Greco-Romn-Fst-art – 12/7/03

An SCA Greco-Roman feast by Urtatim. Menu and recipes.

NOTE: See also the files: cb-rv-Apicius-msg, Roman-Recipes-art, Roman-Wales-bib, Roman-hygiene-msg.

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    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 15:14:03 -0800
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Greco-Roman Feast, Intro
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Since Jadwiga is longing for on-topic conversation, i'll post the
recipes I used for the Greco-Roman feast I served in early September.

I was originally expecting to serve around 72. It was already clear
to me that I would more likely be serving 80. Then before the feast
the Autocrat called and said it was sold out, and more people wanted
to attend, could I feed 100. Of course, I said, "Yes." All I did was
buy more chicken and more salad. It just meant that folks would have
to take smaller servings. Since there were about 26 dishes, I knew
i'd have enough food.

I used a wide range of sources. I included this bibliography in the
feast menu booklet

Apicius, The Roman Cookery Book. Translated by Barbara Flower &
Elizabeth Rosenbaum. Peter Nevill, Ltd, London & New York: 1958.

Andrew Dalby. Siren Feasts, A History of Food and Gastronomy in
Greece. Routledge, London & New York: 1996.

Andrew Dalby. Empire of Pleasures, Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman
World. Routledge, London & New York: 2000.

Andrew Dalby. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. University of
California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles: 2000.

Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger. The Classical Cookbook. British
Museum Press, London: revised edition 2000.

Patrick Faas. Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient
Rome. Translated by Shaun Whiteside. Palgrave Macmillan, New York and
Hampshire UK: 1994, 2003.

Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa. A Taste of Ancient Rome. Translated by Anna
Herklotz. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London: 1992.

I bought a copy of Mark Grant's "Roman Cookery" in early October at
the Known World Costume Symposium from Devra who brought Poison Pen
Press - heck, she was one of the reasons I went to Denver!

I had several issues to deal with in planning and executing the feast.

While a traditional Greek or Roman feast would have three courses,
the Autocrat wanted six. It was a bardic competition and there was a
round of competition between each course. I just doubled each course.

Prince Dimitriy keeps kinda Kosher, so
(a) I made Lucanicae of lamb, served in a course with ham
(b) for any dish that contained dairy, we made a dish without for
him, except for things like cheese and cheesecake

Princess Jimena is deathly allergic to all tree nuts except pine nuts, 
so
(a) I eliminated from the menu several dishes I had wanted to make
that contained almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts
(b) I made a nut-and-mustard sauce, making it with the pine nuts -
setting aside a dish for the princess - then adding the ground
almonds so there would be no cross-contamination

Princess Jimena is also deathly allergic to raw honey, so I made sure
to only use honey that had been heated - I personally use raw honey
and have bought it for feasts, but this time I just got "Sue Bee"
There was a moment in the kitchen when I had used up all 10 lb of
honey and needed more and one of the cooks who lived nearby brought
in a 5 lb bottle of raw, so I had to nix it

I used less fish sauce than my taste prefers, because folks seemed 
squeamish

Because we have close to 10 per cent of diners vegetarian - and in
this case included 2 or 3 diners allergic to fish - I substituted soy
sauce in dishes for them.

To acheive this easily, we made all the food without fish sauce, then
when finishing the dishes, I set aside 10 per cent (one serving
platter) to which we added soy sauce, and put fish sauce in the rest.
Because I know that vegetarians are friends with meat eaters, I had
one server dedicated to serving them - she wandered the hall bringing
servings to them, whereas the other servers each served whole tables.

Because I wanted a display/sotiltie type dish, and I never got around
to making a fake pig out of which to pull the hams, we made very
non-Greco-Roman faux peach pits, served in sugar paste Roman chariots.

Additionally, September is generally the hottest month here, so we
made two fruit ices and served them as "palate cleansers" between
some rather "savory" courses.

I made feast booklets for every diner. There was a title page (Ab Ovo
Ad Malum), then one page for each course, and the back page was the
bibliography. I did not include recipes, but each dish - named in
Latin or Greek and in English (or in Italian for the ices) - included
a complete list of ingredients as well as its historic source(s).

Because there were some empty spaces in the booklet following shorter
courses, I included stories about spices from Herodotus and other
Greek and Roman writers, since I had taught a course on early spice
routes back in late July or early August.

Here is the menu:

----- Promulsis - Hors d'Oeuvre -----
- Panis : Fresh Bread
- Caseum : Fresh Aged Cheese
- Epityrum  :  Chopped Seasoned Olive Relish [Cato the Censor, de
Agricultura, 119]
- Ius cum Ovis Hapalis : Boiled Eggs in Pine Nut Sauce [Apicius, Book
VII, Chapter XIX, Recipe 3]


----- Gustatio - Appetizers -----
- Fresh Bread
- Moretum : Garlic, Herb, and Cheese Spread [The Ploughman's Lunch,
anonymous Latin poet]
- Aliter Carduos : Herb Marinated Artichokes [Apicius, Book III,
Chapter XIX, Recipe 2]
- Ius in Cordulla Assa : Grilled Tuna with Date Sauce [Apicius, Book
IX, Chapter X, Recipe 5]


----- Intermezzo -----
- Granita di Limone - Lemon Ice


----- Primera Mensa, Cena Prima - First Course, First Table -----
- Ius cum Pullo:  Chicken with Plum Sauce [Apicius, Book VI, Chanpter
V, Recipe 1]
- Acetaria: Mixed Greens Salad
- Hypotrimma: Cheese Sauce [Apicius, Book I, Chapter XIX]
- Boletos: Another Mushroom Dish [Apicius, Book VII, Chapter XIII, 
Recipe 6]
- Erebinthoi Knakosymmigeis: Saffron Chickpeas [Piloxenus, The
Dinner, quoted in Anthenaeus (circa AD170-239), The Partying
Professors]


----- Intermezzo
- Granita di Melograno - Pomegranate Ice


----- Primera Mensa, Cena Secunda - First Course, Second Table -----
- Pernam : Ham with Figs in Pastry [Apicius, Book VII, Chapter IX, 
Recipe 1]
- Lucanicae : Smokey Sausages of Lamb [Apicius, Book II, Chapter IV]
- Sinapim : Mustard Sauce with Nuts [Columella 12, 57]
- Cuminatum in Patina de Persicis : Peaches in Cumin Sauce [Patina:
Apicius, Book IV, Chapter II, Recipe 34;
- Cabbage in the Style of Athens [Mnesitheus (4th c. BCE), quoted by
Oribasius, in Medical Collections, Book IV, Chapter 4, part 1 (4th c.
CE); another version in Cato (c. 234-149 BCE) and quoted by Pliny the
Elder (24-79 CE)]
- Pulentium : Barley Polenta [Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 18, 73]


----- Seconda Mensa, Cena Prima - Second Course, First Table -----
- Conditum Paradoxi Compositio : Spiced White Grape Juice Surprise
[Apicius, Book I, Chapter I, Recipe 1]
- Patina Versatilis : Pine Nut Patina - [Apicius, Book IV, Chapter
II, Recipe 2]
- Mustei : Sweet Must Cakes [Cato the Censor, de Agricultura, 121]


----- Seconda Mensa, Cena Seconda - Second Course, Second Table -----
- Savillum : Roman cheese cake [Cato the Censor, de Agricultura, 84]
- Almond Paste Peach Pits in Sugar Plate Chariots
- Fresh Fruit


Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 08:57:26 -0800
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Greco-Roman Feast, Courses 1 & 2
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Normally a Greek or Roman feast had one appetizer course. Because i 
was serving 6 courses, i made two appetizer courses. I tried to 
balance savory and milder dishes.

One of my cooks had some lovage in her garden, but it wasn't a good 
year for it, so there wasn't enough for the feast. At least i got to 
taste it. Then, in the ever-glorious Berkeley Bowl i found something 
called "Chinese celery". I figure this is similar to Medieval celery 
- tiny thin short fibrous stalks with lots of big leaves. I used it 
instead of lovage herb. The lovage herb seemed to have a menthol 
finish which this lacked, but it was close enough in taste.

Oh, yeah, I divided my recipes among a group of experienced cooks. We 
made most of the food off site. I bought the ingredients and took 
them to the cooks. Then brought the prepared food and other 
ingredients to the site and finished those dishes that needed 
finishing, and cooked things on site like the tuna and the chicken (i 
hate the taste of reheated chicken).

NOTE: All recipes serve 80 to 100

PROMULSIS - Hors d'Oeuvre - First Course

Bread
Cheese
Epityrum : Chopped Olive Relish
Ius cum Ovis Hapalis : Eggs with Pine Nut Sauce

BREAD: A Laurel who got his peerage for baking, made the bread for 
the first and second courses.

CHEESE: A woman who specializes in cheese was making the cheese for 
us - and apparently did quite a bit of research about Roman cheeses - 
but something didn't work out, so she donated a fabulous Gorgonzola 
instead - she works in a specialty food shop.

EPITYRUM - CHOPPED OLIVE RELISH

Original:
How to make green, black or mixed olive relish:
Remove stones from green, black or mixed olives, then prepare as 
follows: chop them and add oil, vinegar, coriander, cumin, fennel, 
rue, mint. Pot them: the oil should cover them. Ready to use.
[ ----- Cato the Censor, On Agriculture 119]

4 lb pitted Green Olives
1 cups Red Wine Vinegar
2 cups Olive Oil
1/2 cup chopped fresh Fennel Leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh Cilantro
1/3 cup chopped fresh Parsley
1/3 cup chopped fresh Mint
3 Tb. Coriander Seeds, ground

1. Chop olives coarsely.
2. Chop herbs.
3. Grind coriander seeds.
4. Mix herbs and seeds with vinegar.
5. Mix with olives.
6. Pour in olive oil, mix.
7. Cover and let marinate several days in the refrigerator.

NOTE: I wanted to use a mix of black and green olives, but decent 
black olives were too expensive - and no way was i using those 
tasteless little rubber gaskets that come in cans at the supermarket.

NOTE: This turned out a bit too wet, according to the cook who made 
it, so i'd suggest making sure the olives are well drained, and using 
only 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 cup oil.


Ius cum Ovis Hapalis : EGGS WITH PINE NUT SAUCE

Original:
For soft-boiled eggs: pepper, lovage, steeped pine kernels. Moisten 
with honey, vinegar, blend with fish sauce.
[ ----- Apicius, Book VII, Chapter XIX, Recipe 3]

Pine Nut Sauce

3 lb. Pine Nuts
1 liter Sweet White Wine
1/4 cup chopped fresh Lovage Herb or Chinese Celery Leaves
1/2 cup Honey
1/2 cup white Wine Vinegar
2 tsp. ground Black Pepper
1 Tb Soy Sauce
1/4 cup Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce

1. Soak pine nuts in white wine to cover over night.
2. Drain and process to a smooth paste.
3. Add lovage, honey, vinegar and pepper.
4. Process until smooth.
5. Set aside a dish for the vegetarians, and add 1 Tb. soy sauce.
6. Add fish sauce to remaining sauce.

NOTE: This was a tad sweet for my taste. In the recipe above i've 
reduced the amount of honey, but i'd suggest gradually adding the 
honey, vinegar, and fish sauce to taste - you might want more or less 
of any of these ingredients to suit your taste. I took home some 
leftovers and added a lot more fish sauce, which it needed, in my 
opinion (but, then, i'm familiar with fish sauce from eating and 
cooking Thai and Vietnamese cuisine).

Eggs

80 Eggs (6-2/3 dozen)

1. Put eggs in a deep pot and cover with cold water.
2. Bring water to a boil.
3. As soon as water boils, remove pan from heat.
4. Cover pot and let stand 12 minutes.
5. Drain out all hot water and refill with cold water.
6. Pour out new water as it will now be hot.
7. Refill with cold water. Repeat this a couple times.
I put the pot in my freezer so it will cool quickly - but DO NOT let it freeze!
8. When eggs are cold, drain out water and refrigerate eggs until feast.

At the Feast:
1. Peel eggs.
2. Rinse eggs, drain and dry.
3. Slice eggs in half lengthwise.
4. Place on serving dishes and top with sauce.

NOTE: The sauce specified soft cooked eggs, but it seemed to me that 
would be far too difficult for an SCA feast. So instead i hard cooked 
them. I find that in cooking them as i do - not boiling them - they 
are not rubbery and often the yolks do not turn green.

-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------

Gustatio - Appetizers - Second Course

Bread
Moretum - Garlic, Herb, and Cheese Spread
Artichokes in Herb Sauce
Fresh Tuna with Date Sauce

NOTE: All recipes serve 80 to 100


MORETUM
Derived from Moretum: The Ploughman's Lunch
author unknown, attributed to Virgil

120 cloves (approx. 10 heads) Garlic
1 Tb. Salt
5 large handfuls Cilantro
1/4 cup chopped fresh Lovage Herb or Chinese Celery Leaf
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) Parsley
1/4 cup plus 1 Tb White Wine Vinegar
1/4 cup plus 1 Tb. Olive Oil
2-1/2 lb. Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Separate and peel the garlic cloves - I bought already peeled 
garlic cloves for the feast.
2. Optional: The cook who made this recipes decided to parboil the 
garlic. The original doesn't, but this makes the garlic less harsh. 
If you prefer strong garlic, don't parboil it, or only parboil part 
of the garlic. I thought it was perhaps a bit too mild, but i suspect 
diners appreciated it.
3. Grind garlic with salt in blender or food processor.
4. When pureed, add greens and olive oil and grind.
5. When pureed, add remaining ingredients.
6. Taste and add more salt only if needed.
7. Form into 10 balls and chill overnight.

Extract from Moretum: The Ploughman's Lunch, author unknown, 
attributed to Virgil
translated by Andrew Dalby, in The Classical Cookbook, Andrew Dalby 
and Sally Grainger

"...First,
lightly digging into the ground with his fingers,
he pulls up four heads of garlic
with their thick leaves;
then he picks slim celery-tops
and sturdy rue and the thin stems
of trembling coriander
With these collected
he sits before the fire
and sends the slave girl for a mortar.
...
He splashes a grass grown bulb with water
and put it to the hollow mortar.
He seasons with grains of salt, and
after salt, hard cheese is added.
Then he mixes in the herbs.
...
With the pestle, his right hand
works at the fiery garlic
then he crushes all alike
in a mixture. His hand circles.
Gradually the ingredients lose
their individuality; out of the many colours emerges one -
neither wholly green
(for the white tempers it)
nor shining white
(since tinted by so many herbs).
... The work goes on;
not jerkily as before,
but more heavily the pestle make its slow circuits.
So he sprinkles some drops of Athena's olive oil
and adds a little sharp vinegar,
and again works his mixture together.
Then at  length, he runs two finger
round the mortar,
gathering the whole mixture into a ball,
so as to produce the form
and name of a finished moretum.
Meanwhile busy Scybale has baked a loaf.
This he takes after wiping his hands..."


ARTICHOKES IN HERB SAUCE

Original:
Another cardoon recipe: rue, mint, coriander, fennel, all very green. 
Add pepper, lovage, honey, fish sauce, and oil.
[ ----- Apicius - Book III, Chapter XIX, Recipe 2]

Romans would use cardoons, but they aren't readily available these 
days, so i used their more easily found relative, artichokes.

Artichoke Hearts

two 5-1/2 lb cans of halved or quartered Artichoke Hearts (in water, 
salt, & citric acid)

1. Drain artichokes of can liquid.
2. Rinse with fresh running water.
3. Drain well. While draining, make sauce.

NOTE: I disliked the taste of the pre-made artichokes - i think what 
i objected to was the citric acid. It isn't really a *bad* taste, but 
the flavor seemed out-of-place to me. This would have been much 
better with tiny baby fresh artichokes. But they were too expensive 
and the prep time involved in snipping off the thorns at the tops of 
the leaves and cooking them was too great for a large feast.

Sauce

3 Tb. and 1 tsp. Honey
3/4 cup Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce
5 cups Olive Oil
3 Tb. and 1 tsp. chopped fresh Lovage or Chinese celery
3 Tb. and 1 tsp. chopped fresh Cilantro
3 Tb. and 1 tsp. chopped fresh Fennel Leaves
3 Tb. and 1 tsp. chopped fresh Mint
2-1/2 tsp. Black Pepper
2-1/2 tsp. Lovage or Celery Seed

1. Mix together honey and fish sauce until well-blended, then stir in 
olive oil.
2. Chop fresh green herbs.
3. Grind spices.
4. Mix liquids and seasonings.
5. Pour over well-drained artichokes, and mix gently to coat well.
6. Cover and marinate over night.


TUNA WITH DATE SAUCE

Original:
Ius in Cordula Assa: piper, ligusticum, apii semen, mentam, rutam, 
caryotam, mel, acetum, vinum et oleum. convenit et in Sarda.

Sauce for Roasted Young Tuna: pepper, lovage, celery seeds, mint, 
rue, Jericho dates, honey, vinegar, wine and oil. Suitable also for 
(sarda).
[ ----- Apicius, Book IX, Chapter X, Recipe 5]

Date Sauce

7 Tb. Lovage Herb or Chinese Celery Leaves
7 Tb. chopped fresh Mint
3 Tb. chopped fresh Rue (Opt.)
80 pitted Dates
5 tsp. Celery Seeds
1 Tb. Ground Black Pepper
Salt, to taste
2 cups Olive Oil
1-1/4 c. Vinegar
1-1/4 c. Wine
1 c. Honey

1. Chop herbs in food processor.
2. Add dates, spices, and salt to herbs in processor, then add 
liquids and honey into processor container.
3. Puree dates and liquid.
4. Taste and adjust seasonings.
5. Warm sauce.

Serve with cooked tuna as dipping sauce.

NOTE: The sauce is light golden tan in color, although because of the 
dates many people expected it to be dark brown.

Tuna

10 lb fresh Albacore or other inexpensive tuna or bonito

1. We cut the tuna into serving pieces - that took some time.
2. Then we baked it in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 
15 minutes, then checked on them.
3. The slabs were thick and moist so they took a bit longer to cook 
than i had expected - they needed another 10 minutes or a little less.

NOTE: I called around and finally found fresh locally caught albacore 
for around $7 per lb. at a Japanese fish market. I bought about 2 oz. 
per person. This was a "treat" in the meal, since most of the meat in 
the feast was inexpensive (chicken $.99/lb and lamb $1.99/lb).

NOTE: It is important not to overcook the fish. It should still be 
moist inside. The fish will continue cooking a bit after it is 
removed from the oven. Of course, no one wants under cooked fish, but 
overcooked fish is dry and fibrous and tough and no fun to eat at 
all. In this case, most of it was eaten.


Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 10:24:22 -0800
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Greco-Roman Feast, Course 3
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

This was the first of two "main" courses

Anahita

---------------------

Primera Mensa, Cena Prima
First Course, First Table

Acetaria: Mixed Greens Salad and Hypotrimma: Cheese Sauce
Pullus cum Iure: Chicken with Plum/Prune Sauce
Boletos: Another Mushroom Dish
Erebinthoi Knakosymmigeis: Saffron Chickpeas

NOTE: All recipes serve 80 to 100

ACETARIUM - Salad

Patrick Faas (Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient
Rome, p. 229) suggests, besides lettuce: basil, beet greens, celery,
chervil, chicory, cilantro, goosefoot, leek, lettuce, mallow, mint,
parsley, purslane, rocket (radicchio), rue, sorrel, thyme,
watercress, etc.

We bought a few large packages of mixed greens (also known mesclun)
that included several types of lettuce and radicchio at a
"warehouse"-type supermarket. We tore the greens by hand. Then we
added fresh basil, cilantro, mint, thyme, and watercress, also torn
by hand, to the salad greens.

HYPOTRIMMA - Cheese Sauce

Hypotrimma. Pepper, lovage, dry mint, pine nuts, raisins, Jericho
date, sweet cheese, honey, vinegar, fish sauce, oil, wine, defrutum
or caroenum
[--- Apicius, Book I, Chapter XIX]

1 quart Olive Oil
2 cups Wine Vinegar (red or white)
1 cup Red Wine
1 cup defrutum or caroenum - we used White Grape Juice Concentrate
(not reconstituted)
1 cup Honey
fresh Lovage or Chinese Celery
fresh Mint
ground Black Pepper
1/4 cup Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce
5 cups Ricotta Cheese
2 cups Raisins
1 cup Pine Nuts

Put oil, vinegar, wine, juice concentrate, honey, lovage, mint, and
pepper in blender and mix.
Set aside a dish without cheese for the Prince, and stir 1 tsp. fish
sauce into it.
Add ricotta to remainder and blend.
Pour out of blender, stir in raisins.
Set aside a dish for the vegetarians, and stir 1 tsp. soy sauce into it.
Add fish sauce to remaining dressing.
Serve with a spoon in each dish along with green salad.

NOTE: This could have used much less liquid, in my opinion. I'd
suggest halving the first five ingredients, mixing and tasting, then
adding back as you think it needs them.

NOTE: I forgot to add the raisins. I intentionally left the pine nuts
out, as they were in several other dishes throughout the feast.

NOTE: Vaious people who have "redacted" this recipe - scholars and
SCAdians - have come up with VERY different interpretations, ranging
from cheese spread to sauce to salad dressing.


CHICKEN WITH PLUM/PRUNE SAUCE

Sauce for Various Birds. Pepper, grilled cumin, lovage, mint, stoned
raisins or damsons, a little honey; blend with mytrle wine, vinegar,
fish sauce, and oil. Heat up and stir with celery and savory.
[--- Apicius, Book VI, Chapter V, Recipe 1]

Plums didn't grow in Italy at the time. Rather, dried plums were
imported from Syria, where they grew. I mixed fresh and dried in hope
that the sauce would be less cloying... see note below.

Plum/Prune Sauce

60 pitted Prunes
warm Water to cover
40 fresh Plums
1 gallon Red Wine
1-1/4 cups Red Wine Vinegar
1-1/4 cups Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce
1-1/4 cups Olive Oil
1/4 cup & 3 Tb. Honey
2 Tb. fresh Mint
2 Tb. Lovage Herb or Chinese Celery Leaves
1 Tb. ground roasted Cumin Seeds
1-1/2 tsp. ground Black Pepper
5-10 leafy stalks Celery
1 container fresh Savory Herb

Soak prunes in lukewarm water.
Plunge fresh plums in boiling water.
-- Drain and remove and discard skins.
-- Cut in half and discard pits.
Drain and chop prunes, saving liquid.
Tie celery and savory into bouquets.
Put all ingredients in saucepan, bring to boil and simmer 20 min.,
stirring with bouquet, and mashing prunes and plums occasionally.
Taste and adjust seasonings.
When done, leave bouquet in sauce until ready to serve.

NOTE: In fact the sauce was not sweet enough and needed more honey.

Chicken

36 lb. Chicken Thighs and Legs

Put pieces in a single layer in enough roasting pans.
Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.
Roast at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, turning so they brown evenly until
cooked through, between 30 and 45 minutes.

To serve, plate cooked chicken and pour sauce over.


SEASONED MUSHROOMS

Another Mushroom Dish: Put chopped mushroom stalks (from a variety of
wild mushrooms) in a baking dish, add pepper, lovage, and a bit of
honey. Blend with fish sauce, and a bit of oil.
[--- Apicius, Book VII, Chapter XIII, Recipe 6]

10 lb. thawed Trader Joe's frozen Mushroom Medley
3 Tb Lovage Seeds
2 Tb ground Black Pepper
1-1/4 cups Honey
1-1/2 cups Olive Oil
1/2 cup Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce
1 tsp. Salt

In a saucepan mix honey, oil, pepper, and lovage.
Cook on medium-low heat until honey is liquefied and ingredients well 
blended.
Put mushrooms in a baking dish.
Pour sauce over mushrooms.
Bake until cooked.
Remove vegetarian serving and add salt to taste.
Stir fish sauce into remaining mushrooms, taste and add more is needed.
Plate.

NOTE: As far as i know, the Romans didn't farm mushrooms and would
have used a mixture of wild mushrooms.

I like the "Mushroom Medley" because it contains a mixture of
mushrooms with varying flavors, colors, and textures. It includes
champignon (i.e. button), shiitake, oyster and kikurage mushrooms,
not all necessarily mushrooms the Romans would have had. Since Trader
Joe's brand is only available at Trader Joe's Markets, you can use a
mix of whatever fresh mushrooms are available and affordable,
especially if you live where this product is not available.


CHICKPEAS IN SAFFRON SAUCE - Erebinthoi Knakosymmigeis

"And then chick-peas marinated in saffron, plump in their tender youth"
[Piloxenus, The Dinner, quoted in Anthenaeus (circa 170-239 CE), The
Partying Professors]

NOTE: It's possible that the Greeks used FRESH chickpeas, but i don't
think i'll find them, so...

A couple generous pinches of Saffron
a few Tb. Warm Water
3 giant cans Chickpeas
2 cups Olive Oil
Salt to taste, as garbanzos already salted
2 Tb. ground Cumin Seed
2 Tb. ground Coriander Seed
2 tsp. ground Black Pepper

Crumble saffron threads in a tablespoon or two of warm water. Let
stand about 15 minutes.
Drain and rinse canned chickpeas.
Put chickpeas in a pot with olive oil and a little water, stir well,
and heat on medium fire, adjusting heat as needed so they don't burn.
Add saffron, coriander, cumin, and salt to taste.
Stir and simmer until warm through. Taste and adjust seasonings,
adding more cumin and coriander seed, as needed.

NOTE: These were surprisingly popular, considering what i have heard
about how people dislike chickpeas. We had quite a bit left over, but
nowhere near as much as i expected, and several people asked for the
recipe.

NOTE: There was some controversy among scholars as to whether the
Greeks would have used saffron, which is flavorful as well as
colorful, or safflower, which adds color but no appreciable flavor. I
chose to use the tastier saffron, a flavor i love.


Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 10:42:14 -0800
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Greco-Roman Feast, Course 4
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

This was the second of the two "main" courses

Anahita

---------------------

NOTE: All recipes serve 80 to 100

Primera Mensa, Cena Secunda - First Course, Second Table

Ham with Figs in Pastry
Lucanicae - Smoked Lamb Sausages
Sinapim - Mustard Sauce with Ground Nuts
Peaches in Cumin Sauce
Cabbage in the Style of Athens
Pulentium - Barley Polenta


Ham with Figs in Pastry

Original Recipe:
After you have cooked the ham in water, with many dried figs and 3
bay leaves, remove the skin, make reticulated incisions, and fill
them with honey. Then work together flour and oil and replace the
skin. When the pastry is cooked, remove from the oven as it is, and
serve.
[ ----- Apicius, Book VII, Chapter IX, Recipe 1]

HAM
25 lb. Ham, cut into 10 serving chunks
Water, as needed
3 lb. dried Figs (i used black Mission figs)
30 Bay Leaves
1 cup Honey

1. Simmer ham with water, figs, and bay leaves, until figs are very 
soft.
2. Slice ham and stuff with figgy bits.
3. Coat with honey.
4. Refrigerate.

PASTRY
30 cups White Wheat Flour (3 cups per serving piece)
1/2 cup Salt (2-1/2 Tb. per serving piece)
Oil, as needed to moisten flour
Water, as needed to moisten flour

1. Make pastry, by mixing flour and salt and cutting in oil.
2. Divide into 10 balls, and roll each one out into large oval.
3. Stack with pieces of waxed paper between them.
4. Refrigerate

At the Feast:

1. Wrap hams in pastry.
2. Bake at 350 degrees F. until crust is golden, about 1/2 hour.
3. Slice and put on serving dishes.

NOTE:
I boiled the hams with the figs and seasonings, but we did not cut
the ham into table pieces, nor did we wrap them in pastry. Instead,
at the feast site, we sliced it with an electric meat slicer, plated
it, and topped it with the pureed figs.


Lucanicae - Smoked sausages

Original Recipe:
Lucanicae made similarly to the above:  crush pepper, cumin, savory,
rue, parsley, mixed herbs, bay berries, fish sauce, and mix with
well-beaten meat, pounding it well with the ground spice mixture. Mix
with fish sauce, whole peppercorns, plenty of fat,and pine nuts,
stuff into an intestine pulled very thin and hang in the smoke.
[ ----- Apicius, Book II, Chapter IV]

NOTE: These are traditionally made with pork. However, since the
Prince cannot eat pork of any kind, i wanted a non-pork meat for him
to eat (and everyone else, of course).

15 lb. ground Lamb (3 oz per sausage)
some Fat
1/4 cup and 1 heaping Tb. ground Cumin Seeds
1 Tb. ground Black Pepper
1/2 cup dried Savory
1/4 cup chopped Chinese Celery Leaves or Lovage Herb
1/2 heaping cup chopped fresh Italian (flat leaf) Parsley
(other herbs)
300 Juniper Berries
1-1/2 cups Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce
1 Tb. Liquid Smoke Flavoring
1-3/4 to 2 cups whole Pine Nuts
300 whole Black Peppercorns

Before Feast:

1. Mix herbs and spices.
2. Add fish sauce and liquid smoke.
3. Divide the meat and seasonings into quarters to assure even
distribution of seasonings.
3. Mix seasonings well with ground meat.
4. Mix pine nuts and whole peppercorns with meat.
5. Shape into 80 sausage-kebabs.
6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until done, turning occasionally.
7. Freeze.

At the Feast:

1. Thaw sausages
2. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until well-heated through.

NOTE: Because i couldn't find bay berries i substituted juniper berries.
NOTE: These were snarfed down with no leftovers and people coming to
the kitchen asking for more.
NOTE: I wanted to stuff them into casings, but it was not easy to
find a small quantity of non-pork casings (take a look at the
ingredients for those chicken sausages in the supermarket - most are
stuffed into pork casings). While a local halal market could get
non-pork casings for me, i had to buy a whole package - $45 for
enough casings for 50 lb of meat - and to use them, one has to soak
the whole package and then untangle them and you can't save what you
don't use. And a local butcher, who was going to stuff my recipe into
casings for me, said that the synthetic casings are horrible. Maybe
some other time i'll make that 50 lb. of sausages and freeze them.

Sinapim - Mustard Sauce

Original:
To prepare mustard: Carefully clean mustard seed, sieve it. Wash in
cold water. Soak 2 hours. Squeeze by hand. Put in a mortar and grind.
Put in a few glowing coals, pour water with natron over it, so
bitterness is removed. Pour off all the liquid. For banquets add pine
nuts and almonds, grind together thoroughly. Then add vinegar. Mix
and strain.
[ ----- Columella, de Re Rustica, 12, 57, edited]

two 2.25 lb jars of Grey-Poupon Dijon Mustard
1 cup Pine Nuts
1 cups ground Almonds

1. Grind pine nuts.
2. Mix with mustard and set aside a clearly marked dish for the 
Princess.
3. Stir in ground almonds.

NOTE: OK, OK, so i took the lazy way out. It's not that hard to mix
powdered mustard with vinegar. I made Lombard Mustard to put in the
Compost i made...


Patina de Persicis - Peaches in Cumin Sauce

Original Recipes:
Peach Patina: Peel some firm peaches, cut in chunks, and cook. Place
in a patina pan and drizzle with oil. Serve with cumin sauce.
[ ----- Apicius, Book IV, Chapter II, Recipe 34]

Cuminatum: Another cumin sauce: pepper, lovage, parsley, dried mint,
a large amount of cumin, honey, vinegar, fish sauce.
[ ----- Apicius, Book I, Chapter XV, Recipe 2]

CUMIN SAUCE
1 Tb. roasted Cumin Seed
1/2 cup chopped Italian (flat-leaf) Parsley
1/2 cup Chinese Celery Leaves or Lovage Herb
1 Tb. crumbled dried Mint
1/2 tsp. Black Pepper
1/2 cup Red or White Wine Vinegar
3/4 cup Honey
2 Tb. Tiparos (brand) Thai Fish Sauce

1. Roast cumin seed in a dry pan until fragrant and just darkening.
2. Cool somewhat, then grind cumin.
3. Mix roasted cumin with pepper, lovage, parsley, and mint.
4. Put vinegar and honey in a sauce pan on medium heat.
5. Stir in seasonings.
6. Simmer briefly, stirring, until liquefied and well seasoned.

PEACHES
40 fresh ripe Peaches
1 cup Olive Oil

1. Plunge peaches into boiling water briefly.
2. Drain, then remove skins.
3. Halve, removing pits.
4. Cut in chunks - putting 4 peaches on a separate dish for vegetarians.

Finish Dish
1. Put 4 peaches for the vegetarians in a small baking pan.
2. Put remaining peaches for everyone else in a large baking pan.
2. Toss all peaches with olive oil.
3. Separate a dish of sauce for the vegetarians. Season with a tsp.
of soy sauce.
4. For remaining sauce, stir in fish sauce.
5. Pour cumin sauce onto peaches in baking dishes, keeping vegetarian
dish separate.
6. Bake in 350 oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, until just barely
beginning to bubble.
7. Plate, keeping vegetarian peaches separate.

NOTE:
The peaches were ripe enough to peel without plunging in boiling
water. We also didn't cook them. We just cut them up and mixed them
with the sauce.

These were incredibly delicious, in part because of the high quality
of the peaches which were perfectly ripe. I had bought the case of
peaches about 4 days before the feast, and kept them in a cool dark
place until the feast.


Cabbage the Athenian Way

Original:
Cabbage should be sliced with the sharpest possible iron blace, then
washed, drained, and chopped with plenty of coriander and rue. Then
sprinkle with honey vinegar and add just a little bit of silphium.
[ ----- Mnesitheus (4th c. BCE), quoted in Oribasius, Medical
Collections, Book IV, Chapter 4, part 1 (4th c. CE); another version
in Cato (c. 234-149 BCE) and quoted by Pliny the Elder (24-79 CE)]

Oxymeli - Honey Vinegar
Simmer honey until it foams, discard, the scum, add enough vinegar to
make it neither too sharp nor too sweet, boil again until it is mixed
and not raw. For use, mix with water, just as you would mix wine with
water.
[ ----- Galen, Staying Healthy, Book 4, Chapter 6]

OXYMEL
1-1/2 cup Honey
1/2 cup Red or White Wine Vinegar

Mix honey and vinegar; simmer until well blended; cool.

CABBAGE
10 lb Cabbage - we used 1 head green and 2 heads napa
3/4 cup chopped fresh Cilantro
1/2 cup chopped fresh Rue or Chinese Celery Leaves
2 cups Oxymel
1/4 cup Salt
1-1/4 tsp. Asafoetida Powder

1. Finely shred cabbage.
2. Mix herbs, oxymel, salt, and asafoetida.
3. Toss with cabbage.
4. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Note: Silphium, also known as laser, is no more, alas. However, many
historians are convinced it was closely related to asafoetida and it
appears that, in fact, asafoetida was used as a replacement after
siplhium became extinct.

Pulentium - Barley Polenta

Original:
Vicenis hordei libris ternas seminis lini et coriandri selibram
salisque acetabulum.

20 librae of barley, 3 librae of linseeds and 1/2 libra of coriander,
in addition to an acetabulum of salt.
[ ----- Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 18, 73]

2-1/2 lb. Barley Grits (from health food store)
3 gallons Vegetable Broth
1-1/2 cups Flax Seeds/Linseeds
1/2 cup whole Coriander Seeds
additional Salt as needed
additional Water as needed

1. Put all ingredients into automatic rice cookers - this will take
several batches, not all at once.
2. Turn on rice cookers.
3. When the rice cookers indicates that it is done, check it. It
might not be. If not, start up rice cooker again, or finish on the
stove or in an oven.

NOTE: No store seemed to be carrying the Arrowhead Mills barley grits
i had purchased last year!!! So i bought whole barley with the hulls
off, NOT pearl barley. Then we ran it through the food processor a
few times. It never achieved the character of grits but most of it
was broken up to a greater or lesser extent.

NOTE: The cook in charge of making the polenta decided to do it on
stove top, rather than in the rice cookers, as i had done before,
which worked fine. Also the coriander seeds and flax seeds didn't
make it into the pot with the barley, so we cooked them separately in
broth, then mixed them into the barley. While the texture of the
barley was much "chunkier" than at the previous feast because of how
we had processed the barley itself, it tasted fine.

NOTE: In reviewing the recipe, it appears to me that the flax seeds
and coriander seeds should also be ground... next time...


Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 11:02:04 -0800
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Greco-Roman Feast, Courses 5 & 6
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

These were the final two courses. Roman meals often had both sweets
and savories in the final course. While none of these dishes was
savory, some of them were not very sweet.

NOTE: All recipes serve 80 to 100

Anahita

---------------------

Secunda Mensa, Cena Prima
Second Course, First Table

Conditum - Spiced White Wine/Grape Juice
Pine Nut Patina
Sweet Must Cakes

Secunda Mensa, Cena Secunda
Second Course, Second Table

Savillum - Roman cheese cake
Almond Paste Peach Pits in Sugar Plate Chariots
Mixed Fresh Fruit Salad

---------------------

CONDITUM - Spiced White Grape Juice

Original:
Contium Paradoxum Compositum:
Spiced Wine Surprise is made as follows: 15 lb. of honey are put in a
metal vessel into which you have previously put 2 pints of wine, so
as to boil down the wine while cooking the honey. It is heated over a
slow fire of dry wood, stirring all the while with a stick; when it
begins to boil over it is checked by adding [cold] wine; it also
sinks when removed from the fire. When cool it is heated once more.
This must be done a second and third time, and only then is it
removed from the fire, and skimmed on the following day. Then take 4
oz. pepper, 3 scruples of pounded mastic, a handful each of aromatic
leaf [tejpat/malabathron] and saffron, 5 roasted date-stones, the
dates softened in wine, having previously been soaked in wine of the
right kind and quality, so as to produce a soft mash. These
preparations completed, pour over 18 pints of sweet wine. In the end
add coals, if it is too bitter.
[ ----- Apicius, Book I, Chapter I, Recipe 1]

This should have been made with wine. However, SCA rules do not allow
the purchase of wine or other alcohol for serving as beverages.
Therefore i substituted white grape juice, spiked with Middle Eastern
sour white grape juice so it wouldn't be too cloying.

5-1/3 cans White Grape Juice Concentrate
Water, enough to make 2 gallons of juice
10 fresh Dates, soaked in juice
3 lb. Honey
1/2 cup White Wine Vinegar
1/2 cup Verjus/Sour White Grape Juice
1-1/2 Tb. ground Black Pepper
10 Tejpat/Malabathron Leaf/Bay Leaves
3/4 tsp. Saffron
3/4 tsp. Gum Mastic

Reconstitute juice.
Soak dates in a small amount of juice until soft.
Mix 6 cups of juice with honey and bring to boil.
Add seasonings and cook on medium-low heat for a few minutes.
Then cool.
Add remainder of juice, then stir in vinegar and verjus to taste.
Let stand overnight.
Strain/decant.
Serve.
Can be diluted to taste with water.

NOTE: This was a surprise hit. Several folks who said they very much
disliked grape juice asked me for the recipe.


PINE NUT PATINA

Original:
An Inverted Patina as Dessert:
Pine nuts, peeled and chopped nuts, are roasted, grind with honey,
pepper, fish sauce, milk, eggs, a little undiluted wine and oil.
Turn into a plate.
[ ----- Apicius, Book IV, Chapter II, Recipe 16]

Modern recipe courtesy of Cordelia Toser, who cooked them all for the 
feast.

50 large Eggs (4 doz. + 2 eggs)
5 cups ground Pine Nuts
5 cups Clover Honey
2-1/2 tsp Black Pepper
5 tsp Salt
2 Tb. and 1-1/2 tsp White Wine
2 Tb. Olive Oil
30 cups Whole Milk

Butter a 1-1/2 quart glass casserole.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In large bowl, beat eggs until uniform.
Add other ingredients and blend until smooth.
Place casserole in large baking pan that is about 2 inches deep.
Pour egg mixture into casserole and add warm water into baking pan.
Try to get the water level about the same as the egg mixture.
Gently place pan in center oven.
Bake until the edges of the custard should be brown and the center is
no longer liquid.  That should be about 35 to 40 minutes.
Remove casserole from oven and cool on wire rack until it reaches
room temperature.

It may be served warm or cold.  Leftovers must be refrigerated.

NOTE: I figure this is not very much like the actual Roman version.
But Cordelia's recipe is scrumptious and super yummy and it was a big
hit. Some diners ate five helpings.


SWEET MUST CAKES

Original:
Must cakes to be made thus:
two gallons of bread-wheat flour to be moistened with must; add to
this anise, cumin, 2 lb. lard, 1 lb. cheese, and grate in the park of
a bay twig; when you have shaped them, put bay leaves under them
while you cook them.
[ ----- Cato the Censor, De Agricultura, 121]

4 lb unbleached white wheat flour
1 cup must
   - - - or - scant 1/2 cup red wine - plus - scant 1/2 cup red grape
juice concentrate
   - - - or - soak 1/4 to 1/2 cup dark raisins in 1-1/2 cups warm water
until soft and plump.
Strain out, squeezing liquid out of raisins. There should be about 1
cup of liquid
1 lb. butter alone or mixed with sesame oil
1-1/4 lb. farmer or pot cheese, or *real* cream cheese without gums
(i.e., NOT Philadelphia brand or those like it)
3 Tb. lightly toasted anise seeds
3 Tb. roasted cumin seeds
80 bay leaves

1. Toast cumin and anise seeds separately.
2. Mix butter and soft cheese.
3. Work butter and soft cheese into flour by hand.
4. Mix in whole toasted seeds.
5. Mix in must or wine-and-grape juice or raisin juice.
6. Cover 2 jelly roll/sheet pans with a single layer of bay leaves.
7. Divide dough into two equal balls.
8. Pat each dough ball down a bit.
9. Lay one ball over the bay leaves on one sheet, and pat out until
it covers the baking sheet completely. Repeat with other ball.
10. Bake 350 degrees F. for 15 min or until golden.
11. Score thoroughly into 50 bars per pan while still warm.
12. Cool in pan.
13. Break out bars to serve.

NOTES:
To be perfectly honest, i didn't really have or use a recipe for
these. I just winged it. I hauled the ingredients to the site
kitchen, and with a some guidance from Euriol - since it has been a
very long time since i baked cookie like things - i just faked it. So
the recipe above is not really quite what i used or what i did. But
since i just improvised, you can take this info and improv your own.

I used a tad over 1 cup of must as that was all the container had. It
was expensive. Next time i will use homemade raisin juice and add
more.

I left out the cumin seeds at the feast.

This could have taken some additional sweetener.

The resulting bars were somewhat crunchy on top, and soft and chewy
on the bottom. I found them very pleasing. I guess others did too, as
there were none left over. And I'd like to make them again!


SAVILLUM - Roman cheese cake

Original:
Make a savillum thus:
Mix 1/2 libra of flour and 2 1/2 librae of cheese, as is done for
libum. Add 1/4 libra of honey and 1 egg. Grease an earthenware bowl
with oil. When you have mixed the ingredients well, pour into the
bowl and cover the bowl with an earthenware testo. See that you cook
it well in the middle where it is highest. When it is cooked, remove
the bowl, spread with honey, sprinkle with poppy, put it back
underneath the testo for a moment, and then remove. Serve it thus
with a plate and spoon.
[ ----- Cato the Censor, de Agricultura (84)]

Prior to Feast

Butter
1 lb Flour
5 lb Ricotta Cheese
1/2 lb Honey
3 Eggs
(pinch of Salt might be good)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Butter baking dishes (a Pyrex bowl for each table would be nice... 
dream on...)
Mixed flour, cheese, honey, and eggs well.
Pour into baking dishes, cover with foil.
Bake until set (not dry) in the middle, about 30 minutes (test with
toothpick or knife).

On Site

additional Honey
Black Poppy Seeds

Spread honey on top of cheese cakes and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
Put under the broiler briefly to melt honey.

NOTE: This was rather thin and dry. I think it was cooked too long.
The original implies that it isn't a thoroughly dry dish. Needs
further experimentation to perfect. It was mostly all eaten, anyway.


Almond Paste "Peach Pits" in Sugar Plate Chariots

These are not at all authentically Roman, but they were for show.
They CANNOT be served to the Princess who is deathly allergic to
almonds.

Gianetta experimented with sugar paste to make the chariots.

Faux Peach Pits

I must thank Mistress Rose de la Mans who very generously taught me
and Gianetta del Bene how to make the peach pits and loaned us the
molds she had made.

Original:
Huessos de duraznos -- Peach pits
Take half a pound of almonds, and blanch them, and grind them, and
take a pound of sugar, ground and sifted, knead it with the almond
until it is well kneaded, and if it does not stay very firm, cast in
a little more almond, and take an ounce of very fine cinnamon, and
two adarmes of red sanders, all very well ground and sifted, cast it
in the paste, and knead everything very well, until it takes on a
good color, and the dough being well-tempered, which is not soft,
sprinkle it on top with sifted sugar, so that it doesn't stick, and
make pieces, and in each one put an almond, or a half, and sprinkle
them with sugar, and put them in your molds and remove them, and set
them to dry.
[ ----- Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina (Spanish, 1599),
Trans. Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)]

almond paste
whole almonds
red saunders
true cinnamon

Powder the red saunders in an electric coffee grinder or tiny blender 
jar.
Knead almond paste with hands.
When the right consistency, add the powdered red saunders and the
true cinnamon powder.
Work with the hands a bit
If using home ground almonds - may need to add a few drops of almond
flavor or almond oil depending on freshness of almonds...

NOTE: So we cheated again. I bought almond paste (NOT marzipan) at
The Berkeley Bowl, since previous attempts with blanched almonds
ended in failure, as the nuts and sugar just weren't moist enough.
The marzipan they sell is very white, very finely ground, and quite
sweet, whereas the almond paste is very pale tan, has more texture
(isn't chunky, just not as fine), and is a bit less sweet.

NOTE: Rose used some kind of polymer clay to make the molds from
genuine peach pits. She loaned them to us. Gianetta make at least 80
of these things herself. Whew!


FRESH FRUIT

Traditionally a Roman banquet ended with fresh fruit. I figured we
wouldn't need much, since folks ought to be pretty full. I also felt
that a bowl of whole fruits on the table wouldn't go over that well,
so i took various fruits the Romans ate and turned them into a simple
fruit salad. I added sugar and flower waters. This is not authentic.

red grapes
black grapes
1 ripe yellow melon (not cantaloupe)
1 ripe green melon
2 ripe pomegranates
a few each pears and apples
a little white sugar
rose water
orange flower water

Wash fruit.
Peel and/or cut up fruit, as necessary. For pomegranate, slit skin
and carefully peel away from seeds. Release juicy seeds from pith.
Mix together.
Toss with a little sugar, rose water, and orange flower water.
Let stand from at least 15 min. to macerate.

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	Greco-Romn-Fst-art	26 of 27