This weekend, we had quite a few people descend on our house for our living history group's second drill of the summer. We've been making an effort to get people to our house or the stable at least once a month to do a group oriented activity that wasn't centered on the museum. So, we've gotten together for group activities for a march in May, and a drill in June and July.
The goal was to get my horse used to men in shiny armour and carrying medieval pole arms (glaives, bills, and spears). Phantom has had minimal close contact with these things and we figured it was about time that she "stepped up"...which she did admirably.
Part two of the Drill, was to be the Grill... and it was going to be medieval food. Yum. Bob and I had started earlier in the week picking through our medieval cookbooks and lighted on a few tasty entrées that would delight the modern palette. That Friday, we went shopping for the big items, but the market where we shopped was lacking some key ingredients: decent asparagus and leeks.
The next day started out with me out the door at 8:30 am on a Saturday to run to the grocery store to pick up a few food items that we didn't have a chance to pick up the day before. Once the grocery run was accomplished, I zipped across the river on a quest for Ale; Belgian Ale of the dessert variety. I was greatly saddened to find that our favorite place to pick up the ale was gone.
Coming round, I called Bob, who had just sat down to brekkers, and delivered the bad news and returned home with the food.
Stashing it in the fridge, Bob and I headed over to the stable to do some paddock cleaning and to say hello to the "babies". This was a quick job and hello, and we returned home to put some spit and polish on the house before our friends arrived.
After the house was tidied, Alex arrived with bread and sausage. He and Bob joined me in the kitchen and we began the prep work on the food. I diced and sliced onions, Alex chopped cabbage and leeks, and Bob whipped up a medieval wine marinade for the beef. I wanted to be sure that all the ingredients were ready when we returned so that we could get the grill started.
So here's the menu from Saturday:
- Redwine marinaded delmonico steaks
- Spiced mushrooms
- Boiled cabbage in a beef broth with leeks
- Boule bread and small rolls
- Imported German beer
- 2 kinds of German sausage (from a local butcher)
- Cheese
- Grapes
While it was on the menu, there was just so much food, that I never got around to cooking it.
- Asparagus with saffron
The food and the company must have been a real hit. We started cooking a 5:45pm and people didn't depart for their homes until 10:45pm.
Books used for this menu:
- The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban, Silvano Serventi, Edward Schneider (translator), ISBN: 0226706850, University of Chicago Press, (2000)
- Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, Constance Hiatt, Sharon Butler, Brenda Hosingtom, ISBN: 0802076327, University of Toronto Press (1996)
- The Medieval Cookbook, Maggie Black, ISBN: 0500015481, Thames & Hudson (1996)
If you decide to buy any Medieval cookbooks, I will offer a word of caution, do not purchase "Fabulous Feasts", in this bloggers opinion (from experience), the recipes are not very palatable and have no documentation proving that they are medieval.
Two other cookbooks for the offering:
- Early French Cookery: Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations, Eleanor and Terance Scully, ISBN: 0472088777, University of Michigan Press (2002)
- The Original Mediterranean Cuisine: Medieval Recipes for Today, Barbara Santich, ISBN: 155652272X, Chicago Review Press (1996)
Bon appetite!
.
No comments:
Post a Comment