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All posts from the category "Medieval cooking".
A really nice recipe for cold winterdays from the Menagier de Paris (14th century France):
SAGE. To make a pot of sage, take two pounds of sage and remove the stems, then put the leaves in the pot. Item, have half an ounce of cloves in a cloth bag hung in the pot with a cord; item, you can put half an ounce of laurel [bay leaves] in it: item, half a quarter-ounce of meche ginger, half a quarter-ounce of long pepper and half a quarter-ounce of laurel. And if you want to prepare sage at the table in winter, have sage-water in a ewer, and pour it on white wine in a goblet.
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When it is cold and foggy outside, there is no better desert than a baked apple.
We have talked about it before. After about 8 years of events, we used up the last bits of our homemade tallow reserves and needed new material (of course we also bought and used some ready made tallow in the meantime).
Our event at the open air museum Bärnau was the ideal occasion for cooking it. I ordered about 5 kg of beef fat a the butchers for app. 15 EUR.
Since it is the time of year when you find a lot of oranges, I thought, I would try this recipe that I found in the Menagier de Paris.
And I had gingerroot left over as well, so I took the chance to candy the ginger as well.
You may remember my try in cooking this alcoholic beverage last year.
I always wanted to try another recipe though, this time using wine and almond milk.
“Take & make a gode mylke of Almaundys y-draw vppe with wyne of Red, whyte is beterre; if it schal be whyte, then strayne yolkys of Eyroun ther-to a fewe. Put ther-to Sugre & Salt, but Sugre y-now; then when it begynneth to boyle, sette it out, & almost flatte; serue it then forth, & euer kepe it as whyte as thou may, & at the dressoure droppe Alkenade ther-on, & serue forth; & if thou wylt haue hym chargeaunt, bynd hym vppe with fflour [of] Rys, other with whetyn floure, it is no fors. And if thou wolt, coloure hym with Safroun, & straw on pouder y-now, & Sugre y-now, & serue f[orth].”
(Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books, Harleian MS. 279 (um 1430)
It is wintertime and from everywhere I geht recipes for Hypocras during this season. Hypocras is delicious and quickly goes to your head. But I have wanted to try another recipe for quite some time. Caudel or Cawdel.
This beverage seems to be a specifically english one and is the predecessor of Butterbeer. Yes, that’s right, Butterbeer is a thing and even apart from the Warner Brothers Adventure Worlds of Harry Potter. Yet Butterbeer only appears in the early 16th century, which is why I’ll stick to older recipies.
During vitalizations of open air museums, we often have the problem of missing tools for the every day tasks that are supposed to be the main occupation during vitalizations (as opposed to workshops, historical craft and shows). When showing every day life in historical houses, you need a lot of equipment that is often not provided by the museum itself.
Butterchurns are one of these every day life tools.
Warning: This is a report about a failed experiment
For our vivification of the Bachritterburg Kanzach we wanted to have grilled chicken. Since the best grilled chicken is made over open fire on a spit, we needed a spit-support for the open fire hearth in the fort’s kitchen
