does help things.

The Menu
Not much to comment on here. This is mostly so the other staff in the kitchen can check on what goes out with what.

Pre-Cooking and Prep Work Schedule
This is a one or two page, day-by-day listing of what needs to be cooked or prepped in the week or so before the feast. For example: Monday - bake & freeze 2 batches of bread, Tuesday - buy tart crusts, Wednesday - put frozen meat into refrigerator.

Cooking Schedule
This is another spreadsheet. I break the day down into 1 hour segments across the top, and have the full menu (broken out into sub-components of a dish where necessary) down the left side. Then I mark out when things need to be chopped, cooked, put into holding boxes, plated, and served. The part of the schedule that covers the actual feast is sometimes broken down into 30 or 15 minute intervals when appropriate.

Plating and Garnishing Guide
A list of every dish, grouped by course. It states what kind of serving plate should be used, what serving gear (e.g. spoon or fork) should be included, and how the dish should be garnished.

Recipes
One page per recipe, with the full list of ingredients and complete instructions. This year I'm experimenting with adding a "red card" to recipes where I need to make accommodation for guests with particular food allergies - I'll let you know how it works out.

Receipts Envelope
This is so I can get reimbursed for any money I've spent. It gets tucked into the rear-inside pocket of the notebook.

This seems like a lot of work, but it's worth it. During the feast, any of the kitchen staff can determine on their own what work needs to be done, how something should be cooked, and how and when it should be served. Because of the redundancy, multiple people can be working on different things at the same time (e.g. two people can be working on different recipes, another can be plating, and another can be instructing servers). This hugely improves the efficiency in the kitchen, reduces stress, and helps prevent mistakes. It's also very helpful in that during a feast, when the staff asks what needs to be done and my mind has turned to mush, I can say, "I don't know. Check my brain."

Harvest Days 2008

I'm now in the middle of preparations for the Harvest Days event. I've got a substantial - all English - feast planned, with some new dishes (OK, the recipes are actually some 500 years old, but they're new to the re-enactors of this region).

The feast is going to be held on September 6th, so naturally I'm going a bit nuts right now. Therefore it seems like a good idea if I add to that workload and start posting bits and pieces about what I'm doing.

The Menu
All was good with the menu until a couple of months back when I realized that the current Prince (and future King) of the Midrealm is allergic to pork - which of course appeared liberally throughout the feast. So I scrapped a half-dozen dishes and added three or four different ones. Then I heard from my local huntsman and game-keeper (Hi James!) that the pigeons weren't breeding fast enough and kept dropping dead for no reason. There goes another dish (bother! I was so looking forward to serving everyone squab. Oh well, there's always next time).

So now as it stands I've got a menu consisting of 3 courses and 16 dishes (give or take, depending on what you count as a dish. Medieval menus are pretty flaky about the number of dishes claimed for a feast, so I see no reason to me more accurate than they were).

Sotlties
I've also got at least three sotlties (entertaining/amusing bits for during the feast - in France they were called entrements) planned that should go over reasonably well. I can't tell you more about them though as it would spoil the surprise.

The Kitchen
My apprentice visited the site yesterday evening and reported back that the kitchen is the size of a small country. There's also an outdoor barbecue pit (which is good because one of the dishes - pommes dorreys - works best when cooked over an open fire).

That's enough on things for now. Sometime in the next few days I'll probably post some pictures of the kitchen with comments, instructions and examples of making a Brain Book™, and various notes about food and prep-cooking.

Last Minute Preparations

This week is typically the most hectic of the year for me. Pennsic War (the SCA's huge "medieval" camping event) is next week, and GenCon is the week after. These two events have recently been held at about the same time, and every year I experience a strange kind of culture shock going from one to the other. Anyways, if you've sent me an email recently and it doesn't involve something very time-critical, then I probably won't get back to you until after August 17th.

Pennsic War

Pennsic is an odd combination of people, some with strong interests in accurately re-enacting medieval life, and others just there to have a good time. With over 10,000 people attending and camping for one to two weeks, there's all sorts of stuff going on and plenty to hold the interest of just about anyone. I tend to look at it as sort of a modern version of the medieval market fair. I spend my time shopping for things I can't easily get other places (like re-creations of medieval cooking knives and linens), socializing with people that I otherwise talk to only through email, take classes on extremely geeky subjects (e.g. Saints and Relics), and kick back and relax in general.

the sort of thing I like to see at Pennsic
click on the image to see more of the photographer's work

There are aspects of Pennsic that I could do without (there were infestations of elves and goths in past years, but they've pretty much cleared out), but you take the good with the bad and on the whole it's worthwhile.

GenCon

GenCon is a convention devoted to games of all sorts, and has an annual attendance of over 25,000. For the past few years I've been giving seminars there on medieval cooking (to help provide game designers and writers with some background information for their work), and of recent participating in the Writers Symposium track of seminars (a fun and eclectic bunch). I also spend a lot of time working/hanging out with the folks at the Miniature Hobby Events (which is kind of funny since my miniature painting skills are quite bad).

I'm nowhere near ready for either of these, much less both, but time and tide wait for no one. Excuse me while I panic.

Wandering in the Big Gray Zone

A few days back, the New York Times posted an article on their website about "Recipe Deal Breakers" - the things that cooks might read in a recipe that would cause them to skip it. This got me thinking in general about the foods people will and won't eat, and about how that affects medieval cooking geeks like myself.

See, here's the crux of the matter: there's no point in my making 30 pounds of blood sausage to serve to 100 people at a feast if only 3 people are even going to try it. On the other hand, the tastes of the people are not uniform. Instead of a nice, clear line that I could walk right up to and threaten to cross from time to time, I find myself standing in the middle of a vast, gray plain that isn't steadily shaded, but instead is mottled with varying degrees of will and won't. So here's what I've noticed so far about the food preferences of the people.

Meats
In general, people like meat (e.g. beef, pork, chicken). There are some vegetarians, but they're enough used to living in an omnivore world that most of them will be very happy with the slightest accommodation. Offering sauces to go with the meats is good, but it's best to serve the sauce on the side since a substantial number of the carnivores want their meat plain.

Some meats are considered a little unusual or exotic, but are generally acceptable (e.g. duck, venison, quail, rabbit). These can be served, but the serving size can be notably smaller than for the "normal meats"

There are meats that are considered strange enough that if you put them on the table, people will look at you funny (e.g. squirrel, hedgehog). If you know someone who likes these then make a special dish just for them, but don't bother making huge quantities.

Then there are the parts of the animals that are (in the US) often thrown away (e.g. brains, entrails, organs, feet, snouts, ears, tongues, genitals). Getting 1% of the people to eat any of these is nearly impossible. Even the most commonly eaten organ meat, liver, would generally fare badly here (a pity too, 'cause I've got a nice recipe for chopped liver).

Fish
Maybe it's different in other parts of the US, but here in the Midwest fish can be difficult. Something like salmon will go over OK, but just about anything else isn't worth it. The "weird" fish (e.g. eel) are even harder to get them to eat, and if you leave the head and tail on then you might as well forget it.

Frogs? No, not really. No.

Vegetables
What is it with trying to get Americans to eat vegetables? It seems that about half of the population is offended if anything green gets anywhere near their plate. They'll accept a salad as long as it has enough meat and cheese added to it. Starchy vegetables will be eaten if smothered in cheese (e.g. turnips) or glazed with honey (e.g. carrots), but offer them cooked spinach or beets and they'll act like you'd just insulted their mother.

I did have one surprise once on this. I'd made a turnip soup for one feast, scaling it back a little because I figured not everyone would like it, and we ran out. That was a rare exception though.

Fruit
This is an odd one. People will generally eat fruit prepared in just about any way, but they rarely will ask for it. Stewed apples or pears, fruit sauces, baked fruit, all are good. Maybe they don't know what to do with fruit (other than eat it raw) and therefore they just don't think about it.

Other Foods
Mushrooms are iffy. Some people will devour them, others will run screaming.

The same goes for spicy or sour foods.

Eggs and egg-based dishes go over pretty well. You can even serve pies made from eggs and herbs or whatever - just don't call it quiche or a small number of men will suddenly decide not to eat it.

Starchy foods like bread or pasta are almost as widely accepted as the "normal" meats. The no-carb diet fad put a bit of a crimp in this, but it seems to have died down.

Meat jelly? I really don't think they'll eat much of it ... but I'm going to try anyway. Sometimes you've got to break the rules.

It's really not that hard ... Part 2

So ... I'm going through the calendar, trying to figure out which medieval re-creation events I'll be going to for the next few months, and I take a look at the feast menus, and I find that some of them don't even give a hand-waive towards history. Yes, there are some nice, medieval (or at least reasonably so) feasts here and there across the Midwestern US, but they appear to be decreasing in proportion to the others.

I'll pause here to note that I've been in the SCA (a US-based medieval "re-creation" group) for many years, and I've been cooking for much of that time. I'm the first to admit that the feasts I cooked way back when were crap as far as historical accuracy goes, but then there weren't the resources available back then that there are now.

I know I'm a food snob, that I'm fanatical and bordering on dangerously obsessed, but I don't think I'm asking too much here. All I want is a reasonable attempt at medieval food. I don't expect a six course meal, with four or five dishes per course, all exotic and unusual and documented to have been served to a duke in Calais in the year 1432 (I wouldn't complain, mind you, but I really don't expect it). However it really isn't that hard to come up with a filling meal consisting of a few dishes that are reasonable approximations of what might have been served to someone - anyone - between the years 600 and 1700.

Really, it's not that hard. Let's say that - for whatever reason - you've got to cook a medieval dinner. Can a reasonable attempt be made assuming no prior knowledge of medieval European cuisine, no ability to read a language other than modern English, no local library with texts on the subject, and no fancy cooking skills? Yes. All it takes is Internet access (or a friend with Internet access).

Web Search

A Google search on "medieval recipe" returns 224,000 hits - I'm only going to look at the first two.

The first link, titled Medieval Feasts, has 11 recipes. Among them I find:

• chicken with orange and lemon
  
• spinach tart
  
• frumenty, a cracked wheat side dish for meats
  
• cherry pottage
  

That's a meat dish, a vegetable, a starch, and a dessert. Add bread and butter and it sounds like a really nice meal. All of these have complete recipes with detailed instructions and even a reference to the original source - and it took me a whopping two minutes to put together.

The second link is to a site I know pretty well - it's my own Medieval Recipes page. It lists over 90 recipes, each with detailed instructions and a reference to the original source.

What's more, there's a big button at the bottom of the page that says "Menus". This leads to another page with links to both menus from medieval sources, and menus from the feasts of re-enactment groups.

Obviously digging through this site could chew up more than a couple of minutes, but it also offers a lot of choices (now that I think about it though, I'll be adding a "Quick and Easy Medieval Feasts" page soon).

Let me say that again: Two Minutes

Two minutes got me a reasonable attempt at a medieval dinner, and there were lots of other options with just a few more clicks. I didn't have to go to a library. I didn't have to open a book. I didn't have to try to read a different language. I didn't have to work out a recipe on my own.

Don't try to tell me that it takes too much work to do it right.