Category: Cookery

 

A dear friend was recently invited to join the Order of the Laurel.  I naturally wanted to help out with her Vigil refreshment table, which was to reflect a Roman picnic theme.   The Vigil Coordinator asked if I would do a sausage similar to Lucanicae, a spicy, smoked sausage from Apicius (an ancient collection of Roman recipes).

Roman?  What does Beathog know of Roman, I ask?  Of course, Rome’s military presence in Scotland was long gone before the 14th century, but the Roman legacy has endured, in the western world, throughout history. The actual military presence of Rome lasted for about 40 years in Scotland, but at no time was even half of Scotland under Roman control. I wondered if Scottish cooks could have been influenced by Rome, as there are very few recorded period Scottish recipes, causing us to look elsewhere for possible influences.  As it turns out, it was the Vikings who introduced the idea of smoking food in the newly formed Kingdom of Scotland, in the 9th century, and smoking food has remained popular — one of their most popular traditional foods is smoked haddock (Arbroath Smokies). Continue reading “A Tasty Bit of Rome: Lucanian Sausage”

My SCA household has two major parties every year, a yearly birthday celebration in the summer and a Yule celebration sometime during the holiday season.  Each party has some sort of mundane theme (probably because we think we are hilarious).  We’ve had Pirates on the Loch, Summer of Love, The Chicago Caper Murder Mystery, Cows in Paradise…. you get the idea!  But, one year, we decided to truly celebrate what we love most — our SCA lives — and Cliar Cu Buidhe Twelfth Night, 2010, was the result.

Let’s have a period party!

This was planned to be the Twelfth Night celebration of our dreams!  We would begin with a period feast, but one that would hopefully make us feel like we had stepped into the pages of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  We planned a typical Cliar Cu Buidhe style menu, meaning foods of the SCA period were to be on the menu, but not necessarily redacted period dishes.  We would have a simple feast, food totally prepared ahead of time and served to us at one elegant table, large enough for us all.

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The festivities began around 5:00 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.  As guests arrived, they were offered libation and a seat at the fire, until time when the Great Hall would be opened to all and the feast would begin.  We had hired two servants for the evening, a man and his young sister, who worked for stipend and an opportunity to dine in the hall with us, below the salt, of course.  Upon their arrival, they received their instruction from the cook and directions to the scullery, then set to complete last minute details in the Great Hall.

The bell was rung, and a hymn offered to Saint Columba:

Salve splendor et patrone
iubarque iusticie
orthodoxe doctor bone
pastor et vas gratie
O Columba Columbine
felicis memorie
tue facnos sine fine
coheredes glorie.

Hail, glorious protector,
light of justice,
true and virtuous teacher,
shepherd and vessel of grace.
O dove-like Columba,
grant us happy remembrance
of you forever,
co-heir of glory.

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The door to the Great Hall was opened and guests were led in.  They were escorted, first, to a side table, where the servants assisted with the ceremonial handwashing, using an aquamanile that had been made for the house by a local potter, Master Hroar Stormgangr.

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The hall was illuminated with flickering candles and the walls were draped with the colorful personal banners of the guests.  Benches lined the long, linen-covered table, which was set with greenery, nuts and seasonal fruits, and ceramic jars filled with ale, mead and home-brewed pear and plum wines.  Guests were seated and, then, a final prayer sung by the Lady and Lord of the hall:

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Pater Columba decus morum
suscipe vota famulorum
te laudantem serva chorum
ad incursu anglicorum
et insultu emulorum.

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Father Columba, glory of our tradition,
receive the prayers of your servants,
preserve this choir, which praises you,
from the incursions of the English
and from insolent imitators!

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Menu:

First Course:  Grene Pesyn, served with fresh bread and a platter of cheese and dates stuffed with candied walnuts & candied orange peel

Second Course:  Cawdel of Samoun with Leek Sauce, roasted herbed carrots and a baked tart de bry with artichokes

Third Course:  Beef loin with Lamprey Sauce, turnips & chestnuts and cheesy mushrooms, served on bread trenchers, spinach pasties and custard tarts with fruit

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Also offered, by Seigneur Frédéric de Cherbourg, a specially brewed Yule Cordial

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It was fantastic! There were sixteen around the table, everyone dressed appropriately, head-to-toe (no coming to the table in bare feet, as is my normal custom), with appropriate head coverings.

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We all remembered to use proper titles of address, offer toasts and small stories to the table (limiting private conversations whenever possible) and converse on appropriate subject matter, nothing modern or inappropriate.

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When the feast had ended, we removed the benches and pushed back the tables, to ready the room for our own version of the Feast of Fools.  We each were given the opportunity to pick an activity to do, to play the part of the Abbot of Unreason (Scotland), the King of the Bean (England), or the Abbe de la Malgouveme (France).  As during the medieval period, each, in turn, had the power to call the party to disorder.

We all abandoned our feast attire and then either stripped to our period underwear or changed into our Cu Buidhe pajamas (regular attire for our annual sleepovers), for the games to begin!

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We were led in a few Scottish Country Dances by Elva and Andrew, with assistance from Frederic.  That was so much fun!

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We then gathered at the outside fire for the rest of the night, to exchange small gifts and enjoy our version of a holiday ceilidh — lots of music & singing, including a kazoo jam, stories and assorted silliness.

We always have a wonderful time together, and have made so many wonderful memories! I think this will remain one of my favorites.

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I almost forgot an interesting side note:  after eating feast, we had an entire trash bag full of used trenchers.  It seemed a waste to throw them away, but we had no peasants, and only one dog.  BUT, Faoileann and Morgan had a pig — back home in Atenveldt, so they took the trenchers home.  The pig ate the entire bag of trenchers, in one day!

A perfect medieval ending to a perfect medieval celebration!

My good friend and SCA household Member, Pierre de Dieppe, was the Event Steward for the 2011 Yule event, hosted by his local barony.  He asked me to cook the feast!  While I had been a part of many feast staffs over the years, I really had no desire to be Feast Steward for any event.  But, he convinced me that this would make a great household project, so I agreed to do it.  And it was!  Cliar Cu Buidhe really stepped up and did a great job on this event.  I was so proud to be a part of it!

The theme of the event was to be centered on Nikolaos of Myra, who he was and how the Feast Day of this 4th century Saint Nicholas has been observed throughout the Middle Ages.  Pierre’s invitation to the event was my inspiration:

Come and join us as we explore the world in which he lived and died,
and how he continued to influence the lives and celebrations of future
generations, including our own. We all join one another today as simple
pilgrims and travelers, to gather together in the cold of winter and
celebrate the passing of the dark and the spring soon to arrive!

While I know little of 4th century cuisine, I loved the idea of celebrating the season with foods of the season.  So, looking to my trusted 14th century repertoire, and my local Farmers’ Market, I came up with the following menu to feed the day’s 100 pilgrims: Continue reading “Lyondemere & Gyldenholt Yule Feast 2011”

 

I admit it.  I have a passion for period cooking.  I love cooking with fire and I find eating period foods cooked in a period manner enhances the experience of camping at SCA events. I also realize not everyone shares my passion.  But, I refuse to accept that I cannot change their minds.

Our camp gets a lot of attention.  We have won “Best Period Encampment” so many times it is a bit embarrassing.  We have had numerous “tours” come through our camp at Great Western War, and we even had a film crew capture one of our bread baking days.  I realize most of the attention we receive is because of the awesome Viking Brazier we have,

… shown here on it’s Maiden Voyage at Estrella War in 2010.  It works very well for our camp, as we usually are cooking for at least a dozen folks, and we have quite a few cooks in our camp.  We can do many thing at once on this brazier.  But, there are many other options available for cooking with fire in camp; we have done all of them — and still do! — from time to time.

It is not necessary to know period recipes to enjoy the magic that period cooking brings to any encampment.  My husband and I taught a class at Great Western War in 2012 that I hope took a lot of the fear and mystery out of cooking with fire, as we demonstrated period cooking methods that could be utilized in any camp.  As it was the household’s feast night, we had an extensive menu to demo using a variety of cooking techniques. Continue reading “Period Camp Cooking: Fire-Cooking Methods for Every Camp”

As announced in the Barony of Calafia’s baronial newsletter, The Serpant’s Tongue:

Caid has been invited by the Mission Viejo Library to provide a massive demo on Sunday, October 14, 2012.  This is the Sunday after Great Western War.  The demo is part of the library’s annual book festival which typically hosts between 3,000 and 5,000 attendees from Orange County.  This year the theme is the Middle Ages.  The location is Oso Viejo Park, 24932 Veterans Way, Mission Viejo, CA 92692, a large, truly lovely location with
ample room for pavilions and dragon wings.

What a great day this was!  Of course, I was excited that it was a truly local venue for me, but it was such fun hanging out all day, doing our favorite things, — cooking, eating, sharing our music, visiting with friends, and talking to people about life in the SCA.  We had a blast!

At a recent SCA event, Cast Iron Chef Lyondemere 2012, I was asked to teach some kind of a cooking class or do a demo appropriate for the day. The scenario the contestants were given, for which they were to select their dishes, took place in early 14th century Scotland.  Right up my alley!

I don’t get much chance to share my love for recreating the dishes Beathog may have eaten during this period, as I am precluded from making any public claims to their authenticity.  With the lack of any physical evidence (such as actual period recipes), we (the SCA) apparently cannot be certain that the women (or men) of medieval Scotland cooked anything at all.

The first Scottish cookery book to be published was in the early 18th century, but we have plenty of period recipes from neighboring countries to compare, throughout the medieval period, that enable us to make an educated guess as to what Scotland may have been eating during the 14th century.  And that certainly has to include oats, which remain a versatile and much-loved staple item today.

So, what follows is my own conclusion, and includes the oat recipes I share regularly with my household encampment and what I shared with the cold, the hungry and the curious on a very fun (and filling) morning in the Barony of Lyondemere. Continue reading “For the love of oats!”