To Make a Medieval Feast

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Our local SCA group is running their usual fall event "Red Dragon". Friday, the autocrat contacted me and my darling Sjaantze to beg a favor. Apparently the person who volunteered to make the feast had to cancel. With less than 6 weeks left, we've been asked if we could make and serve a period feast for 50 people. Because we're crazy, apparently, we accepted.

Currently, here's the plan:

Bread, Garlic Butter and Honey Butter at the table

1st Remove
Salat of Mixed Herbs
Mushroom and Cheese Tart

2nd Remove
Romania Chicken done in the Toscano style (a cold disk of spiced chicken in pomegranate sauce with fruit)
Vegetables for Lent

3rd Remove
A Roasted Lamb, Whole
Roast Carrots
Frytour of erbs

4th Remove
Toasted Bread with Stewed Fruits
Frytour of Apples

50 people, max of $10 per head.

We tested the chicken dish this weekend and its yummy. We tested the Frytour of erbs last night and it was ... let us say, less than successful. Apparently one should not include dill, rosemary or sage in the 'erbs' to be used. Apparently these flavors do not go well with the honey that you're supposed to drizzle them with.

However, in our research we found some lovely dishes that I thought I had to share:

That flesh may look bloody and full of Worms, and so be rejected - from Magia Naturalis:

By Smell-feasts.  Boil Hares blood, and dry it, and powder it. Cast the powder upon the meats that are boiled, which will melt by the heat and moisture of the meat, that they will seem all bloody, and he will loath and refuse them. Any man may eat them without any rising of his stomach. If you cut Harp strings small, and strew them on hot flesh, the heat will twist them, and they will move like Worms.

Smell-Feast is a nickname for an unwanted guest. 

Redressed Peacocks which  Seem Living; and How to Make them Breathe Fire through their Mouth - from Cuoco Napoletano:

You should first kill the peacock with a feather, driving it upon its head, or else drain its blood from under its throat as with a pig; but it is better to take out its tongue and then to slice it under its body - that is, from the top of its breast to its tail - slicing only the skin and removing it gently so that it is not damaged; when you have skinned it, pull the skin back right up to the head, then cut away the head, which will remain attached to the skin; do the same with the legs, and likewise the tail, taking out the leg bones so that the iron will make the peacock stand up will not be seen; then take the skinned carcass and set it to roast stuck with lardoons, or else baste it with grease often enough that it will not burn, and stick it with whole cloves, and fill it with the Piglet stuffing but without garlic; cook it gently so its neck does not burn; if the neck should get too much heat, cover it with a damp cloth; when it is cooked, take it down and redress it in its skin, whose inside you have coated with spices, salt and cinnamon. Then, when you have put its skin back on, get an apparatus of iron driven into a large cutting board and shove this iron through its feet and legs so it cannot be seen; in this way the peacock will be standing so that it will seem to be alive.

And to make it breathe fire through its mouth, get a little camphor with a little fine cotton-wool around it and put this into the peacock's beak and soak it with a little aqauvita or else with a little fumey old wine that is volatile; when you want to serve it, set fire to the cotton-wool: in this way it will breathe fire for a long time. To make it more magnificent you can cover the peacock with gold leaf and then cover it with its skin.

The same can be done with pheasants, cranes, geese and other birds.


Now for some real fun:

To make a Chicken be Served Roasted - from The Vivendier:

To make a Chicken be Served Roasted. Get a chicken or any other bird you want, and pluck it alive cleanly in hot water. Then get the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs; they should be beaten with powdered saffron and wheat flour, and distempered with fat broth or with the grease that drips under a roast into the dripping pan. By means of a feather glaze and paint your pullet carefully with this mixture so that its colour looks like roast meat. With this done, and when it is about to be served to the table, put the chicken's head under its wing, and turn it in your hands, rotating it until it is fast asleep. Then set it down on your platter with the other roast meat. When it is about to be carved it will wake up and make off down the table upsetting jugs, goblets and whatnot.


Yes, that's how to serve a live bird that LOOKS roasted. 


And for more fun:

To Make that Chicken Sing when it is dead and roasted - from The Vivendier:

To Make that Chicken Sing when it is dead and roasted, whether on the spit or in the platter. Take the neck of your chicken and bind it at one end and fill it with quicksilver and ground sulphur, filling until it is roughly half full; then bind the other end, not too tightly. When it is quite hot, and when the mixture heats up, the air that is trying to escape will make the chicken's sound. The same can be done with a gosling, with a piglet and with any other birds. And if it doesn't cry loudly enough, tie the two ends more tightly.

And yes, quicksilver is mercury. 

[Suu]

That's a very fruity fritter feast you got thar.

If you want to check out probably one of the best feasts in the East, come out to Simplefare. Which is perpetually falling on Richter's Birthday, November 7th. We're thinking of heading out to a Midrealm or Northshield event next year too.

[Reverend Smeg the Kilted]

 

Fucking

[documentationneeded] !!!

[Suu]

Fucking

[documentationneeded] !!!

LAUREL ALERT! LAUREL ALERT!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Fucking

[documentationneeded] !!!

All are documented, either in the Anonimo Venezia, Anonimo Tuscano or one of two English books

Originally we had planned on making the feast Italian vs Welsh, since her Lucrezia's persona is Italian and mine is Welsh. Sadly, the Welsh didn't write down many recpies... except for melted cheese on toast *groan*. So most of this is coming straight out of Italian books with the exception of the Frytours and depending on which way we do the lamb.

Though Sjaantze is flipping out over the newish translations of Scappi, an Italian cook from the early/mid 1500's. Apparently he served the Pope and several major heads of state... but another cook from the same time period said he used too many spices and too much sugar and was just a 'flamboyant' show off,   

[Suu]

Well sugar was a high commodity. To be able to use a lot of it is a big deal.