Two 14th century recipes for dinner

This week's medieval dinner comes courtesy of 14th century England.   The meal consisted of a fish dish, a bean and onion dish, and a green salad with a simple oil/vinegar/mustard/honey dressing.  With a sweet cake or some kind of fruit dish added, this would be a lovely first remove for a feast.

First up is A Dauce Egre or Fish in a sweet and sour sauce.  This is the sort of sauce that it's very important to taste and adjust the sweetness/tartness of it before putting on the fish. I used a cider vinegar for my first attempt and it definitely needed more sugar after the simmering/reducing. Good strong flavor though.   The beans and onions made a lovely accompaniment to the tart fish and had a much milder, more buttery flavor.

A Dauce Egre (Fish in a sweet and sour sauce)
Tak luces or tenches or fresch haddok, & seth hem & frye hem in oyle doliue. & þan tak vynegre & þe thridde part sugre & onyounnes smal myced, & boyle alle togedere, & maces & clowes & quybibes. & ley þe fisch in disches & hyld þe sew aboue & serue it forth.
Source: Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

1 lb haddock fillets (or any other fresh white fish)
olive oil
1 1/2 cups cider or red wine vinegar
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1 medium sized onion, minced
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp clove
1 tsp ground black pepper

In a sauce pan, combine vinegar, sugar, onions & spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Continue cooking until the onions are thoroughly soft and sauce is reduced. In a frying pan, heat a little olive oil. Fry the fish on both sides in the hot oil until a crispy light brown. Remove from the oil and drain. Place the fish in a serving platter and ladle the sauce on top.

Benes yfryed (Sauteed beans and onions)

Take benes and seeþ hem almost til þey bersten. Take and wryng out þe water clene. Do þerto oynouns ysode and ymynced, and garlec þerwith; frye hem in oile oþer in grece, & do þereto powdour douce, & serue it forth. Source: Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

1 can cannellini beans 
1 onion, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs olive oil or butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Drain and rinse beans. Saute drained beans, onions, garlic and spices with olive oil or butter. Serve warm.

Pikestaff cover

Back in January,  Lady Katerine atte Wyshe put out a call for Pikestaff covers.  She assigned me the May cover and this was what I designed.  I haven't done portraits in a long long time, but I'm not displeased with this one.  It's based on a photo taken by Lady Camille DeJardin at King Edward and Queen Thyra's Crown Tourney in Endewearde.  If I were to do this again, I would extend that background pattern under the two pointy bits on the top of the P.  I'd also remember that like hair, beards have a shape that should be drawn in, rather than drawing the shape of his face and adding the beard after.  Rookie mistake, but it did spawn my new favorite exclamation of frustration "Gregor's beard!"

Medieval meatloaf and buttered cauliflower

 This week's dinner was also served with a simple salad of greens tossed with an herbed and salted oil and vinegar dressing.

Mortreus de Chare (Pork and Ale Loaf)

Take pork, and seth it ynow; and take it vppe, and bawde hit, and hewe it and grinde it, and in a morter; And cast thereto grated brede, and then drawe the same broth thorgh a streynour, And temper hit with ale, and do al into a potte, and lete boile, and aley hit with yolkes of egges, And then let it boile no more, And cast thereto powder of ginger, Salt, And put hit in disshes in maner of Mortrewes, And cast thereto powder of ginger, & serue it forth.
- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

1 pound ground pork
1 1/2 C ale or beer
1 C white bread crumbs
3 raw egg yolks
1 tsp. powdered ginger
1/4 tsp. salt

Sauté pork in a saucepan until brown. Add ale or beer. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for about ten minutes.

Stir in bread crumbs, salt, ginger, and egg yolks. Continue simmering over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture is very thick.

Scoop mixture into a lightly oiled mold or bowl. Allow to cool, and turn out onto a plate for serving, and garnish with powdered ginger.

Serves six to eight.

NOTES: This dish tasted much better than it looked. It is not unlike a pork pate and I think would go really well with some crusty bread to spread it on. I think it's the sort of dish that would look better coming out of a fancy mold so that it looks like something more than a pile of goo. Failing that, serving it on a bed of greens would have been a nice touch.

Buttered Colle-flower (Cauliflower With A Sweetened Cream Sauce)

Take a ripe Colle-flowre and cut off the buddes, boyle them in milke with a little Mace while they be very tender, then poure them into a Cullender, and let the Milke runne cleane from them, then take a ladle full of Creame, being boyled with a little whole mace, putting to it a ladle-full of thicke butter, mingle them together with a little Sugar, dish up your flowres upon sippets, poure your butter and creame hot upon it strowing on a little slict Nutmeg and salt, and serve it hot to the table.
- Beebe, Ruth Ann . Sallets Humbles & Shrewsbery Cakes

1 lb cauliflower, chopped
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp nutmeg or mace
2 tbs butter
1/4 cup cream
1/2 to 1 tbs sugar

Mix milk and nutmeg or mace and bring to a simmer. Add cauliflower and cook until cauliflower is tender but not mushy. Strain milk and set cauliflower aside in serving bowl.

In saucepan, heat butter, cream, and sugar until butter is melted and mixture is very warm. Pour over cauliflower and sprinkle the top with nutmeg. Serve warm.

A pair of recipes for a medieval flavored dinner

It's not hard to find or make medieval recipes.  A quick internet search uncovers hundreds of potential meals.  There are even whole menus online to draw inspiration for feasts.  Unfortunately, I've neither the time, inclination, or diners to create a medieval feast every Sunday night.  Heck, with the number of dishes found in most menus, I can't even really bring myself to do a single remove of a feast most of the time.   What I've started to do instead is base Sunday dinner on a modern "meat and vegetable" format but the dishes made are from medieval sources.  Tonight's mini-feast was roasted pork and an incredible asparagus salad that would be delicious served warm or cold and although the sources for these two recipes are separated by over 200 years, they made a lovely combination for an early spring feast.

Cormarye (Pork with red wine, coriander and caraway sauce)

 The original:  Take Colyandre, Caraway smale grounden, Powdour of Peper and garlec ygrounde in rede wyne, medle alle þise togyder and salt it, take loynes of Pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf and lay it in the sawse, roost þerof what þou wilt, & kepe þat þat fallith þerfro in the rosting and seeþ it in a possynet with faire broth, & serue it forth witþ þe roost anoon.
Source: Forme of Cury, S. Pegge (ed.), 1390, London.

1 lbs. pork loin
3/4 tsp. coriander
3/4 tsp. ground caraway
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup broth

Mix spices and garlic with wine and pour over pork in a roasting pan. Prick the loin with a knife or fork, cover, and bake at 350°, basting regularly, until cooked to an internal temperature of 145, approximately 45 minutes to an hour. Strain the drippings from the roasting pan into a saucepan and add the broth. Bring to a boil and simmer until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Serve sauce with pork.

 Diuers Sallets boyled (Warm asparagus and onion salad)

Diuers Sallets boyled. Parboyle Spinage, and chop it fine, with the edges of two hard Trenchers vpon a boord, or the backe of two chopping Kniues: then set them on a Chafingdish of coales with Butter and Uinegar. Season it with Sinamon, Ginger, Sugar, and a few parboyld Currins. Then cut hard Egges into quarters to garnish it withall, and serue it vpon sippets. So may you serue Burrage, Buglosse, Endiffe, Suckory, Coleflowers, Sorrel, Marigold leaues, water Cresses, Leekes boyled, Onions, Sparragus, Rocket, Alexanders. Parboyle them, and season them all alike: whether it be with Oyle and Uinegar, or Butter and Uinegar, Sinamon, Ginger, Sugar, and Butter: Egges are necessary, or at least very good for all boyld Sallets.
Source : A New Booke of Cookerie, J. Murrell. 1615. London.

1 lb fresh asparagus, chopped into 3 inch pieces
1/2 onion sliced into 1/4 inch rings
1/4 cup currants
2 tbs butter
1 tbs cider vinegar
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp Sugar
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped

Parboil currents, onions and asparagus. Drain. In a skillet over low heat, add butter and vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, sugar. When butter is melted and ingredients combined, add drained ingredients and toss to coat. Serve topped with chopped hard-boiled egg. Good warm or cold.

NOTE: The original recipe says this is a good method for many kinds of vegetables, and is written for spinach, but says this is a good method for cooking other vegetables like cauliflower, onions, rocket, and even leeks, for my Endeweardian cousins.

Birthday Gift for Lady Elgiva Wilhelm

Lady Elgiva's birthday was recently and to celebrate her day, I made this girdle book just for her.  The book is a standard sew signature type binding.  I had wanted to do the cover in leather, but I didn't have any thin enough nor do I own the kind of knife used to thin leather out for book covers.  Instead, I opted for a brown suede fabric that from a distance looks reasonably like leather.  Hopefully Lady Elgiva will like it well enough to forgive me the anachronism.

Once the book was done, I thought I'd decorate the front pages with her arms and a bit of colorful vinework.  I Googled the German for "This book belongs to Lady Elgiva Wilhelm, creator of beautiful things" and put that in a ribbon across the pages. 

Here's hoping she can make use of it for many notes about clever things.

Belt Pouch Mock Up

If I learned anything about my kit at Birka, it was that 1.  I do not need to bring my cloak since the event is inside all day and 2. I need a belt pouch.  Badly. 

So many little things - my phone, my keys, my wallet, any of the potentially dozens of little things the kidlet will inevitably ask for/ask me to hold - just need to have a home somewhere on my person.  My first time through the SCA, the belt pouch was about my only accessory.  I don't know why I haven't made one yet though.

I searched around for a design that intrigued me and found these.  They are beautiful, but the maker is in the UK and I have leather in the basement.  I haven't worked with leather in years, so rather than build something I dislike later, I figured I'd do a mockup.  Someone suggested using duct tape covered paper as a "leather substitute".  It's not as thick as leather, but it behaves in a roughly similar fashion. Good enough for doing a mockup of a belt pouch anyway.

Scroll for Johannes filius Nicholai

My first official kingdom-level scroll!  I was assigned a backlog AoA for Johannes filius Nicholai, a man from Bergental who was given a promisary scroll for an AoA at Bergental Yule.  The information I was given about him was that his persona was roughly 13th century.

Since All Things Scribal isn't until this weekend, I scooted over to Honig's for a quick lesson in proper gilding.  It's sooooo much easier with the proper tools and sizing!

The piece was inspired by a 13th century Bible, with select Masses, in Latin, Illuminated in the style of, and perhaps by, William de Brailes.  I was fortunate that this Lord had regestered arms already, and so was able to complete the scroll.  I remembered to "sign" it this time with my crane and martlet and hopefully, it will bring him much joy to look upon.