Victuality
Considering all the period cooking I've been trying to do lately, this event was a no-brainer for me.
But...I had two very critical things I wanted to try:
1) Not packing in any overtly modern kitchen/food items (with the exception of my Coleman stove & cookware)
2) Not take a cooler
I came up with a meal plan that seemed pretty doable given these considerations. And I have to say, considering what wound up happening, it didn't actually go too far off the rails...
I got in pretty late Friday night, but I hadn't eaten anything, so I set about making my Standard Friday Pottage (which should really be "The Maestra's Favorite Pottage" or something more poetic.)
Split peas take a damn long time to cook, and I really should have started them in a separate pot while I was sauteing the vegetables, but I realized I had completely forgotten dishwashing equipment, so I was trying to pans to a minimum. Regardless, sometime after midnight the split peas were finally soft enough to eat. The pottage was good in that way only something you've waited a really long time for can be. No pics, since it was so late. I plopped the lid on the pot and set it aside, figuring that the fest would make a fine breakfast.
It was a beautiful moonlit night, and although it was a bit lonely after I was done eating, I took a cup of wine and stood on the footbridge over the creek and just enjoyed the evening.
Saturday Breakfast
So. Much. Food. This was way more than I'm used to having, and is probably a totally un-period quantity of food. It probably took me about an hour and a half to eat, during which time I dithered around camp straightening things up.
During said time I took this picture of my "kitchen table," which I'm particularly proud of.
Nice, right? I love it when things *look* right.
After all this, I wandered over to the main part of the event site, and watched a goose be de-boned, which was fascinating. I got caught up in a lot of great little sideline conversations, and the whole atmosphere was just really excited and inspiring. Definitely a good argument for a small, focused event. People were just doing cool stuff and people would wander by and ask questions, and there was learning and teaching and play in a very unstructured, natural environment. It ruled.
On the way back to camp to get more watered wine (because water isn't safe to drink on its own, doncha know) Aife & I got sidetracked by Vienna's Mystery Box challenge. We asked if we could compete as a team, and she said sure. We were provided with:
- 2 beets (w/greens)
- Carrots & parsnips
- 1 lb pork loin
- 1 bag brown rice (barley was the original challenge, but Vienna was kind enough to have a GF option)
- 1 big jar of honey
We were allowed to supplement this with whatever we wished.
Here's what we made!
Recipes referenced:
"LVI Good and perfect millet with meat
If you want to make millet with meat for twenty people. Take eight pounds of good pork loin and put it to boil. When it is boiled chop it well and put it in a pignata* (stew pot). Take thirty six egg yolks and four fresh cheeses, enough parsley juice, sweet and strong spices and saffron. And these things should be beaten together and put into the stew pot, and with this the millet and the ground pork and cooked together. This dish should be yellow, and to serve on the plate dust with spices above. And if you want to make it for less or for more take these same things in the same proportion.
*pignatta – is a specially shaped stew pot, usually made of clay, perfect for slow gentle cooking."
http://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/libro.html#LVI
"CXX Cooked wine
To make cooked wine (or wine must), take red wine, the finest that you have, and good honey. Put them to boil together with a quantity of cinnamon buds, and boil until it is reduced by a third. And for every four beakers of wine you will need a beaker full of honey."
http://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/libro.html#CXX
"Spynoches yfryed. Take spynoches; perboile hem in sething water. Take hem vp and presse out the water and hew hem in two. Frye hem in oile & do therto powdour douce & serve them forth." Forme of Cury 188
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Considering we worked most of the day to come up with this meal, I was a little too wiped out to make the dinner I had planned for myself (pork loin with white garlic sauce, good and perfect mushroom tart, rice in almond milk) and ended up eating my pork loin and a slice of tart and a few odds and ends from the potluck table.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that the pork loin held up. I had wrapped it in cheesecloth and linen after roasting it Thursday and refrigerating it overnight, and made sure to keep it in a cool spot all day. I did wind up tossing it on the grill for a few minutes, and overall it was quite good.
The tart was a critical lesson in discovering that the GF pie crust sometimes sold by Whole Foods is NOT as good as their in-store brand. Avoid Jillian's GF pie crust, folks. It was dry and terrible. Which is funny, because Jillian's is the brand I use for my GF bread, and I like it a lot. Their French rolls are just the right size for a small personal medieval loaf.
And yeah, I'd had a supper planned too (tredura, and green soup) but I'd used up my chard for the challenge (with the beet greens) and was still too full from dinner.
There were so many good things about this event that I keep on going "Oh, and that, too!" It was a huge treat having a friend bring me chicken-fresh eggs that hadn't been refrigerated (eggs will keep a long time this way!) We ended up using most of them in the challenge, too, which was great.
I really hope they do it again next year. I'll try and remember to plan less of my own food and just plan on doing more group cooking or helping out with other people's projects in exchange for food :)
Oh, and I forgot to mention that we won our challenge! We tied with another entrant, but Vienna said she'd produce prizes for all of us, which is super awesome! It's a little known fact, but...I've never entered any "contest" or competition in the SCA...let alone won one, so this was pretty exciting to me. :)