Link from NPR!

So I'm looking at the statistics for the website and I very quickly notice that I'm getting a lot more hits than usual - about double the traffic. There's one URL at NPR.org that shows up a lot in the logs. I check it and sure enough, there's a small link to my Frumenty recipe partway down the page.

(the culprit)

This is the coolest link since I got one from the BBC website!

Solstice Dinner

For the past couple of years I've cooked a big dinner on December 21st to celebrate the winter solstice. Partly it's a traditional way to observe the changing seasons of the year, and another special thing to enjoy over the holidays. The biggest reason though is so I can cook a fancy holiday dinner the way I want without making any additional fuss and mess on Christmas eve or Christmas day.

The menu hasn't settled down yet, but this year I decided it should be a counterpoint to Thanksgiving. I've selected mostly medieval English dishes and the focus is on old-world foods. Here's what I've got so far:

Roast Goose with Sauce Madame - The goose is stuffed with fruit and herbs. After roasting, the stuffing is removed and used to make a fruit sauce. This is my first time making this recipe (and for that matter, my first time cooking goose), so we'll see how it goes.

Wastels y-Farced - Since the goose isn't going to have a bread-based stuffing, I thought I'd make this old favorite. It's essentially a steamed, savory bread pudding.

Plum Pudding - While plum puddings aren't at all medieval, I've become quite addicted to this particular English tradition. The holidays just wouldn't be complete without it.

The only thing I still can't decide on is a vegetable. I've thought about Brussels sprouts, but somehow they just don't click. I'll have to make up my mind soon.

If I have time, I'm going to make some gyngerbrede too. Not for dinner or dessert, but as a treat for during the day and with mulled cider later that evening.

Food Related Painting of the Week

Supper at Emmaus
Marco Marziale, 1506

Supper at Emmaus
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

This painting illustrates one of the problems I have to face: early medieval artwork was usually much more concerned with religion than it was with food. I can find heaps of paintings and illuminations depicting religious figures, but very few that have any kind of accurate depiction of medieval food (I almost chose a painting of Herod's banquet where John the Baptists' head was being served on a platter, but it just wasn't food-related enough).

At any rate, there actually is a bit of interesting food-related stuff going on in this picture. Most prominent of course are the oddly shaped loaves of bread. I haven't seen kidney-shaped loaves before. Each loaf has a strange little dimple on the side as well - perhaps it's a baker's mark.

In front of each diner is a rectangular trencher, apparently made of metal. Bread trenchers were increasingly popular for feasts in the later 14th and early 15th centuries, but may have fallen out of fashion by the time this was painted. I'm not sure exactly what;s on these trenchers. It looks kind of like the calamari I get at the local sushi place, but I kind of doubt that. The ones on Jesus' trencher look like uniform slices of something. Meat? Sippets?

Aside from the trencher and a spiffy knife for each diner, the remaining items on the table are all rather plain. Jesus's bowl, the pitcher, and the glasses are certainly of nice quality (metal and glass), but are not ornate. The glasses don't even have the stereotypical prunts (bumps added to the outside to make the glass less slippery). The possible exception is the salt cellar in front of Jesus, which looks like it's made of gold or brass and appears to have some decoration around the side.

That's it for the food though - just bread, wine, and some mysterious things on trenchers.

The sawhorse table is rather interesting of course, as are the stools at either end. I still need to get around to making a couple of tables like this, and maybe stools too. Others may be fascinated by the clothes, hats, rosaries, belt pouches, napkins, boot closures, and the fact that the fold lines are so visible on the table cloth, but not me. I didn't notice those things at all.

Thoughts on Misconceptions

I don't normally let a short story get to me, but one I finished reading yesterday is still bugging me. I won't mention the title or author's name as they're actually irrelevant to my point here. It's not that the story was particularly bad in terms of writing style or plot. I probably would have enjoyed the thing if it hadn't been for one small problem: the author had no idea what he was talking about.

Line many stories, the tale centered upon a person from a primitive culture being taken to a more developed one. This is all well and fine, except that instead of learning what primitive human cultures are/were really like, the tale's author simply repeated every myth about "naked savages" he'd ever read or seen in movies regardless of whether they made sense. Ugh! I did laugh when he actually used the phrase "naked savage" when the main character saw himself in a mirror, but it wasn't a good laugh so much as a shocked laugh of disbelief.

So where's the medieval angle here? Well oddly enough, most of the myths the author perpetuated are often applied to medieval European culture as well. There seems to be some need in humanity to assume that life in any given time of the past must have been shorter, simpler, and nastier than it is now. I'll address some of the specific myths in the story from the viewpoint of a historian and medievalist, but the answers pretty much apply to all human cultures.

Cleanliness

Some cultures do indeed bathe more than others, but if a human is going to live long enough to breed then it must maintain some level of hygiene. Medieval Europeans bathed, and it was more than once a year. No, they probably didn't smell like roses or lemons, but neither do some of the people I deal with on a daily basis. They did understand the importance of washing their hands, cleaning their teeth, and the like. Dirt and sweat are one thing, filth and vermin are another.

Diet

Not everyone lived their entire life on the edge of starvation. Yes, there were periods of famine in the middle ages, but there were also time were people had enough to eat. While they didn't have modern agriculture or preservation techniques, they were generally capable of getting enough food from their lands and storing enough of it to get through the winter.

Intelligence

While the sum of human knowledge has increased, the level of human intelligence has not changed for many thousands of years. In other words, medieval people were just as smart as modern people, but they didn't have as much information as we do. There were geniuses and idiots in ancient Rome, and they were much like their modern counterparts.

Sophistication

Live was not simpler in medieval Europe. The merchants there/then had already invented things like insurance and stock futures. They had bank accounts, brokers, overseas manufacturing, fraud, cartels, and everything else we expect from modern business. People - even in the working or farming classes - didn't spend all their time at work. They had fashion trends, theater, religious debates, wedding celebrations, and even fast food. It seems that humans will always make things as complicated as possible given their environment in order to keep from being bored. (Don't believe me? Check out Polynesian cultures)

So yes, I'm sure there were some people in medieval Europe who were stupid and filthy, who worked all of their waking hours, and lived their entire lives on the edge of starvation. However I'm also sure that I could find such people living in modern cities as well. Their lives are not (and were not) typical.

Food Related Painting of the Week

Fishmongers
Vincenzo Campi, 1580s

Fishmongers
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Another late-medieval (depending on your viewpoint) painting by Vincenzo Campi. This one depicts a (assumed) fish merchant.

The group of people on the left (family?) immediately catch the eye. The man and woman are both holding bowls of what I assume are cooked beans (see Annibale Carracci's The Beaneater). Nice, simple bowls. Partly obscured view of the spoon the woman's holding. It's hard to tell what's on the table in front of them. I think the blocky, rock-shaped things are pieces of bread. It looks to me like there are dead mice on the plate, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. At the woman's feet is a pitcher with a bowl on top. My guess is that the bowl is being used a drinking vessel, and is filled with some of the wine (or whatever) that's in the pitcher.

On the other side, a young woman is dumping a large bucket of fresh (live?) fish onto the table for sorting. I'm not sure what the stick-like things just in front of her are. Next to her is a big, beautiful copper kettle with a knife.

The variety of seafood in the picture is very impressive. The big guy in the center is a sturgeon. There are at least a half-dozen other species of fish, along with scallops, oysters, clams, and crab. There's also a turtle under the table. Conspicuously absent are skates and rays - they usually show up in these sorts of paintings (see Pieter Aertsen's Market Scene). The one that really gets me though is the starfish at the bottom center. I don't think I've ever seen a recipe for starfish in a medieval cookbook, and from what I remember of biology class there isn't anything in a starfish that is edible. Are they just there as bycatch? Were they used for soup stock? Did Campi just include them because they look cool?

Another thing to check on as soon as I get a time machine.

Projects

Sometimes I feel awfully scatterbrained - I'm well aware that organization is not my strong suit (Oh, and if you've emailed me and I didn't get back to you, it's probably because I was distracted by something, so feel free to email again and nag until you get a response - I promise I won't get annoyed). At any rate, I thought I'd make a list of the current projects I'm working on in the hopes it motivates me to finish a few of them off.

The Projects (in no particular order):

• writing a novel (gothic horror, about 60% done)
• transcription of Kalendarium Hortense (ongoing)
• Halidai's Instant Feast
• image processing for "A Noble Boke off Cookry"
• medieval prayer book (in Middle-English)
• book/paper of medieval scientific knowledge
• transcription of Middle-English cookbook
• construction of various props for RPGs
• about 100 books to be read
• menus for 3 different events
• outfitting a medieval field kitchen

Ugh! That's a lot for someone who still has a day job, and there's a bunch more that I haven't included. I need a staff to follow me around and complete things, kind of like Martha Stewart had - before she went to jail.

No more new projects until I get these done - and this time I meant it!

Kalendarium Hortense - December

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 December.

Prune and nail Wall fruit², (which yet you may defer a Month or two longer) and Standard-trees.

You may now plant Vines, &c.

Also Stocks for Graffing, &c.

Sow, as yet, Pomace of Cider-pressings to raise Nurseries; and set all sorts of Kernels, Stones, &c.

Sow for early Beans and Pease, but take heed of the Frosts; therefore surest to defer it till after Christmas, unless the Winter promise very moderate.

All this Month you may continue to Trench Ground, and dung it, to be ready for Borders, or the planting of Fruit-trees, &c.

Either late in this Month, or in January, prune and cut off all your Vine shoots to the very Root, save one or two of the stoutest, to be left with three or four eyes of young Wood. This for the Vineyard.

Now seed your weak Stocks.

Turn and refresh your Autumnal Fruit, lest it taint, and open the Windows where it lies, in a clear and serene day.

¹ - Olitory: of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden.

² - Wall fruit: trees trained against a wall.

Welcome to the New World

[I'm a bit busy this week - big surprise - so my regular posting schedule is on hold. The painting of the week and all will be back next week.]

Once again, Thanksgiving draws near - at least for those of us in the United States. It is the one dinner where I intentionally focus on foods that are native to the Americas. My planned menu isn't very different from last year, but I thought I might make a few comments on some of the dishes (historical and otherwise).

Turkey - The turkey has an odd quirk in its history. While it was native to the Americas, it was domesticated in England. Wild turkeys were brought back to England in the early 16th century, where they were carefully bread for meat production and such. There they quickly supplanted the bustard as the common large bird at the dining table. The domestic turkey was then imported back to the Americas (re-imported? back-ported?).

Gravy - Technically, gravy is one of the four "mother sauces" of French cuisine (i.e. velouté), and while there is at least one medieval sauce recipe that is thickened with flour, the technique didn't really become common until the 19th century.

Stuffing - I suppose this could be considered "old world" and medieval, seeing as there are medieval recipes for a farsure (Middle English for "stuffing") made of bread to stuff into meat, but serving stuffing is a strong tradition in my family, and I'm not going to risk a holiday revolt. I do add dried cranberries to the mix, along with sage, and I usually use a mix of white bread and pumpernickel.

Mashed Potatoes - The potato is thought to have originated in South America. It was introduced to Europe in the early 16th century, and quickly became well established there.

Green Beans - There is some confusion over the history of these beans, mostly due to the use of the word "haricots". From what I understand, that name was used in reference to other varieties of beans before Columbus' voyages, and all members of the genus Phaseolus are new-world plants. This year I'm going to try serving freshly steamed green beans with Mornay sauce and home made pumpernickel croutons.

Cranberry Sauce - Cranberries are related to blueberries and the like, but are very different from their European cousins. I like to make cranberry chutney each year (which includes a little capsicum pepper - also a new world food). It's one of my favorite recipes, and is well liked by the family. I also make a homemade jellied cranberry sauce for my step-father. One of these years I'm going to use a can to mold the jellied stuff so it has the "cutting lines".

Corn Relish - This is something new I'm trying this year. It felt strange to cook a dinner featuring new-world foods that didn't include corn and tomatoes. These are two of the most successful plants in the culinary world. So I'm going to make up a small dish using baby corn and sun-dried tomatoes. If it turns out well then I'll post the recipe.

Pumpkin Pie - Pumpkins, like the other species of squash, originated in North America, though the word "pumpkin" itself appears to have come from France (by way of England). Pumpkins were apparently accepted into European cuisine fairly quickly.

Apple Pie - Ok, I admit that this one is not at all "new world". There are plenty of recipes for apple pies dating back to before the 14th century. Add to that the fact that apples weren't native to North America, and suddenly the phrase "As American as apple pie" is more than a bit ironic. This is another one of those cases where tradition outweighs geekiness though. If I didn't serve apple pie at Thanksgiving, I'd be cast out from the family.

This is what American food is really all about. It's not all cheeseburgers and french fries. It's a mix of traditional European dishes made with new world foods. Happy Thanksgiving!

Food Related Painting of the Week

The Egg Dance
Pieter Aertsen, 1552

The Egg Dance
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

I briefly talked about this painting in my post about medieval eggs, but there's a lot more here worth perusing.

One of the more obvious things is all the leeks and mussel shells scattered over the floor. I read somewhere (and can no longer find the source) that these - along with the leeks in the vase on the wall in the background - indicate that the place depicted in the painting is a house of ill repute. I don't know enough about that aspect of medieval history to be sure, but that sounds reasonable to me. Aside from the mess on the floor there are a couple of interesting kettles hanging over the fire and, at the very top of the painting near the center, some odd things which I think are sausages.

The really big draw though (for me at least) is the stuff on the table. The small loaves of bread are easy to figure out, and the little metal thing is probably a salt cellar, but what are those flat, diamond-shaped things? Waffles? They don't quite look like the waffles in other paintings. They're too thick to be playing cards. Trenchers maybe? The one to the left is curving up slightly at the edges in the same way the trenchers I made did after they started to dry out a bit.

And what in blazes are those things in the center of the table? I've seen these things before (in Aertsen's painting Butcher's Stall) and I couldn't figure then out there either (though in that painting they were accompanied by two similar things with a disturbingly red-brown colored filling). Schmaltz tarts? Marrow? Soft cheese with a rind? If so, the "rind" looks kind of wrong. Whatever they are, they come from the butcher ready-to-eat. I'm stumped on this one.

Food Related Painting of the Week

Christ and the Adulteress
Pieter Aertsen, 1559

Christ and the Adulteress
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Yet another "inside-out" painting (sense a trend here?), this one from Amsterdam. So what do we have here? Front and center is an assortment of fruit and vegetables: carrots (maybe in two different colors, but it might just be shadow), onions, cucumbers (that look slightly fat like that cucumber-like thing last week), strawberries (in front) and peaches (just behind them), and a couple different kinds of cabbage. I think there's something that looks like an acorn squash in with the cabbage, but it's hard to tell.

Note the basket of very modern looking eggs in the front. Enough said on that.

Just behind the veggies is a basket of round things. They could be bread, but they seem just a bit too uniform in color. Cheeses maybe? That would make sense in connection with the pots of milk just behind them. This brings me to the oddly shaped things in the lower right corner, partly covered, in the bowl sitting on top of the bird cage. I haven't the foggiest idea just what they are. As a guess I'd say butter - something about the way they're kept in a bowl and (presumably) kept covered. I've seen these in other pictures, and they may (or may not) be related to the Mysterious Football-Shaped Things® discussed elsewhere.

Oh, and while they're not food, I love the pile of cookpots in the lower left. I need to buy a few of those.

Items of Note

News Article - A sport of kings, knights, and nomads
The Boston Globe

A short article by Jane Roy Brown on the history of falconry.

http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/vermont/articles/2008/11/09/a_sport_of_kings_knights_and_nomads/

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Blog - A History of Cooks and Cooking

Mae's Food Blog has a review of Michael Symons' book, A History of Cooks and Cooking.

http://maefood.blogspot.com/2008/11/history-of-cooks-and-cooking.html

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Music - Vince Conaway
Louisiana Renaissance Festival, Hammond, Louisiana
November 15 & 16, 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

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha
Vincenzo Campi, ca. 1580

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Another "inside-out" painting, this time from Italy. Lots of fun things in this one. In the upper left hanging next to the duck and a skewered chicken is a little wild pig - almost too cute to eat. It's a good reminder that they were eating a lot of game animals. Similarly, there's a lot of fish here too, and a beautiful salmon steak. With the church forbidding meat on three days out of the week, fish was very important.

In the middle of all those fish though, in the lower left corner of the painting, is a lobster. At one point I'd been told that medieval Europeans weren't eating north Atlantic lobster, but instead ate Mediterranean ones - which look different and don't have the big claws. However almost all of the lobsters I've seen depicted in paintings like this one are clearly north Atlantic. This shows that the trade of fresh seafood was quite impressive. Huge amounts of fish were carted for hundreds of miles inland. Where possible, it was kept alive in barrels. These were not "simpler times".

In the center we have some songbirds - larks? - some small loaves of bread, and an artichoke. Among the things in the seller's basket are a couple of different colors of carrots and a lumpy green thing. It could be a melon of some kind, or maybe a fat cucumber. I'll have to spend some time trying to figure that one out. Oh, and in the upper right are those big, round heads of very modern looking cabbage.

In the lower right, if you look underneath those birds, are some folded white tablecloths. The draping of the table was very important, and medieval stewards wrote detailed instructions on how to do it correctly in books like The Boke of Keruynge (Peter Brears, ed.). It required three tablecloths per section of table, with special folds and sections to delineate where the lord of the manor sat. I don't think that storing tablecloths underneath ducks and geese was the recommended way of keeping them clean though.

Items of Note

Music - Collegium Musicum Concert
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
November 6, 2008, 7:30 PM

Recreating Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical performances

Collegium Musicum is dedicated to the historically informed performance of Western and Non-Western European music from the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.

This fall’s concert includes music students and faculty performing a delightfully varied program directed by Janet Pollack. The concert is on Thursday, Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Organ Recital Hall, University Center for the Arts, 1400 Remington Street

http://events.colostate.edu/event_view.asp?EID=24135&ID=7

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Music - Vince Conaway
Louisiana Renaissance Festival, Hammond, Louisiana
November 8 & 9, 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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Kalendarium Hortense - November

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 November.

Carry Compost out of your Melon ground, or turn and mingle it with the Earth, and lay it in Ridges ready for the Spring: Also trench and fit ground for Artichoaks, &c.

Continue your Setting and Transplanting of Trees; lose no time, hard Frosts come on apace: Yet you may lay bare old Roots.

Plant young Trees, Standards, or Mural².

Furnish your Nursery with Stocks to graff on the following year.

Sow and set early Beans and Pease till Shrove-tide; and now lay up in your Cellars for spending, and for seed, to be transplanted at Spring, Carrots, Parsneps, Turneps, Cabbafes, Caulkly-flowers, &c.

Cut off the tops of Asparagus, and cover it with long dung, or make Beds to plant in Spring, &c.

Now, in a dry day, gather your last Orchard fruits.

Take up your Potatoes for Winter spending, there will enough remain for Stock, though never so exactly gathered.

¹ - Olitory: of or pertaining to, or produced in, a kitchen garden.

² - Mural trees: trees trained against a wall.

³ - Shrovetide: the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

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.

Items of Note

Miscellaneous - Catalan Festa Calendar

A short article about the modern Catalan calendar of religious holidays. While some of these holidays are new, and some have moved around a bit since the middle ages, it still provides a bit of perspective on medieval practices.

http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=112065

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Blog Entry - A Compound Salad

An easy recipe for a very mixed salad. (England, 17th c.)

http://thepapillonpantry.blogspot.com/2008/09/compound-salad.html

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Music - Wolgemut
Maryland Renaissance Festival, Annapolis, Maryland
October 4 & 5, 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 4 & 5, 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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To buy, or not to buy ...

  


The Book of Sent Soví
Joan Santanach (ed.)
Robin Vogelzang (trans.)
Tamesis Books
ISBN: 1855661640

I'm torn. I don't do Spanish or Catalan cooking and can't read either language. What's more, there's already enough information available on medieval English and French cooking to keep me busy for the next hundred years or so.

On the other hand, the cuisines of England and France weren't completely isolated from the rest of Europe. There's considerable overlap with contemporary German and Italian sources, so there might be some interesting and useful bits of knowledge in this source. Further it's a source from the early 14th century, which means it could also provide insight into the cooking methods of that time period, spice consumption and availability, etc.

Dang, looks like I'm going to buy it.

Forme of Cury

Fantastic news! An article from the Guardian says that the University of Manchester will be digitally photographing their manuscript of Forme of Cury and making the images freely available on the Internet.

Photograph: University of Manchester John Rylands University Library

Forme of Cury, a recipe book compiled by King Richard II's master cooks in 1390, details around 205 dishes cooked in the royal household and sheds light on a little-studied element of life in the Dark Ages.

The text of Forme of Cury is already available online, but the existing transcriptions do have some errors. Being able to compare transcribed text to the original is incredibly helpful in working out recipes. This will also allow others to make their own transcriptions.

The work, which will be carried out using a state-of-the-art high-definition camera, will begin next month and is due to be completed by late 2009.

Oooh! I hate waiting!

Food Related Painting of the Week

The Marriage at Cana
Gerard David
ca. 1500

The Marriage at Cana, Oil on wood, Musée du Louvre, Paris
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

A busy painting from the late medieval period, this one is unusual in that it has a lot of food detail for a religious-themed artwork (if you look at the paintings titled "The Last Supper", you'll find that nothing was being served other than bread).

The first thing that catches my eye in this one is (of course) the pie being brought in at the left. The perspective is a bit squashed, but this is a nice example of the geometrically perfect, cylindrical medieval pie - I'll post other paintings with such pies in the future. My gaze then travels across the table to the right, noting the bread, knife, and beaker-shaped glass just in the foreground of Jesus. Just right of center a server is carving a piece of meat. The resolution here isn't good enough to make out what's on the platter next to him. There's a nice salt cellar next to that.

Something else worth noting, in this painting the diners are seated all around the table instead of only along one side as is the case in most feast scenes. This makes me wonder if the seating arrangements in all the other paintings are wrong (set up so you could see all the figures), or if it's this one that doesn't represent how feasters sat, or perhaps even if both arrangements were common. Something I'll have to check into.

Items of Note

News - Dering Roll acquired by the British Library

The Dering Roll, the oldest extant English roll of arms, dating from c. 1270-1280, has been acquired by the British Library following a successful fundraising campaign. The Roll depicts 324 coats of arms, approximately a quarter of the entire English baronage during the reign of King Edward I, making it a vital record for the study of knighthood in medieval England.

http://www.bl.uk/news/2008/pressrelease20080902.html

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Event - Coronation (SCA)
Edgewood, Kentucky
September 27, 2008

From the head cook: "Recipes prepared in Scandinavian cultures during the Viking Era are far and few between. Dining information can be gleaned from reading the Sagas and archeological digs to get a broad view of the types of food that were eaten and how they were prepared. I used those sources to assemble my version of nattmal. An additional source used for the meal is “On the observance of foods” written by Anthimus in 6th century AD written as a health treatise for the Frankish court."

(Feast will be prepared by Baroness Artimesia Grimaldi)

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Video - Cosentino Goes Medieval on a Pig's Head

Brief commentary and a link to a video of Chef Chris Cosentino preparing a pig head to make Porchetta di Testa. It's not medieval, but some of it (removing the fur, hair, & bristles) is relevant.

http://www.yumdiary.com/2008/09/cosentino-goes-medieval-on-pigs-head_20.html

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Music - Wolgemut
Maryland Renaissance Festival, Annapolis, Maryland
October 4 & 5, 2008

Gates open at 10:00 am; Several performances daily, please see daily schedule for times and stages.

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Music - Vince Conaway
King Richard's Renaissance Faire, Carver, Massachusetts
October 4 & 5, 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

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez
ca. 1620

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Oil on canvas, National Gallery, London
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Yet another painting that is a bit too late (1620) to be considered properly medieval. This is one of those odd "inside-out" paintings where the title refers to what's going on in the background. Of course, I prefer it this way - those pesky important figures don't get in the way of the detail.

The young woman in the foreground is preparing some kind of fish dish, which features garlic and eggs. She's grinding the garlic or some unpictured spice in a mortar. It's worth noting that medieval cooks would have covered the top of the mortar with a tied piece of cloth if they were grinding a spice that would make a lot of dust, so my guess is the garlic.

What's really interesting in this painting though is the presence of a dried chili pepper just in front of the bowl of fish. This may be the earliest depiction of a capsicum pepper in European art (I haven't found anything earlier).