12thN-Caerthe-msg - 2/1/09 Reviews and comments on Caerthe's 12th Night Feast in 2008, cooked by Gwen Cat. Recipes. NOTE: See also the files: 12th-nite-msg, holidays-msg, Holiday-Celeb-lnks, prim-sit-fsts-msg, 12th-N-Oertha-art, Anst-12Nt-Fst-art, salmon-msg, fruit-pears-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:52:43 -0700 From: Jehan Yves de Chateau Thiery Subject: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast To: Cooks within the SCA 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" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe 12th Night Feast was knee pads To: "Cooks within the SCA" 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 ." 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG To: Cooks within the SCA 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 . 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 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG To: Cooks within the SCA On Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:10:47 -0500 Johnna Holloway 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" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Sausages in Pottage was Re: Caerthe's 12th night feast report LONG To: "Cooks within the SCA" >> 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 ." 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 this transcription by Thomas Gloning et. al." copyright 2006 Daniel Myers - This electronic document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes as long as the copyright and this notice are included. 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 Edited by Mark S. 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