The Barony of the Lonely Tower will be holding a subtlety contest at the upcoming 12th Night celebration. Special consideration and favor shall be given to those works of edible art that pay homage to the English or the Italian Renaissance.
If you need space to assemble your entry before the feast, please make it known when you check in at Troll. We will try to accommodate you as best we can, the downstairs kitchen will only have 3 work tables set aside for subtleties (but they will be available all day), so plan accordingly.
The subtleties will be presented to the populace between the courses of our feast. Be sure to make arrangements for the presentation of your subtlety.
Just to whet your research appetites:
http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/medieval-banquets
But a major source of entertainment at a medieval banquet was apt to be culinary in nature, at least in part. This was what was known in England as a subtlety, usually a creation of sugar, marzipan, or pastry depicting one or more birds, beasts, or people, brought out at the end of every course. At the coronation feast of Henry V, the subtlety at the end of the first course was a (confectionery?) swan surrounded by cygnets, all of whom carried messages in their bills that were lines of verse. But that was not enough. Twenty-four more swans followed, each one carrying the last line of the poem. Some subtleties were considerably simpler, including foods decorated with a motto or appropriate symbol, such as a coat of arms.
from "Sweets: A History of Candy" by Tim Richardson:
During the Renaissance in northern Italy, the subtlety tradition was not discarded, but made elegant and up-to-date in "trionfi", sugar versions of celebrated contemporary bronze sculptures, that formed the centerpiece at fashionable tables. Venice was particularly feted for the skills with sugar of its confectioners, who moulded it into fatastic tableaux of animals, mythic figures, buildings, birds, fruits, or pastoral scenes, and tiny replicas of everyday and not-so-everyday objecs that littered the table for the amusement of guests. Henry III of France was treated to a banquet in Venice at which everything, including the tablecloth, was made of spun sugar - 1,286 items in all, by Nicolo della Cavalliera, copying models designed by Sansovino - and at a reception in the Doge's palace in honor of Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, there was a spread that consisted of 'divers items all made of gilded sugar, to the number of three hundred'. In humbler, more domestic vein, the Englishman Sir Hugh Platt lists 'Buttons, Beakes, Charms, Snakes, Snailes, Frogs, Roses, Chives, Shooes, Slippers, Keyes, Knives, Gloves, Letters, Knots'. Edible cutlery and tableware was an extremely popular branch of sugar confectionary, the more realistic the better.
For an overview of subtleties, see:
http://www.eithni.com/ASEncyclopedia/subtleties.pdf