Food Related Painting of the Week

Still-life with Parrot
Georg Flegel, ca. 1600

Still-life with Parrot
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

This week I've chosen a German painting full of sweets and such.

Like most still-life paintings, there's a bunch of interesting things scattered about. At the front and just to the right is a round wooden box that is filled with what's probably quince paste (cotignac or membrillo - like marmalade but much more firm, if you haven't tried this stuff then look at the local gourmet grocery, they usually have it near the imported cheeses like manchego - with which it goes exceptionally well!).

I'd be tempted to call the flat things in the lower right trenchers, but by the 1600s the use of trenchers had pretty much fallen out of fashion. They look more like biscotti (zweibaken? my German is not that good). Those things on top are either small pears or (more likely, I think) fresh figs.

The tall silver dish in the center is filled with sugar-covered things. I imagine the stick-shaped ones are strips of orange peel or maybe even horseradish root. I have no idea what the other things are, though the smaller, oval things might be almonds. Notice how nice and white the sugar coating is? I've ranted about the color of medieval sugar before. On a side note, the bumpiness of the sugared items is caused by having the sugar syrup too hot during the coating process. Around the dish of sweets is a plate of dried figs (maybe with some dates as well), a pomegranate, and a small (about 1/4 pound) loaf of bread.

On the left, near the spoons, is a beautiful prunted beaker - I have a set that look almost exactly like it. Behind and under the stack of plates is what looks like a wheel of cheese. I really hope the color of the paint has changed over the centuries, because that's not the color I like my cheese to have.

It wouldn't be that hard to re-create this setup, though I'd cover the table with a nice cloth. I'd also leave out the parrot - I'm sure it's a health code violation.

Skirmish Magazine #64

Somewhere in this magazine ...

... is MedievalCookery.com's recipe for Peeres in Confyt.
Your misson: find it!

Items of Note

Blog - Life Skills for the Medieval Monk #27: Calculating Easter

A short article explaining how to calculate the date of Easter using medieval methods. [Note that this method doesn't work with the Gregorian (modern) calendar]

http://sphinxfeather.livejournal.com/19611.html

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Lecture - Roots of Halloween
Plymouth Country Club, Plymouth, Massachusetts
November 1, 2008

The dark beginnings of the Celtic year, including the ancient roots of Halloween, is the subject of a lecture to be presented at the 89th annual luncheon meeting of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Plymouth Country Club. The event features speaker Catherine McKenna, the Margaret Brooks Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literature at Harvard University. A medieval scholar whose fascination with Celtic mythology dates back to childhood, McKenna has been named one of the nation’s top 100 influential Irish-Americans by Irish American magazine. The event includes a buffet luncheon and a cash bar. The cost is $28 per person. Prepaid reservations are required. For more information, contact the Plymouth Antiquarian Society at 508-746-0012 or by e-mail to pasm@verizon.net.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/plymouth/news/x1157491163/News-briefs

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Article - What was the Holy Grail

"The Big Question: What was the Holy Grail, and why our centuries-old fascination with it?" A good news article by Jerome Taylor discussing the history and mythology about the Holy Grail.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-big-question-what-was-the-holy-grail-and-why-our-centuriesold-fascination-with-it-968557.html

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Music - Vince Conaway
Louisiana Renaissance Festival, Hammond, Louisiana
November 1 &2, 2008

"Vince is an interactive performer, believing that the audience should not be separated from the show but instead be a part of it. One of few dulcimer players to converse while performing, he also brings a bit of cultural and historical perspective to every performance. Whether performing Living History, at a bookstore, or busking on the street he holds to his guiding principles of musicianship, showmanship, and professionalism."

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Food Related Painting of the Week

Still-life with Turkey-Pie
Pieter Claesz, 1627

Still-life with Turkey-Pie
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Ok, so I'm way out of the medieval period with this one, but there's still a lot of neat stuff to look at.

The big draw is, of course, the turkey. Turkeys originated in the Americas and were therefore unknown in Europe before the late 1490s. Obviously the cooks of Europe had figured out what to do with them by 1627. Here, the neck and head, and the wings of the turkey are decorating the top of a large pie that presumably was made from the meat. This was a fairly common practice in the late middle-ages. Pies were decorated to show what was in them. Sometimes the pie was shaped like the animal, sometimes (as here) parts of the animal were used. Funky, huh? One other interesting bit about the turkey pie, notice the decorations on the sides? I'm still trying to figure out how they did that, but I'm pretty sure they used a mold of some sort (Elise probably has more info on that).

See the smaller pie to the left of the turkey pie? Notice the shape? It's a beautifully cylindrical pie like the one I pointed out in an earlier post. This time we get to see what's inside - it looks like a slice of lemon, a date or large raisin, currants, and probably finely chopped meat.

Aside from the pies though, I just love the packet of spice on the lower right. It's a cone of recycled paper with a twist at the bottom. Fresh from the spice merchant and still in its medieval wrapper. Salt. Pepper? Cinnamon maybe? I should start taking ground spices to feasts that way.

Items of Note

Conference - Texts and Contexts
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
October 31 - November 1, 2008

Texts and Contexts: A conference at The Ohio State University, sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies.

The conference seeks to investigate the textual traditions of various texts and genres, including texts in classical Latin, mediaeval Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and the vernaculars. Preference will be given to those abstracts which deal with newly discovered texts and their manuscript settings, or which present new perspectives on established textual traditions. We encourage graduate students and newly established scholars to submit their work.

Plenary speaker: Keith Busby, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Music - Vince Conaway
Louisiana Renaissance Festival, Hammond, Louisiana
November 1 &2, 2008

"Vince is an interactive performer, believing that the audience should not be separated from the show but instead be a part of it. One of few dulcimer players to converse while performing, he also brings a bit of cultural and historical perspective to every performance. Whether performing Living History, at a bookstore, or busking on the street he holds to his guiding principles of musicianship, showmanship, and professionalism."

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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?

Food Related Painting of the Week

Market Scene
Joachim Beuckelaer, before 1574

Market Scene
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

This week I'm again turning to a late medieval (post medieval?) painting by Joachim Beuckelaer. Like The Well-Stocked Kitchen, this one is full of interesting things to muse over.

Some of the things are pretty easy to identify, such as the cabbage/lettuce in the very front (with the root still attached ... funky), the artichokes, the turnips, and the cherries. The basket full of black-ish things had me a bit puzzled at first. They're certainly not capsicum peppers (new-world), and look wrong for okra. Then I noticed that some of them are a bit lumpy, so now I'm pretty sure they're fava beans in their pods (there's a picture halfway down on the Wikipedia page for favas that shows some mature fava bean pods can have a dark color).

In the background on the right is a bucket of something - milk, maybe?

Which brings me to the Mysterious Football-Shaped Things® on the left. I know others have put together entire pages about these things (with nothing conclusive), but my current guess is some sort of semi-soft cheese. I'll post more on this later.

There's also the big earthenware jug in the upper left. I did a quick search to try and find out who's arms those are, but came up with nothing. Whoever it is, it's someone that likes towers.

Items of Note

Blog - Medieval Cooking Experiment #3: Not really medieval
Tavelorn's Journal

A detailed and useful description of Tavelorn's experiment in grinding wheat to make bread.

http://tavelorn.livejournal.com/67939.html

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Blog - Heroes of the Faith

A long, detailed, and well-written article about the Venerable Bede (c. 672–25 May 735), the historian and scholar.

http://calvinistcs2.blogspot.com/2008/10/heroes-of-faith-bede-ipa-bid-also-saint.html

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Music - Wolgemut
Maryland Renaissance Festival, Annapolis, Maryland
October 18 & 19, 2008

"Wolgemut draws on a wide range of performers who come from various artistic backgrounds. This leads to a distinctive sound and feeling for the group. Music, dance, theatre, classical music, folk music and musicology are just a few of the areas covered by their combined experience and education. "

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Music - Vince Conaway
King Richard's Renaissance Faire, Carver, Massachusetts
October 18 & 19, 2008

"Vince is an interactive performer, believing that the audience should not be separated from the show but instead be a part of it. One of few dulcimer players to converse while performing, he also brings a bit of cultural and historical perspective to every performance. Whether performing Living History, at a bookstore, or busking on the street he holds to his guiding principles of musicianship, showmanship, and professionalism."

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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.

Food Related Painting of the Week

The Well-Stocked Kitchen
Joachim Beuckelaer, 1566

The Well-Stocked Kitchen
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Apparently there have been a bunch of additions to the Web Gallery of Art since I last updated my Food Related Paintings pages - I'll have to spend some quality time web surfing next weekend. At any rate, this is a painting I hadn't seen before.

From the look of the little patch in the center background, I suspect this painting has some other title like "Paul Converts the Unbelievers in Samaria". I salute whatever genius thought up this scheme, as it allowed them to paint overtly secular images in great detail while maintaining that their work had a religious theme. Without this trick we probably would have very few works that documented the food of the time.

This one's a doozie, filled with a wide variety of foods and kitchen implements. On the far right is an earthenware tankard with a metal cover and a similarly covered pitcher (bottle?), next to what look like cantaloupes or melons of some kind. Just behind them on the table is an earthenware pot and a large brass mortar and pestle.

Near the center of the painting I note the artichokes and cauliflower, and cucumbers (which may have been absent from England for much of the medieval period). At the front right there's a plate of lemons and olives, both of which were probably imported from Spain or the Mideast.

See those white things at the center left? The things next to the bowl with the knife in it. I'm not really sure what they are. I'd think they were white carrots, but the leaves don't look right, and the shape isn't at all right for parsnips. Maybe they're skirrets (Sium sisarum), which is a sort of water-parsnip sometimes eaten in the middle ages. Or, maybe some kind of white beet (the leaves look right for that). Interesting.

Items of Note

Restaurant - Rozengrals (Latvia)

A medieval restaurant in Riga, Latvia that puts the Medieval Times places to shame. It has a much more authentic atmosphere and a menu that - while it does make a couple of typical mistakes (e.g. tomato, pumpkin) - looks promising. If I were only going to be anywhere even remotely close to Latvia I'd be all over this place, but sadly it's not likely anytime this decade.

http://www.rozengrals.lv/

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News - York food festival goes back in time

A short article (with video) about the 200 York Festival Of Food & Drink, which this year included some foods from history.

http://www.thepress.co.uk/news/3710287.York_food_festival_goes_back_in_time/

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News - Medieval Portuguese Shipwreck Found

ORANJEMUND, Namibia (AFP) - Archaeologists are racing against the little time left to salvage a fortune in coins and items from a 500-year-old Portuguese shipwreck found recently off Namibia's rough southern coast.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/namibiaportugalarchaeologyshipping

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Music - Wolgemut
Maryland Renaissance Festival, Annapolis, Maryland
October 11 & 12, 2008

"Wolgemut draws on a wide range of performers who come from various artistic backgrounds. This leads to a distinctive sound and feeling for the group. Music, dance, theatre, classical music, folk music and musicology are just a few of the areas covered by their combined experience and education. "

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Music - Vince Conaway
King Richard's Renaissance Faire, Carver, Massachusetts
October 11 & 12, 2008

"Vince is an interactive performer, believing that the audience should not be separated from the show but instead be a part of it. One of few dulcimer players to converse while performing, he also brings a bit of cultural and historical perspective to every performance. Whether performing Living History, at a bookstore, or busking on the street he holds to his guiding principles of musicianship, showmanship, and professionalism."

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On the Size and Color of Eggs

One of the things I was told back when I had just started to dabble in medieval cooking was that the eggs they had in medieval Europe were smaller than modern eggs. Not being overly skeptical back then, I accepted this as an established fact and filed it away for future reference. As I progressed in my research though, I became more doubtful of this factoid. Now I'm at the point where I'm comfortable in saying it's utter bunk.

The recipe for May Eggs involves pouring the liquid yolks out of partly boiled eggs, 

mixing them with spices, pouring them back in, and allowing them to boil until hard. 

This is difficult and messy enough using large eggs. I doubt it's even possible with small ones.

It's easy enough to understand how such a belief could come about. We're told repeatedly that the great size of farm animals compared to their wild counterparts is directly the result of modern farming practices. What we forget is that some of those practices have been practiced for the past thousand years.

Evidence for modern-sized eggs in the medieval period is surprisingly easy to find.

Chicken Vendors, Vincenzo Campi, 1580s
Web Gallery of Art

The painting above is a beautiful example (click on it to go to a bigger version). See there in the lower right corner? Four Grade-A, Extra-Large eggs.

The Egg Dance, Pieter Aertsen, 1552

Web Gallery of Art

In this one the egg is on the floor, next to the overturned bowl and near the wooden shoe - about to be stepped on.

"Ah! How do you know those are chicken eggs and not goose eggs? How do you know they weren't smaller in, say, the 14th century?" I hear you ask. How about this for an answer?

Taccuino Sanitatis, 14th century

Large, modern-looking eggs ... being gathered from chickens ... in the fourteenth century. That pretty much sums it up.

Oh, and about the color of medieval eggs: common wisdom is that they were probably brown or speckled. P'feh! Take another look at those paintings. See any brown eggs? Me neither. If you find a painting of medieval eggs that show them to be any color other than white, I'd love to see it.

Food Related Painting of the Week

La succession des plats
15th century

La succession des plats
(from the Bibliothèque National de France)

This is a page (February) of the calendar in Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne. It's a simple scene of a noble dining, apparently alone.

There's a bunch of good stuff here to look at. The pie in front of the diner is the most prominent (to me) - it has a sharply defined, regular shape that is characteristic of medieval pies, complete with the hole at the top which was probably where the cook poured in melted butter or vinegar.

The diner is holding a bowl of something red. It could be wine (I don't see a cup on the table) or some kind of soup. Given the absence of a spoon, I can only assume he'll drink directly from the bowl.

There's a knife on the table next to the half eaten loaf of bread. According to John Russell's Book of Nurture, bread should never be torn or bitten off, but should always be cut into bite-sized pieces with a the knife. Comparing the size of the bread to the size of the diner's hand, I'd guess it's about a quarter-pound loaf (assuming things are represented vaguely to scale). On a side note, I like how the rivets in the knife's handle are clearly visible.

One leg of the table is visible, peeking out from the table cloth. It appears to be part of a typical medieval sawhorse table.

On the whole, it's a nice clear dining scene. If I can get around to getting a table like this, I'll have to try setting this up to see what it's like.

Kalendarium Hortense - October

The Kalendarium Hortense was published by John Evelyn in 1683. It contains instructions for what a gardener should do throughout the year. The excerpt below is the list of what is to be done in the "Orchard and Olitory¹ Garden" for the month of October.

Trench Grounds for Orcharding, and the Kitchen garden, to lie for Winter mellowing.

Plant dry Trees (i.) Fruit of all sorts, Standard, Mural², or Shrubs which lose their leaf; and that so soon as it falls: But be sure you chuse no Trees for the Wall of above two years Graffing at the most sound and smooth.

Now is the time for Ablaqueation³, and laying bare the Roots of old unthriving, or over-hasty blooming Trees.

Moon now decreasing, gather Winter fruit that remains weather dry; take heed of bruising; lay them up clean lest they taint; Cut and prune Roses yearly, reducing them to a Standard not over tall.

Plant and Plash Quick sets.

Remove Graffs after the second year, unless Dwarffs, which you may let stand till the third.

Save, and sow all stony and hard Kernels and Seeds; such as black Cherry, Morellos, black Heart, all good; Pear-plum, Peaches, Almond stones. &c. Also Nuts, Haws, Ashen, Sucomore, and Maple keys; Acorns, Beech mast, Apple, Pear, and Crab kernels for Stocks; or you may defer it till the next Month towards the latter end, keeping them dry, and free from mustiness; remembring to cover the Beds with Litter.

You may yet sow Genoa Lettuce, which will last all the Winter, Raddish, &c.

Make Winter Cider and Perry.

Towards the latter end, plant Abricots, Cherries, Plums, Vines, Winter pears, &c.

¹ - olitory: Of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden.

² - mural fruit: fruit borne by trees trained against a wall.

³ - ablaqueation: The act or process of laying bare the roots of trees to expose them to the air and water.