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. ************************************************************************ 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: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 17:59:36 -0700 (PDT) From: sheila 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] leather cooking vessels To: "SCA-Cooks" 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] leather cooking vessels To: "Cooks within the SCA" 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 Subject: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: Cooks within the SCA 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: Cooks within the SCA 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: Cooks within the SCA 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: Cooks within the SCA 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: Cooks within the SCA 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: "Cooks within the SCA" > 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. 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Images of Dining in Ireland 1581 To: , "Cooks within the SCA" 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~ Edited by Mark S. Harris lea-cook-uten-msg Page 6 of 6