lea-cook-uten-msg - 11/24/06
Leather cooking vessels and utensils.
NOTE: See also the files: jugs-pitchrs-lnks, p-tableware-msg, cooking-pots-art, utensils-msg, leather-bib, leather-msg, lea-bladders-msg, lea-tanning-msg. lea-bottles-bib, lea-bottles-msg.
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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
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Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 17:59:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: sheila <atamagajobu at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] leather cooking vessels
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
=====
Aislinn said:
<<< Thanks for the Cyprus cookery help and whisk info. Now I am hunting
Saxon leather cooking vessel fragments. Your Florilegium is the most
Fabulous resource Stefen; you are a God! Thanks everyone again.>>>
What is this about Saxon leather cooking vessels? How would you cook
in them? Drop in hot rocks warmed in the fire/coals? I know you
aren't supposed to put pottery vessels over the fire, just coals and
I imagine that leather pots are even less durable.
Yes, you can boil water in a paper cup, but this usually results in
burning away the paper not immersed in the liquid. I doubt you would
want to do that with your leather pot.
Stefan
======
To which Da replied:
=====
I have used a leather cooking vessel and we simply put hot rocks into the
liquid to heat it . Whether that was right or wrong it is what we did. Oh
advisory do not use a waxed vessel (shudder), and be prepared to replace it
sooner then usual. Some times there is less liquid than you think.
=====
caveat- don't use silicaceous rock such as obsidian, flints and
cherts, which become very brittle when heated and have been known to
become very small sharp fragments (broken glass) when shocked or over
heated- best is to warm them slow and steady at about 300 degrees or
less, but they may still fragment under thermal shock. Sandstone
leaves a lot of grit in your food, more than cobbles do. I'd advise
using granite, limestone, metamorphic or sedimentary rock- worn or
river cobbles are most common, as long as they are DRY before you
put them in the fire. they do explode.
the method micheal used is the common stone-boiling technique-
keep heating rocks and removing the cooled ones if it gets over full.
Ethnographic reports suggest a very wet skin bag may be used over
coals, but needs to stay saturated. I've also excavated a standing
rib ring, of ribs arranged in a small- approx 1- 1 1/2 feet- circle
to suspend a leather cooking vessel- it was next to but not IN the
firepit, and heated rocks were found both inside the ring and around
it... they were probably hot when put under it, given a slight
discoloration of the soil, but that wasn't certain.
This is all Native American prehistoric info OR derived from
replication experiments, btw.
gisele
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:35:27 -0400
From: "Stephanie Ross" <hlaislinn at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] leather cooking vessels
To: "SCA-Cooks" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
My thought on how to make a leather cooking vessel is to boil the leather
like one does when making bazubands and form it around or into a pot when
hot. After it is dried I planned to lightly wax the outside of the vessel.
I am hoping that hardening leather in this way will keep it from stretching
out when it has hot water in it. In order to use it for cooking, I would
build a fire in a pit using river stones as a base. After the stones were
good and hot, I would sweep the coals off to one side of the pit and place
my leather vessel on the stones. I would then fill it with water, and drop
additional hot stones from the pit into the water until it boiled. I hope
that the hot stones the pot is sitting on would help keep the water boiling
so that I could make a pottage of some sort - pease porridge or lentils
would be good. I don't think cooking chunks of meat in a stew would work in
this method, but if they are spitted until cooked and then added to the
pottage it would be good. Ann Hagen, in her book _A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon
Food_ intimated that there is archeological evidence for use of leather
pots in cooking, but damned if I can find anything so far. I did find a
very interesting website that shows how the Neolithic Britons might have
cooked in hides over a fire according to a description by Heroditus.
www.lionsaltworkstrust.co.uk/documents/Mundling%20Stick%20Vol%2010%20No%203.pdf
The author has used it successfully for making salt cakes. He invited
me to call him to discuss leather vessels, but he is in England or Wales
and I haven't remembered to call him early enough in the morning. I will
take notes and let you all know what he said though. To me, it is quite a
scary thought that the Saxons had to resort to Neolithic cooking methods
once the Romans left. That in itself would make it the Dark Ages IMO. How
much stuff on Anglo-Saxon cooking is in the Florilegium Stefan? I have a
handout from a class I taught on Anglo-Saxon cooking if you want it. It is
a synopsis of the subject taken from several books and put into my own
words with a short bibliography.
~Aislinn~
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 07:46:26 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] leather cooking vessels
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were from the area of northern Europe that was
not under Roman rule. Their arrival in Britian is after the major Roman
withdrawal, so don't think of them as Romanized. They were using the
techniques that met the requirements of their environment.
While cooking in leather with heated rocks may be Neolithic, it is
serviceable. We still use immersion heaters today. The technology is
improved, but the principle is the same. Civilizations add and improve upon
culinary utensils and techniques, but they usually don't discard that which
works.
Bear
> take notes and let you all know what he said though. To me, it is quite a
> scary thought that the Saxons had to resort to Neolithic cooking methods
> once the Romans left. That in itself would make it the Dark Ages
>
> ~Aislinn~
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 20:52:55 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Browsing this evening, I came across The Image of Irelande, by John Derrick
(London, 1581). The most famous plate of the set shows the chief of the
Mac Sweynes seated at dinner and being entertained by a bard and a
harper.
http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/about/bgallery/Gallery/researchcoll/ireland.html
Johnnae
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 21:36:23 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
It does say
Another lacking pannes. to boyle the flesh, his hide prepare
Johnnae
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>> The Image of Irelande, by John Derrick
>> (London, 1581). The most famous plate of the set shows the chief of
>> theMac Sweynes seated at dinner and being entertained by a bard and a
>> harper.
>> http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/about/bgallery/Gallery/researchcoll/
>> ireland.html
>>
>> Johnnae
>>
> Is it my imagination, or does this depict what appears to be food
> being cooked in a sort of leather sling over a fire?
> Adamantius
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 21:49:25 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
http://www.wynja.com/arch/cooking.html is an article subtitled--
Boiling water in a skin pot over a fire (or not...)
Of course in July Aislinn said: was hunting
Saxon leather cooking vessel fragments.
Maybe this will count towards that as well.
Johnnae
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 21:55:05 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
On Aug 8, 2006, at 9:36 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
> It does say
> Another lacking pannes. to boyle the flesh, his hide prepare
>
> Johnnae
Well, we've talked about this pretty extensively, but mostly, AFAIK,
from within the dread, murky realm of "archaeological
evidence" (which is usually a SCAdian euphemism for no
documentation ;-) ). However, seeing it being done, it occurs to me
that the science involved is fairly simple: no matter what else
happens, with a reasonable amount of care, there's no way the
temperature of the hide is going above 212F (or so) until the liquid
boils away.
Adamantius
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 22:20:30 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Well it is an English woodcut of a "feast" eaten by those
barbarian enemy Irish too. Seeing it in a large version with all
the details makes a big difference too.
Johnnae
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 22:49:06 -0600
From: "Sue Clemenger" <mooncat at in-tch.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> A thought just struck me. Is this an early instance of propaganda? Were the
> Irish as backwards as depicted here, or did the English work at making them
> look bad as an excuse to subjegate them?
>
> ~Aislinn~
Simple answer. Sorta. <g> Some parts of Ireland were more Anglo than other
parts, and it also depends on what one means by "backwards." Non-English?
Less affluent? Differently dressed? All of the above? (remembering, of
course, that the English in the 16th century were pretty notoriously
xenophobic....an old college professor of mine used to make a pretty
convincing case for the English of that time "practicing" their racism and
cultural snobbism on the Irish before they ever got going on people from
Africa--some of the comments and labels (which persisted well into the 19th
century) are eerily similar).
All of which doesn't mean, of course, that some of the observations weren't
accurate...it's just that it's best if they can be backed up with another
source. Some of the details in the woodcuts in regards to clothes are
pretty spot-on: the oversized leine sleeves, the very short, high-waisted
jackets with pleated skirting (ionar, I think the jackets are called), the
shaggy mantles. I've seen some of the woodcuts before in another context,
and always concentrated primarily on the clothing. I'll have to take some
time and look at them all this weekend, now that I've got this nifty new
website bookmarked!
--Maire
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 16:37:56 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581
To: <hlaislinn at earthlink.net>, "Cooks within the SCA"
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
They are propaganda, but they are also extremely valuable as
contemporary illustrations.
Here's a take on their value:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/transcripts/ag01_t10.shtml
Bear
> A thought just struck me. Is this an early instance of propaganda? Were the
> Irish as backwards as depicted here, or did the English work at making
> them look bad as an excuse to subjegate them?
>
> ~Aislinn~
<the end>