American as Apple Pie

Somehow the month of September managed to zip past and I was too wrapped up in other things to post here.

At any rate, apples are now in season in my part of the United States, which means I was compelled to go to a nearby orchard and buy a large quantity.  That in turn means I'm now looking around for new recipes to use up said apples.

By far, the favorite apple dish here in the US is apple pie (which ironically has a history that goes far back before the European colonization of the Americas). I therefore have a perfect opportunity to engage in some historic cooking at the same time as I partake in an annual apple overindulgence.

The question of course is which recipe to try?  I've already made our family's traditional apple pie (apples, sugar, cinnamon, crumb crust on top), so I want to make something a bit different.  That eliminates a number of medieval recipes, as a large number are essentially apples, sugar, cinnamon and ginger in a pie crust.  A quick search through some of the medieval cookbooks comes up with the following contenders:

This one is essentially regular apple pie recipe, but with the top crust glazed during baking using sugar and rose water.  Interesting, but not very exciting.

Tartes of Apples with covers.  Mince your Apples very small, season them with Sugar, sinamon & ginger, and laye thereon a faire cover, and dresse your cover when it is halfe baked with Rosewater and Sugar.  [A Book of Cookrye (England, 1591)]

Here from the same cookbook is a tart recipe where the apples are precooked in wine.  That sounds more promising!

Tartes of Apples without covers. Boyle your Apples very tender in a little wine, or for lack of Wine Ale, and then strain them with Sugar, sinamon and ginger. Make a tart of it without a cover.  [A Book of Cookrye (England, 1591)]

A much older recipe from Forme of Cury adds pears and dried fruits and saffron (that reminds me, I need to buy more saffron - a lot more).  There's no sugar or honey listed, though I suppose it could be part of the "spices".

For To Make Tartys In Applis. Tak gode Applys and gode Spycis and Figys and reysons and Perys and wan they are wel ybrayed colourd wyth Safroun wel and do yt in a cofyn and do yt forth to bake wel.  [Forme of Cury (England, 1390)]

The last three recipes are from the same German cookbook - they had a lot of apple recipes in there, with numerous apple pies and tarts.

This one calls for egg yolks, which might make it more custardy.

74 An apple tart. Peel the apples and take the cores cleanly out and chop them small, put two or three egg yolks with them and let butter melt in a pan and pour it on the apples and put cinnamon, sugar and ginger thereon and let it bake. Roast them first in butter before you chop them.  [Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin (Germany, 1553)]

This one precooks the apples and adds raisins.

79 An apple tart. Peel the apples cleanly and take out the cores, chop them small and fry them in fat, put raisins, sugar and cinnamon therein and let it bake.  [Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin (Germany, 1553)]

Lastly, this one grates the apples and adds cheese and eggs.  My wife likes cheese in her apple pie, but I never could get used to it.  Incidentally, this is the only medieval apple pie recipe I've found that calls for cheese.

177 To make an apple tart. Take apples, peel them and grate them with a grater, afterwards fry them in fat. Then put in it as much grated cheese as apples, some ground cloves, a little ginger and cinnamon, two eggs. Stir it together well. Then prepare the dough as for a flat cake, put a small piece of fat into it so that it does not rise, and from above and below, weak heat. Let it bake slowly.  [Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin (Germany, 1553)]

Looking at these options, I think I'll try out the one from Forme of Cury first.  Then perhaps one of the German recipes.

Here, There, and Everywhere!

The title pretty much sums up the state of my brain.  I've had a lot going on in the past couple of weeks but not much of it shows on the surface, so I thought I'd make a note here about a couple of the more interesting things.

At Gen Con I talked with Shane Moore, author of the Abyss Walker books, and because of that I'm now working on a cookbook ... of sorts.  It's going to be an Orcish cookbook - a sort of fantasy thing filled with recipes for roast Elf and such.  The goal is to have all the recipes be workable (assuming some ingredient substitutions) and have the cuisine have its own distinct flavor.  We'll see how this goes.  If nothing else, it should be a fun project.

Yosinori Satoh of Kobe, Japan has just completed a Japanese translation of the 14th century French cookbook "Enseignements" (Bibl. Nationale Ms. Lat. 7131), based upon my English translation.  I've been corresponding with Yosi for a couple weeks now, clarifying and revising parts of my translation - which probably means my translation will need to be updated in the next month or so.

I'm starting up a writing circle with a couple of friends.  Hopefully this will encourage all of us to get more written, and help work out plot issues, etc.  The zombie story I'm currently working on is currently around 8000 words and starting to move.

I've got a small bunch of things by other researchers that I need to format properly and put up on the website - a couple of articles and recipes and the like.  I should also take some time to make sure I've got links to all of Kristen's recipes.

Recently I have been taking more of an interest in medieval European charms, amulets, and magical "cures".  I don't know how far I'll be going with it, but it's neat stuff.

Yesterday I received an email from Dr. Thomas Gloning.  He'd been contacted by Helmut Kluge who is working on a database of plants and their uses in German manuscripts.  Dr. Gloning thought I might be of some help for this project.  It took a bit for me to work out what the emails were about because my understanding of German is very limited (I can read medieval German recipes and comments in German database code with reasonable accuracy, but beyond that I'm lost).  It turns out that Helmut is well aware of my website (Hi Helmut!), and while there isn't much I can currently help him with, there is some potential for future collaboration.

There's more, of course, but a lot of it is silly stuff that I do for fun and is probably a waste of time.

When the Party's Over

Once again, Gen Con has come and gone, and It'll probably take over a week for me to fully recover. This year was great. I had fun, I learned lots of stuff, and I talked with lots of cool people. The fact that Jean Rabe organizes the Writers' Symposium events for Gen Con every year shows that she's one of the most awesome people ever.

My two hour talk, titled Real Medieval Feasts seemed to go well. It wasn't as much fun to do as the Principles of Medieval Cooking one I've done a number of times, but people still seemed to enjoy it. Attendance seemed smaller than last year - there were only about 60 or so in the audience, and some empty seats. Still, the crowd was responsive and inquisitive.

I was really nervous for the cooking workshop. I'd never done this kind of thing, and the lack of proper cooking facilities made me worry even more. I was so nervous that I managed to burn my fingertips (slightly) while adjusting the element on the cooktop - I hadn't realized it got turned on while setting things up.

Still, I managed to get the food served and did my best to keep the guests entertained. I'd cooked most of the food ahead of time, and that's about the only way I could have done this at all. No one seemed to mind much, and in fact they said I could have charged significantly more (which I'll likely need to do if I try this again next year). Given the cost of dining anywhere near the convention (where a burger, fries, and drink can cost up to $20) I guess I'm not surprised.

One thing I did get a kick out of was that two of the guests were children. Both boys, one around eight years old and the other I'll guess was maybe six, and they were there with their mothers. The kids were very well behaved, tried everything (that I could see) and seemed to like it. These were my kind of kids! If either of the moms are reading this, thank you for raising such nice children.

For the Writers' Symposium panels I was on, I had a great time. I was a bit concerned about the panel on drinking, but it was really fun - and I got to have a nice chat with Linda Baker before and afterwards (Hi Linda!).

The panel on Dark Women worried me even more - it was mis-scheduled in the Gen Con computer, so very few people were there at the start, and I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to contribute (I'm a guy, after all). I think we managed to do pretty well, and we even extended it an extra hour to accommodate the (large!) crowd who showed up for the scheduled time. Paul Genesse had the brilliant idea to draft one of the audience members from the first hour into the panel for the second hour. Susan Carhart (I hope I remembered her name right) was a really neat person to be on a panel with - smart, charming, and all-around fun.

That's about it for now. There are several potential projects that might develop from the convention, but we'll have to wait and see. I'll post some details on what I served at the cooking workshop a bit later this week.

GenCon 2010 Update

My preparations for the convention are going well. I've got my notes all ready and the menu set for the workshop. I do have one bit of news though: I am now officially a published author!

The group that puts on the Writer's Symposium panels at GenCon have put together a collection of short stories called "Stalking the Wild Hare", and in it is my story "Critical Violation".

It's a nice little story about zombie rats invading the cafeteria at a government laboratory. See? It's even food related!

There are also twenty or so stories by some of the other Writer's Symposium authors - they're a great bunch of people and I'm honored to be included in their midst. The publisher says it'll be available from Amazon.com in a couple of weeks (I'll update this post with a link at that time).

Gen Con 2010 Schedule

It's less than a month before Gen Con, and once again I'll be participating in some of the Writer's Symposium seminars, as well as a couple of events of my own.

On Thursday evening I'll be giving a 2 hour talk about medieval feasts, targeted more towards fantasy authors and role-playing gamers than historians (there does seem to be a surprising amount of overlap though).  I expect this to be a bit rambling, with my usual tendency to sidetrack and distract myself.  Here's the description from the Gen Con catalog:

SEM1008386 - Real Medieval Feasts
Why did they have feasts in medieval Europe? What did they eat? Who paid for it all? This seminar examines real feasts based upon descriptions and menus from medieval sources, and compares the medieval practices with modern misconceptions. Some of the topics to be included are feast foods, entertainment, manners, economics, and the practical challenges of processing two thousand head of poultry. 08/05/2010, 8:00:00 PM, Marriott : Santa Fe

I'm also trying something new this year, a medieval cooking workshop.  It's scheduled for late Saturday afternoon, and essentially is providing an early supper for the participants.  I am understandably a bit nervous about this one, ans there aren't any cooking facilities available.  This means I have to do any cooking using hotplates and the like.  Having worked in equally difficult situations though, I'm sure it'll turn out just fine.

WKS1008387 - Medieval Cooking Workshop
Everything you need to know and not know about the basic techniques and ingredients of medieval European cuisine - complete with roasts, vegetables, pies, sauces, and desserts - complete with a demonstration and full meal. A booklet will be provided to each participant with full recipes for all the dishes made. Due to limited facilities, special dietary requirements cannot be accommodated.
08/07/2010, 4:00:00 PM, Marriott : Santa Fe

Because of the limitations in space and such, I had to limit the number of participants to 15 - and I was surprised at how quickly it sold out.  This is also the first time I've charged anything for a seminar/workshop ($12), but given how much I'll spend on the food it was pretty much unavoidable.  Considering how much the convention center charges for pizza or hot dogs, I suppose it's a good deal.


Here are the Writer's Symposium panels I'll be part of:

SEM1009889 - Bottom's Up!
Is your hero always sober? Does your villain have a drinking problem? When is it appropriate to use alcohol in literature to set a scene, advance the plot, or add some color to your characters? Our panelists look at drinking ... and not just the intoxicating stuff. We’ll delve into medieval drinks and futuristic concoctions and discuss reference material to sate your characters’ thirsts and wet your readers’ whistles.  08/07/2010, 11:00, AM Hyatt : Studio 1

SEM1009908 - Dark Ladies
There is a dark side to the “fairer sex.” In this hour, we’ll focus on female villains, hard-boiled heroines, and tough-as-nails supporting characters. How do you make a female character real without becoming a cliché or done-to-death stereotype?  08/08/2010, 9:00 AM, Hyatt : Studio 1

SEM1009910 - Rounding Your World
If you’re not writing in the “real world,” and you’ve created a land of your own, you have to do more than draw a map, add a river, and sprinkle in some mountains and other geographical features. You have to put a lot of thought into the place. Our panelists will tell you what elements make a fantasy setting believable, including weather, population clusters, animal life, and more. 08/08/2010, 10:00 AM, Hyatt : Studio 1

I'm looking forward to it all, but there's a lot of preparation still to do.

Starting Points

When I first started researching medieval cooking - back in the dark ages before the invention of the internet - there were few resources available to anyone who didn't live close to an academic library. The few good sources of information were either people you had to go find, or texts that been copied and re-copied so many times that they were almost unreadable. Now there are so many resources that the beginner is likely to be overwhelmed.

Even on my own page of recommended books I've got an awful lot of titles listed, and for people who are just beginning to study medieval European cuisine, or those who just want to touch on the subject lightly, it can be difficult to figure out where to start.

So I thought I'd take a moment here to list a handful of what I see as basic works - books that provide an easy point of entry to the subject.

For an overview of medieval European cuisine, I'd recommend the following:

The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages by Terence Scully

Cooking in Europe, 1250-1650 by Ken Albala

Both of these books are well written in a very approachable style. They provide the general context of medieval cooking as clearly and simply as possible.


If you want to try and cook medieval foods however, you'll need recipes. There are a handful of websites out there which have recipes worked out already, but there are many medival cookbooks widely available, and working from the original source is really cool and very educational. Below are a few that I feel are good, basic sources, broken down by region. The best part is that most of them are available online for free.


England

Forme of Cury
(included in "Curye on Inglish" - in Middle English)
(free online version - in Middle English)

Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books
(in Middle English)
(free online version - in Middle English)


France

Le Méenagier de Paris
(English translation, as "The Goodman of Paris")
(free online version -in French)
(free online version - English translation)

The Viandier of Taillevent
(in French, inlcludes English translation)
(free online version - English translation)


Germany

Das Buch von guter Speise
(free online version - in German)
(free online version - in German with English translation)


Italy

The Neapolitan Recipe Collection
(in Italian with English translation)

Libro di cucina / Libro per cuoco
(free online version - in Italian)
(free online version - English translation)

The Quiz - Question 3

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. I've been a bit busy with the whole real-life thing and have been neglecting the all of you. I'll try to do better.

Back in December I posted a 6 question quiz about medieval cooking. I had tried to phrase the questions so that there would be many possible answers that could be considered to be correct depending on viewpoint. Here are my thoughts on the third question.


3. How did the primitive cooking equipment available in 15th century England affect the foods cooked?

The use of the word "primitive" above is obviously a leading one, or perhaps that should be misleading. The popular view of medieval European cuisine is that the food was rustic. Images of medieval kings gnawing roasted meat off the bone (usually a Turkey leg at that) are typical in films set in medieval times. While I'm sure that some cooking was rustic then, just as some of it is now, the upper and middle classes enjoyed lavish feasts. Dishes were often ornately decorated, often with gold leaf. Cooks would make "illusion foods" where one kind of food was carefully prepared to make it look like another (for example, making fish look like a hard-boiled egg).

How did they manage to do this with such primitive equipment? The answer is that what they had wasn't necessarily all that primitive.

Yes, they didn't have food processors or refrigerators. They didn't have kitchen timers or thermostats or even measuring spoons. However, take a look at the kitchen of a modern chef. Clean countertops, knives, gas burner, these are the basic tools of the modern chef, and no one would be surprised to see a great chef prepare a stunningly beautiful meal using only the basics.

Each of those basics was available in medieval Europe as well (ok, the gas burner would have been replaced with a wood or charcoal stove, but the form and function aren't that different). Why is it expected then that a great chef back then couldn't make an incredible feast using the same tools? I think the reason is that we automatically tend to assume that the middle ages must have been more primitive than the modern era. This probably stems in part from the Victorian era assumptions that wound up being written into history books.

After all, people aren't too resistant to the suggestion that the ancient Romans cooked elegant feasts. There's this strange tendency though to assume that the fall of the Roman empire plunged the world into darkness for over a thousand years, and in that time we all ate dirt and waited patiently for the renaissance.


In short, the answer to this question is: It didn't.

Kalendarium Hortense - June

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of June.

Apples.
Juniting (first ripe) Pepins, John-Apples, Robillard, Red Fennouil, &c. French.

Pears.
The Maudlin (first ripe) Madera, Green-Royal, St. Laurence Pear, &c.

Cherries, &c.
Duke, Flanders, Heart { Black. Red. White. } Luke-ward, early Flanders, the Common Cherry, Spanish Black, Naples Cherries, &c.

Rasberries, Corinths, Strawberries, Melons, &c.

Kalendarium Hortense - May

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of May.

Apples.
Pepins, Deuxans or John Apples, West-berry Apples, Russeting, Gilly-flower Apples, the Maligar, &c. Codling.

Pears.
Great Kairville, Winter Bon-Crestien, Black Pear of Worcester Surrein, Double Blossom Pear, &c.

Cherries, &c.
The May Cherry, Strawberries, &c.

A (Hypothetical) Wedding Feast

The other day I was browsing through Menagier de Paris (yes, I'm geeky enough that I browse through medieval cookbooks) and I came across the following menu:

L'ordonnance pour les nopces Hautecourt, pour vint escuelles, ou mois de Septembre:

Assiette: roisins et pesches ou petis pastés.

Potages: civé, quatre lièvres et veau; ou pour blanc mengier vint chappons, deux sols quatre deniers pièce, ou poules.

Rost: cinq cochons; vint hétoudeaux, deux sols quatre deniers pièce; quarante perdriaux, deux sols quatre deniers pièce. Mortereul ou...

Gelée: dix poucins, douze deniers; dix lappereaulx, un cochon; escrevices, un cent et demy.

Fromentée , venoison, poires et noix. Nota que pour la fromentée convendra trois cens oeufs.

Tartelettes et autres choses, ypocras et le mestier, vin et espices.

Here's the same section of text (slightly modified) from Janet Hinson's translation:

The arrangements for the Hautecourt wedding, for twenty dishes, in the month of September:

Platter: grapes and peaches or little pies.

Soups: civey, four hares and veal; or for blancmanger twenty capons, two sous four deniers apiece, or hens.

Roast: five pigs, twenty capons, two sous four deniers apiece; forty partridge, two sous four deniers apiece.

Jelly: ten chicks, twelve deniers; ten young rabbits, a pig; crayfish, one and a half hundred.

Frumenty, venison, pears and walnuts. Note that for the frumenty you will need three hundred eggs.

Tartlets and other things, hippocras and wafers, wine and spices.

In reading it, I'm struck by a couple of thoughts. The first is that the entire menu calls for a total of six pigs and forty capons to serve twenty people. That sounds like an awful lot. I took a quick look at the online facsimile at the BNF and it has the same wording. Perhaps there was something else going on here - I'll have to dig into it further.

The second thought was that it sounds like a pretty reasonable menu. It's lacking any reference to vegetables, but that might just be the omission on the level of "don't be silly, every dish gets served with vegetables". Then again, the menus at some of the restaurants I ate at on vacation also lacked references to vegetables.

If I were going to base a menu off of this, here's what I think I'd make:

First course:
Fresh peaches (peeled and sliced) and grapes (halved) with a dash of wine, served as a tartlet

Second course:
Rabbit in civey
Blanc manger

Third course:
Roast pork medallions with scallions and verjuice
Roast capon breast with yellow pepper sauce
Squab in pastry "in the Lombardy fashion"
... all the above served together with collards and parsnips

Fourth course:
Meat in aspic, with crayfish

Fifth course:
Frumenty with venison, served with poached pears and walnuts

Sixth course:
Custard tartlets, candied fruit and ginger, snowe, hippocras, wafers, anise in comfit, port.

I've taken a few liberties here and there, but on the whole I don't think a fifteenth century French noble would be overly surprised by any one dish. It'd be a bit on the pricy side to prepare (especially with the squab) but would be fun. I wonder if I could find twenty people willing to try it.

Roastfish and Cornbread

Late last week my family had lunch at a small restaurant on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Then we went back the next day because we liked it so much. The establishment in question is Chef David Young's Roastfish and Cornbread.

This is a restaurant that is hard to categorize. The food is more unusual and upscale than one would expect for a locals' hangout, but it's also too "homestyle" for haute cuisine. Take a look at the menu on the restaurant's website (make sure to check out the vegetarian menu as well). Note the occasionally surprising combinations of ingredients. Now picture it as simple, but well made food served without pretension.

Where's the medieval aspect to all this? There isn't one really. Yes, there's an odd link between the cuisine of the southeast United States and that of medieval England (e.g. honey-mustard barbecue, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, peach pie), but that's pretty tenuous and I don't think that's what drove me to post this. I think it's more to do with the fact that chef Young loves food. He researches his own cooking and shares the results. I like that, a lot.

Many of David's recipes from Roastfish and Cornbread are available in his cookbook, Burnin' Down South, which you can purchase from Amazon.com (I bought a copy before leaving the restaurant).





Burnin' Down South
David Vincent Young
Outskirts Press, 2008
ISBN: 1432724649

... and of course, if you're lucky enough to be in that area, you can go to the actual restaurant.

Kalendarium Hortense - April

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of April.

Apples.
pepins, Deuxans, West-berry Apple, Russeting, Gilli-flowers, flat Reinet, &c.

Pears.
Later Bon-chrestien, Oak-Pear, &c. double Blossom, &c.

A Feast Complete with Garbage

I'm now (mostly) recovered from cooking the feast on Saturday. Even though it went well - in fact almost too well, in that there were several times where I turned to one of the assistants and shrugged because I had nothing to do at that moment - I was still completely wiped out at the end.

The food all turned out great, with compliments coming back about the Cormarye and the Applemoyse. The biggest sensation though was the dish I included for fun and announced as "The Chef's Challenge". It was an authentic 15th century English dish called "Garbage". Here are the sources I have for the recipe:

xvij - Garbage. Take fayre garbagys of chykonys, as the hed, the fete, the lyuerys, an the gysowrys; washe hem clene, an caste hem in a fayre potte, an caste ther-to freysshe brothe of Beef or ellys of moton, an let it boyle; an a-lye it wyth brede, an ley on Pepir an Safroun, Maces, Clowys, an a lytil verious an salt, an serue forth in the maner as a Sewe.
Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)

Garbage. Take faire Garbage, chikenes hedes, ffete, lyvers, And gysers, and wassh hem clene; caste hem into a faire potte, And caste fressh broth of Beef, powder of Peper, Canell, Clowes, Maces, Parcely and Sauge myced small; then take brede, stepe hit in the same brothe, Drawe hit thorgh a streynour, cast thereto, And lete boyle ynowe; caste there-to pouder ginger, vergeous, salt, And a litull Safferon, And serve hit forthe.
Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)

To mak a garbage tak the heed the garbage the leuer the gessern the wings and the feet and wesche them and clene them and put them in a pot and cast ther to brothe of beef poudere of pepper clowes maces parsly saige mynced then step bred in the sam brothe and cast it to pouder of guingere venygar saffron and salt and serue it.
A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)

The best strained meats you can have on meat days are made from the necks of pullets and chicks. And you must grind up the necks, along with the heads and bones, then grind again, and put in the cooking-liquid from beef cheek or leg, and strain.
Le Menagier de Paris (France, 1393 - Janet Hinson, trans.)

Simply put, it's a stew made from broth, chicken heads and feet, livers and gizzards, and spices. I'd purchased the ingredients from Jungle Jim's (I had to substitute duck heads for chicken heads - don't know why they sell the one and not the other), and put them in a large pot to cook for several hours. I'd checked the broth a couple of times to make sure it was ok, and actually it wasn't at all bad - tasted like a rich chicken soup.

I announced it personally right after the first course was served, briefly went over the ingredients, and told the guests that they could have it English style (with the ... pieces ... left in) or French-style (with them strained out). For added incentive, I offered a box of saffron as a prize to the first person who consumed a bowl of the stuff. I figured only two or three people would go for it. Silly me. As I walked back to the kitchen there were several people chanting "Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!" and shortly thereafter the servers came in with dozens of requests. Of all the things to run short of, I had to ration the garbage.

Her Highness received the saffron for emptying her bowl first (a bit unfair since she received hers first, but then rank has its priveledges). She'd been served a head, foot, and liver along with the broth, and all that was left was a scary looking pile of little bones.

It kind of figures. After years of hearing "medieval food is nasty" and having people turn up their nose at things like roasted turnips with cheese, I intentionally make something that I figure almost no one will like ... and it gets compliments. Now I've got to find something even weirder.

Ceilidh Feast 2010 - Shopping List

The feast is only a few days away, and I'm now putting together my Brain Book™. An important part of this notebook is the shopping list, and since I mentioned it in my earlier post I figured I should say a few words about it.

I've put a copy of my draft shopping list up online (sorry about it being in Excel format - if it's a problem then I'll look into converting it to something that doesn't require using a Microsoft application). It's really just a simple spreadsheet. The first page is all of the ingredients needed for each recipe, which is more an organizational tool so that I don't miss something super important. The second page is the same list, sorted by inrgedients, with totals needed for each ingredient. This page also has an estimate on the number of servings per recipe, a cost per unit, and a total cost for the ingredients.

Over the next couple of days I'll try to post and comment on the other parts of The Brain Book™ for this feast (of course, if things get too nuts then I'll post it all next week after the feast).

Kalendarium Hortense - March

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of March.

Apples.
Golden Ducket, [Doucet] Pepins, Reineting, Lones Pearmain, Winter Pearmain, John-Apple, &c.

Pears.
Later Bon-Chrestien, Double Blossom Pear, &c.

Lentish

Having had some success with changing our diet a bit in order to get a sense of the medieval European diet, this year Cindy and I decided to skip meats for lent.

Many modern Catholics eat fish instead of (terrestrial) meat on Fridays during lent. During the medieval period though, the common practice was much more restrictive. Aside from meats, dairy and eggs were also off the menu. There were some typical substitutions for the wealthy - almond milk, almond cream, almond butter - but for the most part it was nothing but fish and plants for 40 days.

The reasons for these restrictions (other than theological) are unclear. I've heard that at this time of year poultry would have been laying few eggs, so not eating eggs makes sense. Also, I assume that any animals that one didn't intend to keep through the winter would have already been slaughtered in the late autumn, so not eating meat also makes sense. But dairy?

I suppose (caveat lector: I am not a dairy farmer) that milking cows over winter when there is limited feed would stress them further and reduce their chances of reaching spring in a healthy state. By not milking them they'd require less fodder, and even though they'd dry up, when they calved in the spring the milk would start flowing again.

At any rate, we'll be splitting the difference between the modern and medieval Lenten diet. No terrestrial meats on any day, but I'm granting us an indulgence for dairy and eggs. I don't expect it'll be too difficult for us given that we were primarily vegetarian for a couple of years a long while back, but for our children it's a new experience (especially for Alex, who often says things like "Animals are yummy!"). Next year maybe we'll go completely medieval.

Ceilidh Feast 2010 - Menu

I've been asked to cook the feast for an upcoming SCA event here in southwest Ohio, and I thought this would be a good chance to document the whole process I go through in running these things.

The first step for me is working out the menu. In this particular case I don't have much time to try out new dishes or do a lot of research, so I decided to stick with dishes I know reasonably well. Also, since I seem to have been having trouble getting my act together lately, I figured it'd be best to choose more simple, straightforward dishes - less to go wrong. I knew I wanted the whole thing to be primarily English because their feasts were much less structured than those of the French (and therefore, simpler). After a couple of days I took the time to sit down and - with Kristen's input - settled on the following menu:

A Supper for a Meat Day

On Table:
manchet bread
soft cheese
fruit preserves

First Course:
Pegions Stewed (stewed chicken)
Onion and Parsley Salad
Chervis (carrots and parsnips)

Second Course:
Cormarye (roast pork)
Wortes (cabbage)
Rice Lombard

Third Course:
Apple Muse (with Snowe)
Wafers
Walnuts

Ok, so right off the bat I'll point out one major factual error. The title, "A Supper for a Meat Day", is in all truth incorrect. In the medieval religious calendar, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays were meatless days, so properly I should have a fish-based menu. However the problems with doing so are numerous, but the biggest ones are that a lot of people around here don't like fish and that they really like meat. If I did an all-fish feast I would probably be feeding 20 instead of 120.

The bread, cheese, and preserves are all pretty dull and straightforward. For this event I've got someone else to make the bread (thanks Amari!), so that's one less thing for me to do ahead of time.

Pegions Stewed is a simple recipe. I'll be using chicken legs and thighs instead of using pigeons both to save costs and because they're more acceptable to the locals. Of course once I've got that on the menu then the onion and parsley salad is a natural accompaniment.

Chervis is essentially a variation and simplification of a recipe from Menagier de Paris. Really it's just cooked carrots and parsnips with spices.

Cormarye is an old standby for me. Pork is plentiful and inexpensive here - sometimes cheaper than chicken, and this is one of those recipes that is really hard to mess up. If things go well then I'll thicken the juices from the roasting pans with some bread to make a sauce.

The recipe for Wortes is one of Kristen's. One of the VIPs apparently has an intense dislike for cabbage, so I'll have to do a separate dish for head table.

Rice Lombard is a new dish for me, but it's really just rice cooked in meat broth with spices.

Finally in the last course are wafers, walnuts (which will be sugared if there's time), and apple muse topped with snowe.

The apple muse gave me pause though. The most common recipes for it call for almond milk and honey, which adds a lot of effort and expense for such a simple dish - especially when cooking for so many. What I'd like to have is something more like Chardwarden, which is thickened with egg yolks and sweetened with sugar. After some serious digging, I did find a couple medieval variants of the recipe that did call for eggs and sugar, so that's what I'm going to use. Apparently I'm incapable of doing even a simple feast without researching at least one new recipe.

With the menu settled, the next step will be to work out the shopping list.

Kalendarium Hortense - February

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of February.

Apples.
Kentish, Kirton, Russet, Holland Pepins; Deux-ans, Winter Queening, Harvey sometimes, Pome-water, Pome-roy, Golden-Doucet, Reineting, Lones Pearmain, Winter Pearmain, &c.

Pears.
Bon-Chrestien of Winter, Winter Poppering, Little Dagobert, &c.

My Font Overfloweth

Last week I went to see the movie, "Avatar". On the whole it's a pretty good film (read: an overdone plot done very very well), however I was continuously thinking about my website for almost the entire film. Why? Because of the subtitles. Cameron used the same freakin' font - Papyrus for the movie's subtitles as I've been using on my website for years.

Way back when I started the site, I chose Papyrus because it was attractive, vaguely medievalish, and was relatively unknown - especially compared to all the "Ye Olde English" fonts. More and more over the past few years I've been seeing it everywhere. It's on menus and signs and t-shirts and even packaging for socks. Some in the graphic design business now feel that Papyrus is overused.

This gives me just that much more encouragement to replace it on my site. Now of course the question is, what do I use in its place? I'd prefer something with a little historic accuracy, but it also has to be readable (I found a really nice reproduction of a 14th century script, but it's hard for even me to read and I'm a language geek).

I did some searching on various font sites and here are the candidates I found.

One option is to choose a font similar to medieval blackletter calligraphy.

Blackletter

Manuskript Gotisch

1454 Gutenberg Bibel

1456 Gutenberg

1492 Quadrata Lim

Then there are some fonts that are more script-like.

Cantzley AD1600

Cardinal

Gotische Minuskel

Gotyk Poszarpany

Magna Carta

For the moment I'm leaning towards 1456 Gutenberg or Magna Carta. I'll have to do a couple test pages to see how they look.

What's in My Google Books Library

There's some really neat stuff available through Google Books, and I realized that over the past few months I've used their "Library" feature to build up a nice reference list.

---

Bookbinding
The art of bookbinding - Joseph William Zaehnsdorf
Fac-similes illustrating the labours of William Caxton at Westminster - Francis Compton Price

Books of Accounts
Account roll of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, 1337-1346 - James Mills
CALENDER OF THE CLOSE ROLLS

Calendars
Medii ævi kalendarium - Robert Thomas Hampson

Cooking
Le vrai cuisinier françois - François Pierre de La Varenne
The forme of cury - Samuel Pegge
Old cookery books and ancient cuisine - William Carew Hazlitt
De opsoniis et condimentis - Apicius, Johann Michael Bernhold
De honesta uoluptate - Platina
The art of cookery, made plain and easy - Hannah Glasse
A new system of domestic cookery - Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell

Domestic Life
Domestic life in England
Early English meals and manners - Frederick James Furnivall
The household of a Tudor nobleman - Paul Van Brunt Jones
Dialogues in French and English - William Caxton

Literature
The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer - Geoffrey Chaucer, Walter William Skeat
Le morte Darthur - Sir Thomas Malory, Sir Edward Strachey, William Caxton
The fables of Aesop - Aesop, William Caxton, Joseph Jacobs
Book of Sir Balin - Sir Thomas Malory, William Caxton

Food
L'histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins - Pierre Belon
The fruit manual - Robert Hogg

Games
Caxton's Game and playe of the chesse, 1474 - Jacobus (de Cessolis), William Caxton

Gardening
Kalendarium hortense (1683) - John Evelyn
Kalendarium hortense (1699) - John Evelyn

Health Manuals
Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum - Sir John Harington
Regimen sanitatis - Robertus Gropretius
Regimen sanitatis Salerni - Jean Petit

Linguistics
On early English pronunciation - Alexander John Ellis
Dialogues in French and English - William Caxton

Medicinals
Le Bastiment de Receptes
A collection of above three hundred receipts - Mary Kettilby
Ars magirica - Jodocus Willich, Jachian Bifrun

Other
An Old English miscellany - Richard Morris
Italian weights and measures from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century - Ronald Edward Zupko

Religion
The fifteen O's, and other prayers - Stephen Ayling
The lay folks' catechism - John Thoresby
The lay folks' Mass book - Thomas Frederick Simmons
The Primer; or, Lay folks' prayer book, v1 - Edmund Bishop
The Primer; or, Lay folks' prayer book, v2 - Edmund Bishop
The golden legend: or, Lives of the saints - Jacobus (de Voragine), William Caxton
The New Testament (1852) - James Murdock
The clergyman's vade-mecum - John Johnson

Medieval Hot Dog Stand?

I'm browsing through the collection of "Culinary Prints" at Academia Barilla when I come aross this image.

La grigliata - The Grill

17th century German etching

Livio e Wilma Cerini di Castegnate Collection

On the website it's described as "A rare representation of a women selling grilled vegetables outdoors." A nice, simple picture. No surprises in terms of cooking utensils or methods. No big deal. I'm about to go on to the next image when I take a closer look at what's in the customer's hands. For all the world, it looks like a sausage in a bun. Maybe it's just being served with a piece of bread? No, it definitely looks like the bread is cut down the middle, with the sausage between the halves.

Now the common belief is that sausage sellers first started putting sausages into split rolls sometime in the late 19th century, so I doubt my own eyes and post a link on a cooking mailing list. The quick consensus is that it does indeed look like a sausage in a bun. Then someone suggests that the caption on the etching might shed some light on things. My German is only good enough to know that it says something about "good fried sausages", but a better translation is provided moments later.

Here, a decent sausage is roasted for not much money, with which hunger can be appeased but not thirst.

This (thirst) can be appeased later as much as someone wants in a place where wine and beer is sold.

[translation courtesy of Emilio Szabo, via the SCA-Cooks mailing list]

So the notes are incorrect - the woman is selling sausages, not vegetables, and she is serving them in a bun. No sign of ketchup or mustard though.

A Medieval Calendar

One of the things that I've always tended to get all geeky about is calendars. For some reason the various methods used around the world and throughout history to measure the passage of time are like chocolate cupcakes to me. I'm pulled to them irresistibly and can't help but to eat four or five ... ok, maybe the simile breaks down there. Anyways, I think calendars are cool, and since I'm also into medieval European history, and into food, it's no surprise that I'm very interested in the type of calendar used throughout Europe in the middle ages.

There's a lot of stuff out on the net about medieval calendars and the like, including some beautiful images, but what I really wanted was a typical example that had links to information about the saints it listed. Nope, I couldn't find one. This of course meant that I had to make one for myself.

So it is with great pleasure that I present Halidai's Kalendarium - a medieval-style calendar that lists the feast days for the saints, as well as the information about those saints taken from the Golden Legend. There really isn't anything groundbreaking here - it's all stuff that's already freely available online. I've just put it together in a way that I thought would be useful to me. Hopefully others will find it useful as well.

Oh, and tomorrow is the feast day of Saint Hilary.

A busy time without much to show for it...

The last couple of months went by in a blur, but apparently very little of what I did was related to medieval food.

The holiday insanity of course started with Thanksgiving. This year we spent it at my parents' house, which limited my cooking a bit. Still, the food was good. I've posted before on what I cook for Thanksgiving - the short version is that I focus on all new-world foods, and not medieval at all (a fun sort of cognitive reversal for me).

I did do a little bit of medieval cooking in December though. For our regular solstice dinner I used the Sauce Madame recipe from Forme of Cury to go with a roast turkey (the last time I cooked a goose - which was good, but not good enough to merit the extra cost). I think I'll have to look into other types of stuffing for next year, just for the sake of something different.

I also made a batch of Cameline Sauce for Christmas Eve dinner with the in-laws. It went really well with the beef tenderloin and duxelles (just learned about duxelles this year - Oh my! - why didn't anyone tell me about them before? Wikipedia says they go back to La Varenne, but I'll have to look and see if there's anything similar in the medieval sources).

There are some neat things in the works for 2010. I hope to teach a couple of cooking classes, which will be a bit of a new thing for me. I've also got one transcription project and a couple of other bits for the web site that I hope to have done soon. I'll be trying out the odd recipe here and there - Kristen told me yesterday that she got some more deer kidneys. Then there's helping others nearby to cook medieval feasts, and in my copious free time I'll finish writing a novel.

I get the feeling that 2010 might be a blur too.

Kalendarium Hortense - January

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of January.

Apples.
Kentish Pepin, Russet Pepin, golden Pepin, French Pepin, Kirton Pepin, Holland Pepin, John-Apple, winter Queening, Maragold, Harvey Apple, Plome-water, Pomeroy, Golden-Doucet, Reineting, Lones-Pear-main, Winter-Pearmain, &c.

Pears
Winter-Musk (bakes well) Winter-Norwich (excellently baked) Winter-Bergamot, Winter-Bon-crestien, both Mural: the great Surrein, &c.

I made a book!

As a cook, much of what I create is gone within a matter of hours. Nothing physical remains of my creative efforts - except perhaps for a few extra pounds that my friends and loved ones carry around for the rest of their lives. I do enjoy making things though, and I love books, so over the past year or so I've been looking into book binding. This summer at Pennsic I picked up some simple equipment for book binding, and I finally decided to go ahead and try it out.

The style of binding is sometimes referred to as a laced-on, limp cover. It appears to have been used for less expensive books in the late medieval period.

Because this was going to be my first try, I didn't want to waste good materials. I figured that I wasn't sure enough of what I was doing, and I have a certain distrust of my manual dexterity (which is scary considering how much time I spend working with sharp knives). Essentially because of this I handicapped myself - I set myself up to fail in a way. I used plain copy paper for the pages (textblock) and some leather strips where I should probably have used heavy twine, and the cover is heavy paper instead of vellum. I also used a cheap gluestick instead of proper glue or paste.

Really, I wasn't expecting to make a great work of art here. I just wanted to see how it was all supposed to go together. Much to my surprise, it went together really well. The leather strips were too thick and stiff for the paper cover - which ripped out almost immediately, but the shape is right and I think it'll be really cool when I try it again with the good stuff.

So with a bit of luck and free time, I'll be starting soon on my next (and first real) binding project - a cookbook for my apprentice.

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of December.

Apples.
Rousseting, Leather-coat, Winter Reed, Chestnut Apple, Great-belly, the Go-no-further, or Cats-head, with some of the precedent Month.

Pears.
The Squib-pear, Spindle-pear, Doyonere, Virgin, Goscogne-Bergomot, Scarlet-pear, Stopple-pear, white, red, and French Wardens, (to bake or roast) &c. the Deadmans Pear, excellent, &c.

The Quiz - Question 2

A couple of weeks back I posted a 6 question quiz about medieval cooking. I had tried to phrase the questions so that there would be many possible answers that could be considered to be correct depending on viewpoint. Here are my thoughts on the second question.

2. Why did medieval Europeans use a lot of spices in their cooking?

The answer to this question really depends on how the phrase "a lot of spices" is interpreted. It could be understood to mean "a large quantity of spice per dish", implying that the prepared food had a strong flavor of spices. Alternately, it could be read as "a wide variety of spices", which could be meant to imply that each dish included many spices.

The first meaning - "a large quantity of spice" - usually appears in connection with the mistaken belief that medieval cooks used spices to cover the flavor of spoiled meat. I've discussed this myth and its possible origins elsewhere, so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say, if you want to see my head explode, tell someone it's a fact where I can overhear.

Did medieval cooks use large quantities of spices? This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. The only recipes we have come from the cookbooks of the wealthy, and almost all of those recipes completely lack measured amounts for ingredients, so there is really no way to know if they put in a lot or a little of any given spice. What's more, even if we did have measurements to work with, what would we use as a comparison? To some people anything more than a pinch of salt is too much. To others anything less than drowning in curry is too little.

Assuming they did use large quantities of spices, one possible reason for doing so presents itself: conspicuous consumption. Serving guests a meal obviously made with great amounts of expensive, imported spices shows the host to be wealthy and therefore influential. There is some evidence to support this in medieval accounts of banquets. Still, I sincerely doubt a host would be successful if he gave a banquet where the guests were served unpalatably spiced food, regardless of how expensive it was.

The second meaning - "a wide variety of spices" - is a bit easier to examine. The list of spices used in medieval European cuisine is surprisingly large and diverse, and a given dish may contain a half-dozen different spices or more. However, this doesn't seem very different from many cuisines around the world (e.g. Indian, Mediterranean, Chinese).

If we take the viewpoint that their use of multiple spices in a dish is exceptional, then is there any possible reason for doing so?

Again, conspicuous consumption is a possibility. A mix of spices though can be harder to identify, and it can still be overdone. If a cook has gone to the expense of putting in rare spices, it'd be a shame if no one wanted to eat the final product.

There has been some recent research that demonstrates how certain spices like cinnamon and cloves can inhibit microbial growth, but given the medieval beliefs about health and disease I doubt that this aspect had any bearing on medieval cuisine. Even medieval humoral theories don't seem to have substantially impacted how spices were used.

On the whole, I think the best answer that we can give for this question is: Because they liked the way it tasted.

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of November.

Apples.
The Belle-bonne, the William, Summer Pearmain, Lording-apple, Pear-apple, Cardinal, Winter Chestnut, Shortstart, &c. and some other of the former two last Months, &c.

Pears.
Messire Jean, Lord-pear, long Bargamot, Warden (to bake) Burnt-cat, Sugar-pear, Lady-pear, Ice-pear, Dove-pear, Deadmans-pear, Winter Bargamot, Bell pear, &c.

Arbutus, Bullis, Medlars, Services.

Food Prices in Medieval Ireland

I was recently directed to the Account Roll of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin (1337-1346) (thanks, Johnnae!). It's a book of household accounts for a monastery in medieval Ireland.

The neat thing about household accounts is that they contain a huge amount of information about what was needed for daily life. This particular book of accounts is in Latin, but (happily for me) also has an English translation. While browsing through it, I saw a decent number of food items listed, along with the priced paid for them. This led to the inevitable digging through data and taking notes.

Unfortunately, most of the entries specify what was purchased, the amount paid, and who the money was paid to, but not the actual quantity purchased. Still, there were some scattered about that included quantities. So below are the prices of select items for medieval Ireland, as per this manuscript.

capon, 2d/ea.
capon (cooked), 3d/ea.
chicken, 0.5d/ea.
duck, 1d/ea.
figs, 2d/lb.
fowl, 1d/ea.
fowl (cooked), 2d/ea.
goose, 3d/ea.
hen, 1.5d/ea.
lamb (cooked, whole), 4d/ea.
oats (for horses), 2d/peck
olive oil, 6d/qt.
pasties (fowl), 2d/ea.
pasties (salmon), 1d/ea.
pepper, 20d/lb.
piglet, 3d/ea.
salt, 3d/peck (approx. 0.12d/lb.)
wheat, 11.5d/peck
wine (by the tun), 1d/gal.
wine (red?), 5d/gal.
wine (white), 6d/gal.

There were also some records for amounts paid to laborers, which work out to have unskilled workers paid around 2d per day.

What I found really interesting is how a few of these compared to the prices listed in "Spices and Their Costs in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern Europe" by Prof. John H. Munro, University of Toronto. The prices for capons, red wine, and pepper were essentially the same - somewhat surprising given that we're comparing 14th century Dublin to 15h century London. The difference in the price of salt is also surprising - with London's price being roughly 5 times what it is in Dublin a hundred years earlier.

Mystery Things?

I'm going to jump topics for a moment here, but I promise to get back to the discussion on the quiz posts soon.

I just came across a post on the blog "This is why you're fat" that caught my eye. It's an image of a dish from the Republic of Georgia - essentially a sort of custard or quiche cooked in a bread crust.

The reason I note this is that it looks an awful lot like some unidentifiable (to me) things in a Dutch painting from 1559 that I posted about some time ago (look in the lower right portion of the painting, on top of the basket of birds).

I don't know if they're in any way related to this dish, but I find the similarity of shapes interesting.

It's one more bit of information in the quest of the Mysterious Football-Shaped Things^®.

The Quiz - Question 1

On Monday I posted a 6 question quiz about medieval cooking. I had tried to phrase the questions so that there would be many possible answers that could be considered to be correct depending on viewpoint. Here are my thoughts on the first question.

1. What process would you use for converting a modern recipe into a medieval one?

One answer to this is to replace all ingredients not available in medieval Europe with similar ingredients that were available, and for an extra measure you could replace any modern cooking methods or equipment with medieval ones that achieve similar results. The problem is that this doesn't get you a medieval recipe. It gets you a variation of a modern recipe.

The classic example of this is the cheeseburger. In medieval Europe they had almost all the ingredients and equipment necessary to make a cheeseburger. They didn't have tomatoes or ketchup, but they did have mustard and even had what they needed to make mayonnaise. The problem is that they didn't make sandwiches, they don't seem to have served raw vegetables (lettuce, onion, pickles) with meats, and they didn't make mayonnaise.

So even if you grind the beef in a mortar, cook it on a grill over an open fire, put it on a home-made bun, top it with home made cheese and heirloom lettuce and onion slices and pickles, and use camaline sauce instead of ketchup, what you end up with is still a cheeseburger. It may be a very nice cheeseburger, but it's still not even remotely medieval.

In short, you can't convert a modern recipe into a medieval one. Imagine trying to convert a Mexican dish into a Thai one. The best you can hope for is something cooked in a Thai style.

Take a typical recipe for burritos, replace the cumin and garlic with ginger and lemongrass, serve it with soy sauce instead of salsa, and you've got a Thai-style burrito (beef or chicken - I don't think it'd work with a bean burrito). Is it a real Thai recipe? No, not really.

Of course your goal may not be to make a medieval dish. You might be trying to avoid new-world ingredients, or experiment with new flavors. But then it wouldn't be a question of converting a modern dish into a medieval one. It'd be more one of incorporating aspects of medieval cuisine into a modern recipe.

So if you want to make a medieval recipe, then start with a medieval recipe. If you want to be creative in the kitchen and create a new recipe, go right ahead. You can even combine the two - but the results aren't necessarily medieval cuisine.

The Quiz

I'm on several email lists related to medieval history (surprising, huh?), which means that I end up reading a lot of different viewpoints and approaches towards medieval re-creation. Often simple questions explode into long, rambling discussions that border on religious wars. So I thought I'd put together a short quiz made up of carefully worded questions. In some ways the answers could reveal far more about the person answering than they would about medieval cuisine.

1. What process would you use for converting a modern recipe into a medieval one?

2. Why did medieval Europeans use a lot of spices in their cooking?

3. How did the primitive cooking equipment available in 15th century England affect the foods cooked?

4. How was the exorbitantly high cost of spices (e.g. saffron, pepper, ginger) reflected in their use in medieval England and France?

5. How was the primitive technology of the medieval period reflected in the quality of wheat flour, sugar, and salt?

6. To what degree have modern agricultural practices affected the size of poultry and eggs?

I'll give my own take on these in later posts.

More Medieval Catering

On October 1-3 the Ohio State University Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies hosted the 2009 conference for the Committee on Centers and Regional Associations. Having worked with them before, they asked if I'd be interested in cooking a medieval luncheon for their Friday session. I, of course, said "Yes!"

So on Friday morning I got in the car (along with my assistants, Kristen Sullivan and Jennifer Marshal-Craig) and made the two hour drive up to Columbus. Then there was just enough time to unpack, finish what cooking needed to be done, and get the buffet set out. Much of the food was prepared ahead of time, and a good thing too as the lone oven and cooktop in the building could only charitably be described as a "food warmer".

Here's what we served:

Bread
Quince Preserves
Beef with Yellow Pepper sauce
Ember Day Tart
Blancmanger
Salat of Asparagus
Chardewardon with Snowe
Marzipan
Hippocras (non-alcoholic)

The setup looked great, but I was too busy to get any photos before the guests ate. I know their photographer managed to take a couple pictures though, so I might be able to get copies from her.

On the whole, things went well. The yellow pepper sauce didn't thicken up quite right due to the lack of heat from the burners, but it still tasted good. The real surprise for me was the blancmanger. I'd pre-cooked the chicken and decided to cook the rice when we got there. Again, as fortune would have it, I had brought a roaster which was perfect for this dish. We put the rice in to cook early on, and then added the chicken, almond milk, and spices. I kept worrying about it because it just seemed too easy. No problems with it though - I think it's my new favorite recipe (to cook at least).

The chardewardon was a bit of a show-stealer. I had Kristen serve it in individual cups, topped with snowe and a mint leaf garnish. They looked so elegant (even though the cups were plastic), and the combination of pear custard and cream is hard to beat.

It was while cleaning up afterwards that I noticed almost all the plates were completely empty. A good sign, as people don't usually polish off foods they don't like. I mentioned this to Kristen and Jen, and they said they saw people going back for seconds. All in all, I'd say this was a success.

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of October.

Apples.
Belle-et-Bonne, William, Costard, Lording, Parsley-apples, Pearmain, Pear-apple, Honey meal, Apis, &c.

Pears.
The Caw-pear (baking) Greenbutter-pear, Thorn-pear, Clove-pear, Roussel-pear, Lombart-pear, Russet-pear, Saffron-pear, and some of the former Month, Violet-pear, Petwort-pear, otherwise called the Winter Windsor.

Bullis, and divers of the September Plums and Grapes, Pines, Arbutus, &c.

Forme of Cury Transcription

Photograph: University of Manchester John Rylands University Library

I've recently added a transcription of Forme of Cury to the website. This transcription (based on John Rylands University Library, English MS 7) is not really a huge contribution to the field of food history. After all, John Rylands University already has put the images of the manuscript online, and Pegge's edition of Forme of Cury is already available online as a PDF of the printed book, and as plain text.

Still, as I noted in an earlier post, there are some differences between this manuscript and the Pegge edition, so having the information in a form that's easy to work with should be beneficial to the serious medieval food geek.

I'll be indexing the text and adding it to the Medieval Cookbook Search soon, and in a week or so (with luck) will cross-reference the recipes with those in the Pegge edition.

Kalendarium Hortense - September

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of September.

The Belle-bonne, the Williams, Summer Pearmain, Lording Apple, Pear-apple, Quince-apple, Red-greening ribb'd, Bloody-Pepin Harvey, Violet-apple, &c.

Pears.
Hamdens Bergamon (first ripe) Summer Bon Chrestien, Norwich, Black Worcester, (baking) Greenfield, Orange, Bergamot, the Queen Hedge-pear, Lewis-pear (to dry excellent) Frith-pear, Arundel-pear, (also to bake) Brunswick-pear, Winter Poppering, Bings-pear, Bishops-pear, (baking) Diego, Emperours-pear, Cluster-pear, Messire Jean, Rowling-pear, Balsam-pear, Bezy d'Hery, &c.

Peaches, &c.
Malacoton, and some others, if the year prove backwards, Almonds, &c.

Quinces.

Little Blew-grape, Muscadine-grape. Frontiniac, Parsly, great Blew-grape, the Verjuice-grape excellent for sauce, &c.

Berberries, &c.

Gen Con and Pennsic

I'm still trying to recover from my week of Pennsic followed by 4 days of Gen Con (talk about culture shock), but I think I'm finally up to writing a bit here about how it all went.

Pennsic
For those who haven't heard of Pennsic, I've been describing it to my co-workers as a cross between Woodstock, A Renaissance faire, and a conference of academic historians.

This year was pretty good. The weather was reasonably cool and dry (soggy start and hot finish notwithstanding), and I didn't get sick at all this year. I spent lots of time taking classes and just hanging around with cool, geeky people.

The big focus for me this year was on book binding. I've been wanting to try making books for years, so I was thrilled to take classes on the subject and to talk with people who do it.

Best of all, I got to bring home some equipment for binding books! I suspect a new project will be coming along shortly.

Gen Con
As I have for the past few years, I sat on some of the Writers' Symposium panels, and I gave a two-hour seminar on medieval European cuisine.

The seminar was to a surprisingly large audience - they moved me from one room because we'd gone over the 100 person capacity. The audience was agreeable, interested, and in a good mood. They seemed to enjoy it, and I received a few compliments here and there, so as far as I can tell it went really well. I'll have to come up with a good topic for next year.

The Writers' Symposium panels were lots of fun, though surprisingly I did feel a bit out of my element on the panel about dragons.

Again, I spent a lot of my time hanging out with geeky people and learning cool (to me) stuff. I didn't buy as much stuff this year as I have in previous years - that's a good thing.

Kalendarium Hortense - August

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of August.

Apples.
The Ladies Longing, the Kirkham Apple, John Apple; the Seaming Apple, Cushion Apple, Spicing, May-flower, Sheeps snout.

Pears.
Windsor, Sovereign, Orange, Bergamot, Slipper Pear, Red Catherine, King Catherine, Denny Pear, Prusia Pear, Summer Poppering, Sugar Pear, Lording Pear, &c.

Peaches.
Roman Peach, Man Peach, Quince Peach, Rambouillet, Musk Peach, Grand Carnation, Portugal Peach, Crown Peach, Bourdeaux Peach, Lavar Peach, the Peach Des Pot, Savoy Malacoton, which lasts till Michaelmas.

Nectarines.
The Muroy Nectarine, Tawny, Red-Roman, little Green Nectarine, Cluster Nectarine, Yellow Nectarine.

Plums.
Imperial, Blew, White Dates, Yellow Pear-plum, Black Pear-plum, White Nutmeg, late Pear-plum, Great Anthony, Turkey-Plum, the Jane Plum.

Other Fruit.
Cluster-grape, Muscadine, Corinths, Cornelians, Mulberries, Figs, Filberts, Melons, &c.

Gen Con Seminar Schedule

In just over two weeks (and three days after I get home from Pennsic), I will be Participating in the Writer's Symposium seminars at Gen Con. I've gone to this convention for several years, and given talks on medieval cooking for the past three or four (I'm losing count).

On Thursday evening at 8:00 p.m. I'll be giving a 2 hour talk about medieval cooking ("Getting Medieval with Food"). This will be a sort of general overview, geared towards fantasy authors and game designers who want to make the food in their work more realistic. Here's the description from the Gen Con events catalog:

SEM0903050 - Getting Medieval with Food
Fantasy games and novels are commonly set in a society based on medieval Europe - except for the food, which is commonly way wrong. Learn how medieval English and French cuisine worked as a system. Topics will include medieval ingredients and preparation methods, the structure of medieval feasts, finding medieval recipes (or making them up), and common myths about medieval foods. 08/13/2009, 8:00 PM - Marriott : Indiana Bllrm D

I'm also very likely to ramble a bit, allow myself to be side-tracked by questions, and maybe even rant.

I'll also be part of the following panel discussions:

SEM0902995 - Food for Thought
A key ingredient to believable characters and stories is food. Heroes, villains, and the supporting cast have to eat from time to time. How can you enrich your writing by adding a dining experience or two? What does food say about the world you've crafted? 08/15/2009, 12:00 PM - Marriott : Lincoln

SEM0903002 - Hunting Dragons
Why has going after dragons been so popular in fiction? Our panelists discuss classic dragon hunters like Beowulf, Saint George, and Bilbo Baggins, in addition to how the hunt has changed over the years. Learn how to shape the classic story into something fresh and exciting. 08/15/2009, 3:00 PM - Marriott : Santa Fe

SEM0903003 - Stealing History
Why recreate the wheel each time you create a story, character, or world? Yes, you can build your knighthood or priesthood or religion or society from scratch, but taking what's historically known and warping it might fit the proverbial bill and depth and believability. Join our panelists for a discussion on how we can mine our own rich history for characters, backgrounds, worlds, cosmology, scenery, and more. 08/15/2009, 4:00 PM - Marriott : Santa Fe

On the whole, I expect it to be lots of fun.

What a Difference a Word Makes

I've been spending a good amount of time lately looking at the John Rylands University images of their copy of Forme of Cury (I know, what a surprise) and comparing it to other versions. There are lots of differences, but they're usually minor changes in spelling, with the occasional dropped or added word here and there. Sometimes those dropped words can have a huge impact on a recipe.

A perfect example is the recipe for Payne ragoun. The Rylands manuscript has the following:

Tak hony suger cypres & clarifye it to gider & boyle it with esye fyre & kepe it wel from brennyng & whan hit hath y boyled a whyle tak up a drope ther of with thy fynger & do hit in a litul water & loke yf it hong to gider & tak hit fro the fyre & do therto pynes the thryddendel & poudour ginger, & stere it to gyder tyl hit bigyne to thyk and cast it on a wete table, lesche hit & serve hit forth with fryed mete, on flesch day or on fysch dayes.

Compare this to the version transcribed by Samuel Pegge in 1780:

Take hony suger and clarifie it togydre. and boile it with esy fyre, and kepe it wel fro brennyng and whan it hath yboiled a while; take up a drope therof with thy fyngur and do it in a litel water and loke if it hong togydre. and take it fro the fyre and do therto the thriddendele an powdour gyngener and stere it togyder til it bigynne to thik and cast it on a wete table. lesh it and serue it forth with fryed mete on flessh dayes or on fysshe dayes.

Weird spelling and ampersands aside, there's not a huge amount of difference between the two ... except for one word. The Pegge edition leaves out the word "pynes". The omission of this one word turns the recipe from pine-nut brittle into spice candy, and hides any connection to similar recipes for "Pynade" in both Forme of Cury and Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books.

Interestingly, the word "pynes" is included in the edition of Forme of Cury that appears in Hieatt & Butler's Curye on Inglish (I haven't had a chance to check which manuscript that transcription was based upon), so a correct version of this recipe has been available for quite some time. Still, I'd hazard a guess that the Pegge edition is the one most often consulted (because it is available online for free).

So what's it all mean in the grand scheme of things? Probably that one should always check multiple sources whenever possible.

Kalendarium Hortense - July

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 section titled "Fruits in Prime, or yet lasting" for the month of July.

Apples.
Deux-ans, Pepins, Winter Russeting, Andrew Apples, Cinnamon Apple, red and white Juneting, the Margaret Apple, &c.

Pears.
The Primat, Russet Pears, Summer Pears, green Chesil Pears, Pearl Pear, &c.

Cherries.
Carnations, Morella, Great-bearer, Morocco Cherry, the Egriot, Bigarreaux, &c.

Peaches.
Nutmeg, Isabella, Persian, Newington, Violet muscat, Rambouilet.

Plums, &c.
Primordial, Myrobalan, the red, blew, and amber Violet, Damasc. Denny Damasc. Pear-Plum, Damasc. Violet, or Cheson-Plum, Abricot-plum, Cinnamon-plum, the King's-plum, Spanish, Morocco-plum, Lady Eliz. plum, Tawny, Damascene, &c.

Rasberries, Gooseberries, Corinths, Strawberries, Melons, &c.