Medieval Cooking

In re-creating the kinds of feasts that would have been served during the middle ages, the one thing that comes up is what to call the division of the meal. In the SCA, the term “remove” has become the term used – however – “remove” is a 17th century term that doesn’t mean “course”.

There is an excellent article written about this from Dame Alys Katharine of Ashthorne Glen Of Course, It’s ‘Course’ or Remove ‘Remove’.

For the short form – a course is a division of a larger meal. A remove is a dish that is taken away after being served and replaced by another dish. This practice did not take place until after the period of study for the SCA.

First Welsummer Egg of the Season

I call this entry “egg” because this morning brought us the first egg from our Welsummers and it reminded me how very much I miss eating them.

Halfway point of the Lenten fast and this year is easier than previous years. The only thing that I am having an issue with is writing about it. In previous years, I have done a very public, very open and documented fast and the fact is that this year is a lot more internal and spiritual. It’s difficult to find words for the internal things that are happening, but they are for the most part good.

I’ve been reading “Creating community with food and drink in Merovingian Gaul” by Bonnie Effros*. Primarily, the focus is on the change from fasting being not a generally accepted virtue to it being accepted as being an important part of religious life.

I’m moving pretty slowly through the book as I’m catching it in spare minutes between work and family and the most interesting bits is that the idea of feasting and fasting provably extend beyond the ideas of Christianity and that most cultures had some version of a fast period and a feast period for spiritual purposes prior to the introduction of Christianity – but were not necessarily compatible with Christianity – and were encouraged to continue but in a manner in which was compatible. This seems to be primarily done through timing and extent of celebration during feast periods.

One aspect that I am completely missing is information about the early church. I don’t really understand the context in which this is all happening as I don’t have access to information about the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, primarily through not knowing where to look. Another huge hurdle is my complete inability to speak or read Latin – which may be a personal perception thing, but I need to learn differently in order to know differently. I have a webpage bookmarked for later reading at Medievalists.net where I have the opportunity to read more and start some more in-depth research.
I can see myself doing more research into fasting and abstinence over the next year just because it’s the other half of feasting – which has been the focus of my research over the last ten years. Not to the exclusion of doing other research, but in addition to.

Lenten fasting has become a period of reflection for me – which is appropriate – but specifically reflection about what research I’m doing and what direction I’m going on for the next year. It’s all a good thing for me, especially given how quickly life has accelerated for me and my family over the last couple of years – since they come first, often I have no control over my time once their activities get rolling. It’s nice to have a list of things that I can do when I do get time to myself.

* Full disclosure: the link is through my Amazon Associate’s link and I will financially benefit from your clicking and purchasing it. If you do, thank you

I’ve taken up making yogurt for a number of reasons, including it’s just the kind of useful skill that everyone should have. Cheesemaking is kind of like advanced yogurt making and while my cheesemaking experience was positive, it wasn’t everything that it could possibly be so I wanted to take a step backwards before taking more steps forwards with cheese making.

Note: There are process pictures here, however, they are being taken as I make a batch of yogurt so you may end up getting here before the pictures are done being posted – just so you know.

In some circles, it could be said that I cheat because I use a slow-cooker. I have found it to be much better than using a pot for temperature control and for steady rising of the temperature of the milk. I’ve had better luck with the slow cooker than with using a pot, which could fall under individual preference.

Software:
Milk
I prefer Pasturized fat-free skim from Aldi based on convenience and price – any milk will work as long as it’s not Homogenized or Ultra-Pasturized.

Starter
You will need 1/2 cup of plain yogurt. Trust me. I’ve been forced to use a cup of vanilla yogurt and good thing everyone in my family likes vanilla yogurt because all of it tasted like vanilla yogurt and it fades as you use the previous batch as the starter for the next batch, but be aware. I prefer using Stonyfield because they have a quality product and I trust what’s in it – because it’s close to what I’d make for myself.

Hardware:
A slow cooker or pot with a lid
The disinfecting and the general process are the same regardless. Use your common sense and adapt what I do with the slow cooker with your pot.

A thermometer
I use the same thermometer as I use for everything else. If you’d like, get a dedicated thermometer for dairy manipulation.

A small bowl
For tempering the starter.

A ladle
For tempering the starter.

A whisk
To temper the starter and blend it with the rest of the milk.

A colander
For draining your yogurt, if you choose.

A cheese draining bag, a length of muslin, or cheese cloth
For draining your yogurt, if you choose.

Process

• Fill the crockery insert with water and add about an once (I use a 2 second count pour) of bleach and let it sit for a minute or two – use this time to gather up your ingredients and equipment.
  
  

  Starter/Milk/Cheese Bag

• I dip the thermometer that I’m going to use into the bleach water and then put it down on a paper towel.
  Then I dump out the water (I dump it into my dishwashing pan and use it for dishes later), rinse it, and dry the outside.
• I fill the slow cooker with milk – mine fits just under a gallon.
  
  

  Crock pot filled with milk.

• I take the thermometer and pin it between the lip of the crockery bit and the lid.
  
  

  Thermometer/Lid Placement

• Then I put a thick kitchen towel over the top to bridge the gap and use the thermometer to hold it over the gap formed by it.
• Put the temp on “low” and go and do something else for about three hours, checking periodically.
• Get it to 175-185 degrees Fahrenheit. This kills the unwanted bacteria and creates the proper environment for eventually growing the bacteria that you want.
• Shut off the heat, take off the towel, remove the thermometer, and take off the lid.
• Check every 20 minutes. You’re looking for 110-120 degrees Fahrenheit – closer to 120.
• Take your starter and put it in a bowl.
• Ladle about 1/2 cup of milk out of the cooker and whisk it together.
• Add the starter/milk in the bowl to the milk in the cooker and whisk together.
• Drop the lid back on and put the whole thing in a protected corner where it won’t get knocked over or damaged.
• Tuck a warm blanket around the whole thing including the bottom – you have to keep everything in that 110-120 degree range for about 8 hours – We have a big, fleece blanket that has been perfect for this.
• Check it in about 8 hours and you should have yogurt.
  
  

  Yogurt

• When it’s yogurt, you can either just dish it out as it or you can drain it – I use the same method as draining ricotta (dump it in a bag, twist the top tightly, put it in a colander, and weight it with something). I prefer a more greek yogurt texture, so I drain it for a while.

I’m now on my third successful batch and have dialed it down to something that I can do while working at home so that it’s done before bed and can be eaten the next day.

We divvy it up in plastic twisty containers and have about 6 ounces per container. My daughter prefers honey and orange flower water to flavor hers and my husband is experimenting with various jams. I prefer mine plain with a little Stevia or honey to sweeten it.

Cost breakdown:
1 gallon of milk = $3.90 (48¢ a cup)
starter = 89¢ (stonyfield nonfat plain)

Undrained yogurt pricing:
Including the initial purchase of a starter, each cup of yogurt prices out to 80¢. Subsequent batches are only 50¢ each because you use a starter from a previous batch in the next batch of yogurt. This eliminates the 89¢ for the cup of store-bought yogurt.

Drained yogurt pricing:
Draining the yogurt cuts the volume in half. This means that the cost doubles. So, each cup of yogurt starts at $1.60 for the initial batch and is $1.00/cup for subsequent batches.

In looking at the cost, you are balancing cost versus control of product. I can pay 39¢ at Aldi for a cup of nonfat yogurt, which presents a cost savings, however, if I want to avoid HFCS and Aspartame, I’m going to have to pay more. The reality is that for a representative cost savings, you must accept that there are fillers and sweeteners being used that you may not actually want in your or your family’s diet.

While I was in the middle of writing up something about the history of Lent as celebrated in the medieval church, this gem fell into my lap – The Basics of Medieval Lenten Dietary Practices.

It is a comprehensive overview of lenten practices during the middle ages and is an excellent read.

This year, I am again participating in a medieval-style lenten fast and will be documenting it with a series of essays. I am also including the idea of buying indulgences as there are at least two events where I can not avoid eating “forbidden foods” as I am catering an event and you need to taste what you are cooking. the rule that I am instituting is that for each indulgence, I must donate $10 to my church the previous Sunday to purchase the indulgence.

Sunday dinners will not necessarily be medieval (the menu for this Sunday includes pulled pork, biscuits, and stout cake) but I will be including a few medieval recipes for lenten dishes that you can try.

Thank you for again being on this journey with me. The Lenten fast is something that I’ve grown to look forward to each year and I’m happy to be writing about it.

Cheese.

About eight years ago, I thought that if I could conquer bread, specifically sourdough, that I would be achieving something akin to climbing Mt. Everest. I spent years refining and building my bread repertoire. Within a couple of years, I understood and could manipulate my recipes based on humidity, available ingredients, and whim. But when I looked down from my perceived peak – it was merely one of the foothills surrounding Mt. Everest, not Everest itself.

That is when I discovered the fallacy of a single item being Everest and that it was all a series of learning experiences that would persistently lead you to just see the top of Everest, while never quite reaching it, and that it didn’t matter because you got to learn new things all of the time and use what you already knew in new ways, which is awesome and makes me incredibly happy.

But I still needed a giant challenge.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been watching seriously talented people learning how to make cheese and being really happy about it. I’d made green cheeses in the past, heck, I taught four people how to make ricotta and it was served that evening at feast. It’s dead simple – milk, heat, acid, drainage, and salt. Hell, it’s easier than making nut cheeses because there are fewer ingredients and fewer steps.

But that’s only the beginning of cheese making. There’s a whole other level of anal-retentive temperature watching, sterilizing equipment, and following instructions. There is the threat of contamination and possible food borne illness if you screw things up.

What is there not to love?

So, I purchased a gallon of raw milk and some rennet from my local Co-Op and sent messages to my two cheesemaking heroes:

THL Waldetrudis von Metten and
Countess Elizabeth Von Kulmbach

They offered a lot of awesome advice and pointed me towards this website.

So, it took another round of raw milk and a week for me to get up the nerve, but here I am after putting everything under pressure and walking away, writing up my experience.

Last night, I inoculated the milk with yogurt (introduced bacteria I wanted to the milk) and allowed it to sit overnight. I’ve made yogurt before so it wasn’t scary or off-putting, and it actually eased me into the process. This morning just before I put my daughter on the bus, I turned the stove onto “low” and began warming it as per the instructions on the website. It took about 15 minutes to reach temperature before I put in the rennet.

Then the wait. I hate waiting. Seriously. Patience is not a virtue I have. That hour took forever, but I was rewarded with coagulated milk. I was on the phone with a friend when I checked it and I literally squealed and said “OMG! It worked!”

I got to work cutting the curd and moving forward with the instructions when I realized that my whole plan had been contingent on my having PVC of the appropriate diameter. Well, yeah. Not so much. But, I did have a #10 can of beets and then I had three pints of pickled beets and a clean #10 can. I followed the instructions on the website to put together an ad-hoc cheese press. The only modification that I made was that I used a plastic travel mug of poor design to weigh things down as I need my mason jars for canning and didn’t want to run the risk of breakage.

So, now I wait until tomorrow morning to pull everything apart and see how I did.

Issues I’m aware of:

1. My curds floated. It says that this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker and I will need to age for a minimum of two months to avoid food borne illness. Did I mention that patience is not a virtue that I have?

2. I like using raw milk and I have to choose at which point I start using a friend’s connection for larger quantities of raw milk.

3. I suck at taking process pictures when I’m learning something and that’s okay. I would rather focus on what I’m doing than documenting the process.

So, things are looking rather good for my first attempt. We shall see what happens. Yes, I will take pictures of the product and what happens to it over the next couple of months.

Medievalcooking.org is broken.

Seriously broken and in a not easily fixed kind of way. I did a backup last Spring, so I have entries from the past, so all is not lost, but it seriously makes me think about what to do from here – and I like it.

I’ve been doing a lot of food writing on Google+ and it has felt amazingly good. Not everything is medieval cooking. Most of the time, I just don’t have the funds to go out and buy food to experiment with, I play with what I have and learn new things as I go along. I can’t do as much specific work as I’d like, but feeding my family comes first, and experimentation comes in fits and starts.

But, in any case, what does it really mean if you lose several years of information? The wayback machine has a bunch of what I have lost and I have the ability to rebuild rather large sections of what I had.

So. I ask myself. What would Wil Wheaton do? He had a major malfunction in 2006 and lost tons of data due to a bizarre incident involving a random string of characters that wasn’t actually random to the typepad program. He moved to the regular typepad website (rather than using a locally installed version), found that he liked it, and to this day he’s still there “in exile”. I admit that I have been reading his blog long enough that I remember this all happening and the “couple of weeks” he assumed it would take to fix everything and get back to his regular blog. Five years later, he’s still wilwheaton.typepad.com and it was basically invisible to the rest of us.

For the immediate future, I am going to reload wordpress and upload what I have. It will either work or not. I will re-assess what I’m using as far as the template and we shall see.

What makes me feel good about this is that it is all about being an opportunity, not being a failure. Onwards and upwards.

The fourth week of the Lenten fast was categorically the most difficult. I was sick and tired of not having dairy and eggs (especially since the Ladies are finally laying consistently), not being allowed anything but fish, and generally feeling uninspired in my cooking with a busy week that included probably a few too many convenience foods (thank goodness for how much things have changed as far as convenience foods for various dietary restrictions).

In talking to my friends who gave something up for Lent, they were experiencing much of the same kinds of issues; completely done with deprivation and ready to toss the whole process out of the window. In their case, the struggle of overcoming their impulses was part of the whole package of their religious experience. I realized this week that I significantly envy that sense of higher purpose in the Lenten fast of my more religious friends.

The week tht I am beginning to be concerned about is Holy Week itself as it requires a higher degree of sacrifice and structure than I walked into this with. I literally chose to do this Lenten fast the week before I actually went through with the whole thing. This has been a completely unexpected learning experience, far beyond what I’d expected. I needed to be re-energized and to find something that made me happy to write about, and it has certainly done that. I am thrilled with the opportunity to write more and to have more to say.

This week also contained some very difficult experiences in general. I attended the first funeral since my father died (my ex-husband’s grandmother) and realized that I lack some connections that I need to ressurrect, including deepening my friendship with my ex-husband, who I care about very deeply and whose company I have always enjoyed.

In general, this Lenten period has been est spent thinking about what my next step is to be in my life. I know that there is a lot that needs to be done as far as making sure that the household is taken care of and how to ensure that we have the funds to continue being able to maintain our home and other necessary expenses. I don’t expect full answers to arrive fully formed, but am being open and mindful of what I am experiencing and listening to myself probably more than I ever have in the past.

I need to point out that my dietary changes have only effected my mental state in as far as creating an environment where I am forced to be mindful of my behavior and allowing that to wash into other parts of my life. There is no magical thing that happens when you do something like this, there is only what you choose to allow to happen and what you choose to enact in your life. I could be this introspective without doing this fast and without it being the Lenten season, it’s a choice that I am making and I am ever so glad that I am making the choice.

The thing that saved me this week was finding the following list of veganized sandwiches: http://www.namelymarly.com/2011/03/the-vegan-new-luther-sandwich-americas-top-10-new-sandwiches-veganized/

We made the cheesy mac and rib sandwiches for dinner last night and my Texan omnivore husband actually had thirds. I only had the one actual sandwich and then enjoyed the mac & not really cheese and the seitan cutlets without the bread and that was just as tasty, if not more because there was nothing to mute the flavors. I will say that making our own seitan cutlets was an awesome task and the whole thing was mostly cooked by my daughter, who is under 10 years old. I mostly directed and read instructions and made sure that we followed them. I really do recommend this recipe for a special family dinner because while it may be vegan, it’s certainly not health food.

While contemplating the idea of going on a medieval lenten fast, what struck me more than the mere mechanics of what I could and could not eat and in what amounts and what prayers were appropriate on which days was my complete ignorance of the traditions surrounding Lent in Flanders during the sixteenth century.

This became particularly stark while buying Paszki’s for Fat Tuesday. For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, it’s a Polish tradition to have jelly-filled donuts (called Paszki) on fat Tuesday. It made me wonder what the regional practices were for foods during the season of lent, and for the day before Ash Wednesday.

I’m working through a lot of information about lent during the middle ages and trying to cross-reference what people are telling me with outside information. Unfortunately, my Google-fu is not working well enough for me to find actual documentation/information about church rules during the 16th century in Flanders – or even in Spain – which I would assume would be close if not the same.

Unfortunately, in the middle of things, I came down with a virus that has caused me to do not much more than go to work and lay on a couch watching buddy cop films (my preferred convalescence viewing). I am, after a week, finally feeling well enough to function at a little bit of a higher level.

This has taken its toll on writing, but not reading. So, you get a bonus double entry this week.

Here is what I have learned so far from my experience:

1. Snacking is weird, as is breakfast. I’ve gotten so used to dairy or meat being included as a quick snack that I hadn’t actually noticed the frequency with which I had cheese and crackers or a slice of lunch meat as a snack. Breakfast has been my proudest achievement – I have started eating fruit and oatmeal as it’s quick and doesn’t require thought (I am not a morning person and I hate breakfast). This is actually marginally better than my usual nothing.
2. If you’re thinking of doing this as a weight-loss measure, forget it. The replacement for dairy is oil and nuts – not really low calorie fare. I’ve actually gained about 3 lbs since the start of lent. This leads me to believe that the increased random activity of walking around and not having many conveniences as far as pre-prepared foods, etc. lent itself to burning off those extra calories. I’ve gone out and bought roller blades to help work off some of this additional pudge.
3. I don’t eat as much dairy as I originally thought. I don’t digest it well, so I tend to avoid it for the most part but have a soft spot for cheese and ice cream.
4. Sundays are becoming my favorite day of the week. I’ve even planned making a traditional Sunday roast for dinner this week. I’ve found that Sundays is when I can really let loose and comfortably function in the kitchen, rather than thinking about everything that I’m doing to make sure that I am not including dairy.
5. Spiritually, well, that’s a whole other thing and I have to process that a bit more. I’m finding that I am actually less spiritual than I have been over the last several years and finding a spiritual center is elusive at best. Nothing that I want to share quite yet.

That’s all for today. I will have more historical information by Sunday and I do ask if you are fasting, please share your experience with me. I am curious what others are doing during Lent and how it is effecting their lives.

To the Artisans and Scientists of the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands does Edelachtbaar Vrouwe Odriana vander Brugghe bid greetings.

As you have already read, THL Katla has challenged all groups in Aethelmearc to participate in Ice Dragon and has offered a prize for the area with the highest percentage of participation.

While we are all well acquainted with the heightened state of talent in the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, the Kingdom should be reminded of it. I make the personal challenge to every Artisan and Scientist in the Barony to enter at least one item in the Pentathlon at Ice Dragon.

To provide as much support as possible to those who wish to participate in the challenge there will be a series of classes to gear up for Ice Dragon that will cover topics such as; research, documentation, rubrics, and judging. There will also be at least two workshops where those participants that would like to may get together and work on their entries.

Everyone that takes up this challenge will receive:

A token of appreciation.
Public acknowledgement of their participation (in the Althing).

All novice entrants will receive the above *and* a personal token of appreciation from me.

If you choose to enter the Pentathlon itself – five entries in five different categories – you will receive a Prize of Great Niftiness to be Named Later as well as the token and public acknowledgement.

To qualify for the challenge, the artisan must have “Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands”, “BMDL”, or “Debatable Lands” listed as their group name when registering their entry for the Pent.

The Pentathlon entrant from the BMDL that has the highest score will also receive the newly-created Klauwaards [pron. Klaw-vay-ards] Prize, a $75 cash prize. The prize is named after a coalition of patricians and master artisans that existed in Flanders during the late 13th/early 14th century.

The official list of Barony participants and the determination of the high score will be taken directly from the listing of entries/entrants at Ice Dragon.

There will also be cookies at the Barony Meeting following Ice Dragon as my thanks to all of the Artisans and Scientists who participated, their families, and their friends who supported the entrants.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via email at jenn.strobel@gmail.com or in person at the following events: Agincourt, BMDL Twelfthnight, and Kingdom Twelfthnight.

Written this twenty eighth day of September in the year two thousand and ten in the center of the most remarkable Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, at the confluence of the Three Rivers, on the day dedicated to the many cultural contributions of William Cardille, our belovèd Chilly Billy.

OVB

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