12thN-Caerthe-msg

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12thN-Caerthe-msg - 2/1/09

Reviews and comments on Caerthe's 12th Night Feast in 2008, cooked by Gwen Cat. Recipes.

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Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:52:43 -0700

From: Jehan Yves de Chateau Thiery <jehan.yves at signofthetiger.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast

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

At 02:19 PM 1/8/2008, you wrote:

>> Gwen Cat

>> PS Caerthe's 12th night feast went well (the Sauce

>> Aliper was appreciated!), if you want a belated report

>> someone speak up and I will post it.

> Well I would like to hear about the Caerthe feast and maybe get back to

> reading and writing about Cookery on this list. I'm as guilty as

> anyone of the post-event diversion.

> Selene

I had the privilege of eating the feast that Gwen Cat

prepared for the Outlands 12th night feast in Caerthe. I made a point

of trying every single dish that came to the table. They were all

more than was expected. Delicious! If this is what this Lady can do

with a "limited kitchen", I eagerly await the day she has a full,

professional kitchen to work with (though I will then probably

working in it for her).

Jehan Yves

Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 17:09:06 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe 12th Night Feast was knee pads

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

I was there and will say it was a brilliant execution although the kitchen

at the site was not adequate to cook the feast in the time allotted.

I showed up a day early and baked a few loaves of plain manchet, the last

batch being done on site to allow the odor of baking bread to waft into the

hall--or at least that was the plan. The structure of the hall and the

ventilation sent the wafting out the back door. Had there been more time or

better facilities, I might have added a light rye bread to the meat course.

In any event, I got to play in the kitchen--and not be responsible for

anything.

The food was excellent and the service expeditious. In my opinion, it was a

success. I'll leave the critique and the recipes to GwenCat.

Bear

Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 08:10:54 -0800 (PST)

From: "Cat ." <tgrcat2001 at yahoo.com>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Gentlemen, thank you for your kind words, I would be

delighted to have either or better yet BOTH of you in

my kitchen ANYTIME (but NOT anytime soon :)

Here follows the report on Caerthe's 12 th night Feast

2008 as seen by the Cook.

My first mistake was when I was asked if I would cook

for this specific 12th night bid. I said "SURE, as

long as the site has a kitchen" (I have cooked and

helped cook feast at sites that have NO kitchen at all

and didn't want to try that for a 12th night) Well the

site had a "kitchen", BIG room but standard home

equipment: ONE glass top standard home stove with one

large, 3 small and one warming only burner, ONE

standard oven, 3 microwaves, one standard single basin

sink, a large fridge and a small freezer.

I knew the limitations when I designed the feast, so I

planned on a cold first course, and hot things from

roasters. Oh, and the event theme was French, based

on the Unicorn tapestries, not my usual but hey, I can

explore.

So I found some cookbooks and started reading:

Tarts of mushrooms of one night were a no brainer, I

also thought of tansy tarts, but the barony is

lukewarm on most fish (besides, Colorado is

landlocked) so I shifted them to an herb tart

(inspired by the tansy but using parsley, chives,

chervil and thyme), and after re-evaluating the

balance, the beef tart originally planned became brie

tarts (yes I know, from Curry, not from the French,

but um.. brie is French ;-)

I found mention to smoked salmon in the period records,

so smoked salmon went in (its one of the few fish not

spurned locally). Wanting more green I found a recipe

for minces (little cabbages) ok it was not going to be

a huge hit, so only planned 8oz per table of 8, but it

would be green and I bet it would be tasty, served

with oil and vinegar and fresh herbs (herbs got

skipped in the end) To add more protein we did hard

boiled eggs and served a basic mustard sauce on the

side, and finally Bears wonderful manchet, some

store-bought baguettes and plain ordinary butter (One

of my kitchen help manfully split the entire 4lb batch

of butter into half sticks with one quick swipe of a

sharp knife. *(Perhaps I should mention that my

kitchen help consisted of Bear and ten fencers, 9 of

them from Scola Metallorum - those of you who also

fight at Estrella might remember the 'white-asses'.

Scola aka the Colorado School of Mines uses a white

donkey on their tabards. They work well as a unit on

the rapier field and proved themselves quite capable

in a kitchen!)

To backtrack, the Saturday before feast my first

apprentice, Ailea, and her lord, Tahir, came over and

helped make 41 tarts (including 3 with home made

crusts since commercial crusts now have lard, making

them NOT vegetarian safe.) Tahir is now expert at

slicing mushrooms, and they, with Tanwens help,

wrapped, labeled and then took the pies away to

another freezer (Sir Kronos and his wonderful Lady,

Baroness Katherine not only babysat the pies, but also

hauled platters and other kitchen equipment that I

knew would not fit in my car along with all of the

food. I could not have done it without their help.)

After the freezer the crusts were not quite perfect

for the feast, but it would have to do.

The salmon was purchased on sale already in 4oz chunks

so all I had to do was brine it, throw charcoal and

soaked applewood on the smoker and make sure the

internal temp was safe before chilling for service in

the future. The minces I cooked Friday night, put

into large zip bags with oil and vinegar and let them

marinate in the fridge overnight.

All these things could be prepped in advance, and be

served room temp or cold. So far so good.

The second course was the Sicilian vermicelli with

cheese (from Vivendier I think or the Menagier ? thats

where I first pulled the menu from) I found small

packs of vermicelli in the Hispanic aisle at the local

big lots (.25 per pack) and, because the test batch

cooked in under 5 minutes, decided to have them cooked

on site rather than doing the boil in bag thing I had

first planned. Maeb offered the use of her 'uber'

propane burner and she boiled the pasta in record

time. For service they went into 16 oz Styrofoam

bowls (the Barony owns bowls, but they were invisible

when I went to the locker to get the equipment, so

they got ugly white plastic) For service the kids

divided, and added grated cheese and the pasta was

good to go.

I also had been requested to serve the sausage pottage

I re-created for a friends vigil 2 years ago. Its

from Ouverture de Cuisine, and crock pots beautifully.

(Sausage, onion, apples, a bit of wine (I used apple

liquid for my own reasons) and seasoned with lots of

fresh nutmeg and a bit of cinnamon. I found the

sausages on sale for .99 lb (I cant make them for

less, especially in the quantities needed for a feast)

browned them according to the recipe, froze them whole

and farmed out the bags to one of my apprenti. At the

site both apprenti sliced the sausages into bite size

chunks, I added the onions that had been pre sliced,

dumped in apples I had picked off my neighbors trees

(free!!!) and canned in a very light syrup in

anticipation of this feast, grated nutmeg, cinnamon,

and parked 3 roasters around the hall (to keep from

popping circuits ? it worked!) The roasters heat

differently than my stove or the crock pot so I had to

add a little more liquid to start, and then it was too

juicy at service, but the kids found a way to drain it

and the pottage also went out in Styrofoam bowls (to

keep it from oozing into the vegetarian safe pasta.)

to add some green I remembered a cowcumber salad from

Eleanor fetteplace (there is one in Rumpolt as well)

so they got thinly sliced cucumber (again on good

sale) seasoned with salt, pepper, dill and cider

vinegar. (team Scola including Yve, Buta, Alset,

Logan and Jervel got their hands on the 20 cucumbers

and had them peeled and sliced and ready to season so

fast, I barely had time to rescue ONE whole cuke for

decoration (a cucumber knights chain, which I then

promptly forgot in the fridge)

Next was the roast beef. I had found a great deal on

Angus London Broil (1.49lb) so each table was slated

for a 2.5-3lb roast. On Friday, while Bear was

filling my home kitchen with the incredible scent of

yeast bread rising, I fired up the Webber kettle and

each steak was seasoned and popped on the fire for

about 3-5 minutes per side. I wanted good color and

smoke/fire flavor but really didnt want them cooked.

At the site they went into the other 2 roasters with a

little water and were set at 225F to heat through to

temp. Some came out rare, most medium, and a few

weller done. These paired VERY WELL with the Sauce

Aliper that Papa Gunther suggested. I made the sauce

Thursday and let it mellow in the fridge, then

reheated it at the site.

For the roasted chickens I sooo cheated. Given the

site I knew I would have no real way to cook them on

site, so I outsourced. I contacted the local

Kroger/king soopers deli and they provided whole

rotisserie chickens (and they were even on sale ;-)

Mistress Arwen kindly made the chicken run and the

birds arrived, hot, ready to be removed from their

bag, popped on the platter with the beef, small cups

of sauce added. (To accompany the chicken I wanted to

use the fresh orange juice I had left from juicing 35

lbs of fresh oranges for candy peels (below) Bear

kindly took on the sauce and made a very yummy orange

cinnamon sauce - though he will have to tell you what

recipe it is based on. We finished the platters with

a good scoop of peas in their pods with bacon (based

on a recipe in Le Menagier though I ended up using

half plain peas and half sugar snap peas. Thankfully

all 16 lbs of peas (and 3 lbs of bacon) fit into my

largest stock pot and was boiled on the stove.

Here endeth the main courses of this feast. The

desserts were served from a side board.

I made poached pears (I really could not find much in

the way of desserts in either vivander or menagier so

I punted) fresh pears peeled on Friday by Yve and

Baroness Marguerite, simmered in red grape juice with

sugar and cinnamon sticks and left outside in the snow

overnight to cool, blend, mellow. The big pot spilled

a little getting it into the car so I have to

de-stickify that.

Additionally for dessert I made candy orange peel, and

candy ginger, purchased Jordan almonds because

frankly I found them for the same price as I would

have paid for the raw almonds, and it saved me a

little time. Finally, I have a reputation for my bite

sized meringue kisses (I suspect if I ever did a feast

or dessert sideboard and did NOT offer them, there

would be horsemen) so I served them (it's a good way

to use up the whites left after the extra yolks went

into the brie tarts.) I hope everyone got enough and

was full and happy with the food.

The servers were pleasantly surprised by the fact that

they started at 2pm and by 320 they were finished!

The scola kitchen crew made quick work of the clean up

as well. My apprentice Adam washed till his fingers

were prunes and still washed (he would NOT let anyone

at the sink, reminds me of someone I remember from

down south.) Several of the above named scola crew

were still around to help load the boxes back into my

car and I was afraid we would have to bodily drag

Johann from the kitchen - he was actively looking for

a broom to sweep the place out.

I was truly blessed with my kitchen crew and the great

deals the Grocery Goddess sent my way.

I think overall it went well. I forgot the cucumber

decoration in the fridge, and there was some grumbling

that the second course came too quickly for them to

finish enjoying the first, but since the pasta was

cooked I wanted it out while things were still hot.

Gwen Cat

Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:10:47 -0500

From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG

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

Elaine Koogler wrote:

> Any chance of getting the recipe? I'm not just asking for use at a

> feast, but also because it sounds kind of like something I can eat for

> dinner!

> Kiri

> On Jan 9, 2008 11:10 AM, Cat . <tgrcat2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>> I also had been requested to serve the sausage pottage

>> I re-created for a friends vigil 2 years ago. Its

>> from Ouverture de Cuisine, and crock pots beautifully.

>> (Sausage, onion, apples, a bit of wine (I used apple

>> liquid for my own reasons) and seasoned with lots of

>> fresh nutmeg and a bit of cinnamon.

The original recipe can be found here:

*Ouverture de Cuisine*

(France, 1604 - Daniel Myers, trans.)

The original source can be found at MedievalCookery.com

<http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ouverture.shtm>;

Sausages in Pottage. Take sausages, & fry them in butter, then take four

or five peeled apples & cut into small quarters, & four or five onions

cut into rings, & fry them in butter, & put all of them into a pot with

the sausages, & put therein nutmeg, cinnamon, with red or white wine,

sugar, & let them then all stew.

It's always good to remember that medievalcookery.com has all these

cookbooks indexed. Doc has done a lot of work on the project.

Johnnae

Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:51:33 -0700

From: "Kathleen A Roberts" <karobert at unm.edu>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG

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

On Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:10:47 -0500

Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu> wrote:

> Sausages in Pottage. Take sausages, & fry them in butter, then take four

> or five peeled apples & cut into small quarters, & four or five onions

> cut into rings, & fry them in butter, & put all of them into a pot with

> the sausages, & put therein nutmeg, cinnamon, with red or white wine,

> sugar, & let them then all stew.

OMG, looks like one of my they-mighta-made-it ideas really

existed. tres cool!

cailte

Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:02:18 -0600

From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>

Subject: [Sca-cooks] Sausages in Pottage was Re: Caerthe's 12th night

feast report LONG

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

>> Sausages in Pottage.

> OMG, looks like one of my they-mighta-made-it ideas really

> existed. tres cool!

> cailte

And I will say they tasted great. I'm thinking about using the

recipe for my next mob feed.

Bear

Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 17:35:05 -0800 (PST)

From: "Cat ." <tgrcat2001 at yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG

To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

> Elaine Koogler wrote:

> Any chance of getting the recipe? I'm not just asking for use at a feast,

> but also because it sounds kind of like something I can eat for dinner!

> Kiri

Greetings, sure I will share. Actually I plan to have the entire

menu and recipes up on the web in the next week. I

will post the link when its ready but till then:

Sausages in Pottage * Gwen Cats way

and as usual, if you use it, please give credit.

Take sausages, & fry them in butter, then take four or

five peeled apples & cut into small quarters, & four

or five onions cut into rings, & fry them in butter,

& put all of them into a pot with the sausages, & put

therein nutmeg, cinnamon, with red or white wine,

sugar, & let them then all stew.

* Recipe taken from

http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ouverture.shtm "a

rough translation of "Ouverture de Cuisine" based on

Daniel Myers - This electronic document may be freely

reproduced for non-commercial purposes as long as the

Gwen Cat's Interpretation/re-creation as served at

Grellans Vigil September 8, 2006.

3 packs of King Soopers Bratwursts (were on sale, used

2 regular and one Beer Brats) 5 large Gala apples,

peeled and chunked into smallish bites. 5 smallish

yellow onions (about the same size as the apples) cut

into rings 1/8-1/4" thick 1C red wine (had a partial

bottle of Syrah that had been opened the week before,

so used that) .5 a nutmeg worth of fresh grated pinch

(not too big) of ground cinnamon (I don?t like it, so

skimped) and forgot the sugar.

Sauted the whole brats in 1T of butter till browned

outside, then cut chunks and put them in a pot.

Sliced and saut?ed the onion in the same frypan as

the sausages then added to the pan. Started to saute

apples but ran out of time so just tossed them in.

Added the wine, spices and let simmer for about an

hour. Would work well in the crockpot but saw short

on time, so did it stove top. WAS FANTASTIC! (IMHO)

Gwen Cat