SC-Potrero-msg - 1/29/09

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The Calafia Siege Cook Off at Potrero War in 2008.

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Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 13:39:37 -0700

From: Dragon <dragon at crimson-dragon.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Calafia Siege Cook Off at Potrero War

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Here are the details on the Siege Cook Off here in Calafia:

Unto the talented cooks of the Known World, does David and Adelicia,

Baron & Baroness of Calafia send greetings, and a challenge...

Meet and compete on the fields of Potrero to determine the ultimate

"Iron Chef" of the current Middle Ages.

Five teams will meet at a set time to each receive a basket of

provisions gathered while their castle has been under siege. The

contents of these baskets will remain unknown until the time of the

contest and each group will receive the same items.

Participants have 24 hours to turn leftovers into Medieval Haute

Cuisine appropriate to the scenario provided. Your team will prepare

a feast of seven dishes maximum. Each dish is to serve two people

only, using only the ingredients provided and water.

Twenty-four hours later, each team will present its' meal at the Open

Ramada for a blind judging by out select panel. Extra points will be

awarded for documentation and period cooking methods. At the time of

judging, each team must provide the recipes redacted or developed to

prepare this feast.

To the winner, a prize and year-long swagger rights as the best of the best!

Scenario:

The year is 1142. England is in the grips of a savage civil war. Two

claimants, Empress Matilda and Count Stephen of Blois, are locked in

a struggle for the English crown. Matilda is the last surviving child

of the late King; Henry I. Stephen of Blois is the last surviving

male descendent of William the Conqueror. The ensuing civil war will

bring fourteen years of misery and horror to the beautiful green

fields and woods of England.

You and a stalwart band are defending the Empress Matilda. Her

brother, Robert of Gloucester, has gone over to France to fetch

Matilda's son, Henry of Anjou. Matilda's advisors feel that the

presence of Henry will inject new enthusiasm into the Matilda's waning cause.

Matilda is waiting for their return at Oxford Castle. Stephen,

hearing of Matilda's presence in the castle, lays siege. Things are

becoming desperate with the arrival of winter. Few supplies are

entering the castle and Matilda's plight looks very grave. Somehow

Matilda must escape to fight another day.

You have conceived a brilliant idea. You and your loyal band of cooks

will prepare a feast. Under the cover of preparations and serving of

the lavish feast made with the last of the provisions in the castle,

Matilda will slip away. No one in the castle will know that she and a

few attendants have fled. How to keep the besiegers from knowing that

Matilda has fled?

Mother Nature comes to Matilda's rescue. A blinding blizzard has

slammed down on Oxford from the north. The wind howls and the snow

swirls around the besieged castle. The poor, frozen sentries posted

outside the castle will not see the intrepid band as they slip out of

the castle wrapped in white cloaks. When the blizzard ends and

Matilda has been found missing, no one but you and your clever cooks

will know where she has gone.

Your charge is to take these pitiful stores and create a feast that

will distract the inhabitants of the castle and drive the besiegers

to mad with the enticing aromas of your feast. Remember you can only

add water to the meager rations that you have been given. Good Luck.

Rules:

The contest will be limited to 5 teams. The first five teams to apply

will participate. A "Stand-by" team list is set to fill out the five

teams should any of the teams fail to show up to pay and receive the

victuals at the appointed time and location. The minimum team size is

three. There is no maximum team size. The maximum size of your team

will be determined by how many can work comfortably in your kitchen.

Teams will report to the Calafia Baronial encampment at 5PM on

Friday, 23 May 2008, to pick up their provisions, and pay their entrance fee.

They are to present (appropriate to the scenario provided) their

prepared meals 24 hours later in the Open Ramada. Each team will be

provided a separate table to present their meal on.

Teams must complete and present the associated paperwork with their

meal to have their entry judged. Associated paperwork is:

A roster showing the names of all members of the team.

The team's list identifying the ingredients provided to them.

The team's listing of dishes presented, with ingredient list by dish.

Extra credit given for providing a complete recipe used to prepare

each dish. Extra-extra credit given if a documented period recipe is

used in preparation or used for inspiration. Extra extra extra credit

given if period methods (replica spits/pots/pans utensils) are used

in meal preparation.

Teams are to prepare a feast of at least 5 dishes and no more than 7

dishes. Each dish is to serve two people only, using only the

ingredients provided and water. The use of electric appliances or

utensils is not allowed. The use of liquid fuel or LP gas stoves is permitted.

Siege Cook-off 2008 Judging

Judging will be on a "blind" basis. There will be no discussion

amongst the Judges during the judging. Teams will be visited by only

one judge at a table at one time. Each team will be judged on:

Required associated paperwork presented.

A roster showing the names of all members of the team. (5 points)

The team's list identifying the ingredients provided to them. (5 points)

The team's listing of dishes presented, with ingredient list by dish.

(5 points)

Presentation of the meal. to include:

Table layout. (10 points)

Decorations and overall visual appeal. (10 points)

Appropriateness to the scenario provided. (5 points)

Most use of the ingredients provided. (5 points)

Individual dish presentation to include:(25 points each dish)

Visual appeal. (5 points)

Aromatic appeal. (5 points)

Taste. (10 points)

Texture. (5 points)

Bonus Points to include:

Extra credit given for providing a complete recipe used to prepare

each dish. (5 points)

Extra-extra credit given if a documented period recipe is used in

preparation or used for inspiration. (5 points)

Extra extra extra credit given if period methods (replica

spits/pots/pans utensils) are used in meal preparation and

presentation (5 points)

The minimum number of dishes that must be prepared is 5. No more than

7 dishes will be judged per team.

Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

Best individual dish.

Best use of ingredients.

Best Team Overall.

Team identifying most ingredients correctly.

Dragon

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 12:52:02 -0700

From: Dragon <dragon at crimson-dragon.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Siege cook-off report for Calafia's May Potrero

War

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

So I and my team and our four competing teams had a much more sane

and enjoyable experience at our siege cook-off than was reported by

Kathleen Roberts at her competition in Outlands. [See the SC-Outlandish-msg file -editor]

We too had rainy cold weather for the weekend. It was very bizarre

for this time of year to get such weather here in the mountains of

southeastern San Diego county. It is usually warm and sunny during

the day and cool at night. However, this did not deter us from doing

our best and we had fun with the challenge. I had posted the rules

and scenario to this list prior to this weekend, but to recap, the

theme was the Siege of Oxford where Empress Matilda fled from King

Stephen during a blizzard in the Winter of 1142.

My team was the same as last year, myself, Lady Ellyn of Tanwayour,

THL Maggie MacDonald and Eira Gwdihw. Dame Selene, and my protege

Kathleen de Galloway were supposed to join us this year but the

weather and circumstances kept them away.

At 5:00 PM on Friday evening the five teams of cooks arrived in the

Baronial encampment for the distribution of the ingredients. We were

each given a box of victuals and set upon our tasks right way. Our

first task was to identify what we had been given. A partial list follows:

A chicken

Half of a pig trotter

Two beef neck bones

A lamb shank

Three onions

Six carrots

Three parsnips

One head of garlic

Lentils

Dried peas

Dried fava beans

Wheat berries

Whole wheat flour

Rye kernels

Rye flour

Barley kernels

Barley flour

Brown rice

Rice flour

Cream

Milk

Honey

A cone of brown sugar

Salt

Black Pepper

Long Pepper

Cloves

Mace

Nutmeg

Saffron

Ground ginger

Ground Galangal

Dried parsley

Dried sage

Caraway seed

Butter

Lard

Dried apples

Dried pears

Dried currants

Dried mushrooms

Dates

Hazelnuts

Ground hazelnuts

Almonds

Ground almonds

Dried Ale Yeast

There are several ingredients I am forgetting. We had 59 items in our

box but that is only 46...

I won't claim our menu is documentable as period. It is period

inspired but I can't point to any exact recipe and say "we used that

one". I've found that it is often very difficult to take exactly what

we are given in this competition and match real period recipes to

them in such a short time with such a small team. That and having a

limited library of books on hand in the camp makes it challenging.

Add to that the fact that there are no known extant recipe

collections for the given time and place of the scenario, the best

anyone could do was to try to get close to what would be plausible.

I was somewhat disappointed with some of what we were given. Some of

it seems quite out of place and time to me, especially the rice

(which I deliberately chose not to use, the favas and lentils as

well, but we did use those). I was hoping we might get lucky and had

been given something more appropriate to the time, place and season.

I would have been ecstatic had we been given venison or rabbit or

stockfish. I would have loved to have received slab bacon or pork

belly, dried beef or something preserved as would have been used in

winter. I suspect that some of it may also have been due to budgetary

constraints and some of those things I would have liked to see were

either expensive or difficult to procure. But be that as it may, you

work with what you receive...

Our menu:

- Pottage of barley, fava beans, carrot, onion, beet greens and

cabbage. The broth for this was made with the beef neck bones and

seasoned with clove, long pepper and black pepper, what meat there

was from the bones was diced fine and added to the pottage as well.

This was served with two eggs poached in milk on top with a drizzle

of the milk over all.

- Whole wheat bread with a saffron colored egg wash, caraway seed and

kosher salt dusting the top. We made fresh butter which we very

lightly salted and colored with saffron.

- Porridge of peas, onion, carrot and pig trotter made with the broth

produced by boiling the pig trotter until tender.

- Meat pie with spiced lamb, beets, carrots, onions, and parsnips.

The filling was layered in the pastry coffin with the beets at the

bottom, the spiced lamb in the middle and the carrots, onions and

parsnips at the top. The pie was then filled with gravy through a

hole in the top of the pastry just before serving. This was served

with a very good (and very spicy) mustard that we made.

- Small mead. It was served still fermenting as we definitely did not

have time to let it complete but it was still delicious. Having

access to a warm place in an RV was an advantage here. Nobody else

even thought about doing this.

- Custard and fruit tart. A pastry crust made with ground hazelnuts,

lard, butter and whole wheat flour. The custard was very rich, it

used two whole eggs, two yolks, cream, a small amount of sugar, a

touch of milk and was colored golden with saffron. We soaked dried

pears in red wine and had dried apples that were still soft, these

were caramelized with a bit of butter and sugar and arranged around

the edge of the tart. In the center were three "flowers" made by

cutting dates into "petals" and using hazelnuts for the centers. The

tart also had currants which we had soaked in wine and laid in the

blind-baked crust before pouring in the custard.

- Roasted chicken stuffed with mushrooms, lentils, wheat berries,

beet greens, onion, garlic, sage and parsley. This was steamed in a

dutch oven until done and then finished on a grill to brown the outside.

We only made seven dishes this year (down from our 23 last year)

because the judges were simply overwhelmed by the shear number of

dishes produced last time that they placed a limit upon it. The rules

this year were to produce 5 to 7 dishes. We could produce more if we

chose but we would have had to designate 7 to be judged if we had.

One team did 14 but we chose to concentrate on making the best seven

we could come up with instead of diluting our efforts.

In the end, my team won for best dish, surprisingly for our bread.

Maggie can be credited for that coup, the bread was pretty much her

responsibility, I simply baked it, the recipe and the rest was all

hers. I was disappointed that we did not win for best team again as

we did last year. Apparently the extra effort that the Blackened Pot

team took to produce extra dishes gave then the extra credit they

needed to tip the scales. We did get a bit of extra credit as well in

that we served the majority of our food on pottery pieces that I had made.

I have yet to see the scoring sheets so I don't know the exact

scoring and where they pulled ahead. Ah well, there is next year. I

have not yet decided if I will compete but if my team asks me to do

so again, I will seriously consider it. If I do not, I have been

invited by Baron David of Calafia (the prime mover behind our

competition) to participate in planning and judging next year with an

eye to having me run it at a future time. (I get the feeling His

Excellency wishes to take some time off from it).

So it was a fun experience again this year. Despite the rain and

cold, we put on a good meal for the judges and I am satisfied that we

did the best we could. I am looking forward to participating again, I

just don't yet know which side of the fence I will be standing on when I do.

Dragon

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 13:49:45 -0700

From: "Jane Tremaine" <vikinglord at cox.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May war cook off

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

May war dawned cold and rainy until Saturday when the annual cook off was

about to begin. Dragon already posted the theme and rules.

Each team received a crate of food containing:

1/2 of a pigs foot

a lamb shank

beef neck bones

1 whole chicken

1 head of cabbage

dried peas

dried apples

dried pears

dried mushrooms

1 beet

figs

dates

currents

carrots

onions

parsnips

garlic

cinnamon

coriander seeds

fennel seeds

cardamom seeds

sea salt

long pepper

black peppercorns

sage

whole ginger

whole mace

cone sugar

whole cloves

galingale

saffron

caraway seeds

eggs

apple cider vinegar

red wine

butter

lard

goats milk

cream

almonds

almond flour

hazel nuts

ground hazel nuts

wheat berries

wheat flour

brown rice

rice flour

barley

barley flour

fava beans

lentils

If I forgot any ingredient I am sure Dragon or Maggie will let us know,

sometimes my mind is like Swiss cheese.

from this we made;

Carrots and Parsnips fried *

Young cabbage sprouts

Another gruel *

These 3 recipes were from Apicius

and we made

Hazel nut pottage *

Sage sauce served over a pigs trotter

Cressee

Tardpolene *

Claree

Maumenee *

Oranges *

These 7 recipes are from Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections

and we made;

How to prepare a chicken pasty *

from Libellus de arte Coquinari: Manuscript K, XXX

and we made and used as needed

stock and from memory a loaf of bread.

We did try to make a soft cheese and failed. Will have to try again at home

to perfect.

The seven items with an * were judged and we won over all. For the display

we sat a table for two. If you go to www.Flicker.com/photos/avenel you can

see our display. All of our service was either blue, white or silver

starting with the 2nd picture on page 9. I am in the purple Norman.

THL Jana Aoibeall

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 14:04:31 -0700

From: "Jane Tremaine" <vikinglord at cox.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May war cook off

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Ok so far I am missing the

Honey,

rye kernels

rye flour

parsley

and

ale yeast

I listed 51 + 5= 56 and the two items we never got (leeks and turnips they

had spoiled as the weather early in the week was in 100's) +2 = 58. We are

still missing one item.

THL Avenel Kellough and myself lead a team of THL Bronwyn McKay Kellough,

Lord Alrick Arundel, Lady Marie Aoibeall, Fergus O'Dubschwin, Hannah Tobias

of Gyldenholt, Lady Guiliana of Calafia and Sean of Calafia and a Secretary

of THLAgnes of Ilford.

Would you like what we did with the recipes posted?

Jana

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:01:26 -0700

From: "Jane Tremaine" <vikinglord at cox.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May war cook off

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

but we did not get any bacon, we just left that off and the chicken was

still wonderful

Jana

----- Original Message -----

From: "Susan Fox" <selene at earthlink.net>

<<< Yay for all of you! I'm sure it all tasted wonderful.

That Libellus chicken pastie is one of my faves. Everything really is

better with bacon.

Keep practicing that cheesemaking, for truly is it writ, Blessed Are The

Cheesemakers... hehehe.

Interesting strategy, making more than the permitted number of dishes and

selecting the best of them to serve forth. I might not have gone there,

or I might have apportioned ingredients carefully, since one of the

judging criteria in the past has been Who Used All Of The Ingredients. On

the other paw, this appears to have not hurt the winning team any. <wry

grin>

My thoughts, worth easily twice what you paid for them.

Selene, the missing >>>

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:11:31 -0700

From: Dragon <dragon at crimson-dragon.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May war cook off

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Jane Tremaine wrote:

but we did not get any bacon, we just left that off and the chicken

was still wonderful

---------------- End original message. ---------------------

That was one of the things I had been disappointed about. I had hoped

we would have received some bacon.

Bacon! Bacon! BACON!

Umm... excuse me.

;-)

Dragon

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 18:32:30 -0400

From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May war cook off

To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Works better to try

http://www.flickr.com/photos/avenel/2527458522/in/set-72157605279613748/

Johnnae

Jane Tremaine wrote:

The seven items with an * were judged and we won over all. For the

display we sat a table for two. If you go to

www.Flicker.com/photos/avenel you can see our display. All of our

service was either blue, white or silver starting with the 2nd picture

on page 9. I am in the purple Norman.

THL Jana Aoibeall

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 18:28:58 -0700

From: "Jane Tremaine" <vikinglord at cox.net>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May war cook off

To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Bingo! mustard seed.

Got all 49 ingredients.

Jana

Edited by Mark S. Harris SC-Potrero-msg Page 10 of 10