I had the great pleasure of participating in a Period Cooking Demo, with the Right Noble Upper Crust, at Great Western War this year. The Barony of Gyldenholt shared their land, and enabled us to set up a lovely demo area along a main road. The following photo, courtesy of Renee Jacobsen-Pardovich, shows Baron Giuseppe Francesco da Borgia using Baroness Colette de Montpellier’s incredible cooking box, that we all shared.
There were, I believe, eight cooks participating in the demo — all of us probably had cameras on hand, but were much too busy, unfortunately, to take many pictures.
My lord husband, Domhnall, had perhaps the most popular dish of the day, preparing the 14th century bratwursts as recorded by Sabina Welserin — a repeat of the recipe he made at West/AnTir War and one we will repeat for the upcoming Coronation Feast of Mansur and Eilidh next month:
25. If you would make good bratwurst
Take four pounds of pork and four pounds of beef and chop it finely. After that mix it with two pounds of bacon and chop it together and pour approximately one quart of water on it. Also add salt and pepper thereto, however you like to eat it, or if you would like to have some good herbs, you could take some sage and some marjoran, then you have good bratwurst.
Simple, but good! I also shared my popular Atholl Brose (see more information in For the love of oats!, this blog), a 15th century alcoholic beverage made with oatmeal brose (oat milk made from steeping oats in water overnight), honey and Scotch whisky.
To give everyone an idea how dense a food oatcakes actually are, I prepared my sweet oatcake recipe (made with a combination of oats and whole wheat flour, and lightly sweetened with both sugar and honey), which I adapted from one given to me by a friend.
I made a delicious chicken leek pottage, made with the base broth I was to use for my camp’s dinner, cock-a-leekie, and thickened with skirlie dumplings (made from pinhead oats, grated suet, onion and spices).
But, the focus on my part of the demo was on puddings. Ever since we returned from West/AnTir War, I have been wanting to experiment further with them. For this demo, I prepared two types of white pudding: the first, a hand-stuffed Scottish white pudding, containing only pinhead oats, suet, leeks and spices (often, today, referred to as mealie pudding, or, simply, “mealy”). I used regular hog casings, hand-tied them and then stewed them in the chicken leek broth. I then browned them on a girdle, over the coals.
As a point of comparison, I also prepared Irish white puddings, which typically contain some meat — usually pork, but, sometimes, may contain bits of chicken. I did experiment with these at home, first, so I have a few photos of the method I used. These turned out very well!
Since I sometimes have trouble locating beef suet when I need it, I experimented with vegetable suet for these puddings. It is readily available and the results are nearly the same! Good to know!
I mixed ground pork, the vegetable suet, pinhead oats, some chopped leek, a bit of cold water, an egg and some spices. 
I then rolled the mixture very tightly in cling wrap and refrigerated until firm. I then parboiled them — gently — for about twenty minutes, cooled them and kept them cold until I was ready to slice and brown them.
I was able to keep them in the cooler, at this stage, for several days, without any problems. They sliced very easily and I only needed a minimal amount of olive oil on the girdle for them to brown rather quickly.
They were very flavorable and moist — how could they not be? — with the large amount of suet.
I have a lot more experimenting to do with oats. I am amazed at how versatile they are, and truly understand how the Scots have held them so dear for so many years. I want to play a bit more with skirlie dumplings — may try using oat flour the next time — and I want to perfect a few more pottage recipes using oats, including a Partan Brigh (with oats instead of the “traditional” potato).
And, of course, I am always on the lookout for the perfect method for duplicating period oatcakes, which have to be one of the few truly ancient foods that have remained a part of the modern diet.