Recipe swap (and other food related stuff)

[JoB]

You might want to note that, according to her own statements (e.g., on this page), Minna's entire family is far more fond of fish dishes than of any meat-oriented food. (I guess she'ld like the salad, but just to encourage your research being thorough, I voted for the four-course menu nonetheless. )

[P__]

While I whole-heartedly agree with the idea, I think we might need to take a different approach, as Minna mentioned a while ago (too tired to dig it up now) that she had tried honey (for the first time I think) and found it super icky and impossible to digest. Many of us were shocked!
Of course, honey in food is very different from honey on a spoon so it's worth a try, but it might not work even with the best recipe in the world

(edit: voted four-course menu too! that'll teach ya to put it as an option. I'm willing to help, of course, as a food-taster)

[Róisín]

Four-course option, and I know a lot of mediaeval recipes that include honey (both sweet and savoury) including some for fish. Lots of experience cooking at mediaeval fairs, reenactment feasts and the like. There are some good Chinese recipes too.

For a fish dish, how about salmon baked with apples, hazelnuts, honey and fresh thyme, served with a watercress salad?

[XanaduTrigger]

Four-course option, and I know a lot of mediaeval recipes that include honey (both sweet and savoury) including some for fish. Lots of experience cooking at mediaeval fairs, reenactment feasts and the like. There are some good Chinese recipes too. For a fish dish, how about salmon baked with apples, hazelnuts, honey and fresh thyme, served with a watercress salad?

I do make a mean salmon! I also have experience with a lot of trout and walleye which may or may not be a Minnesota thing. I like your recipe idea with the apples to. On the Asian side of things I have a great teriyaki salmon recipe that could be modified!

[Róisín]

That technique also works well with trout, though precooking the fruit is a good idea because trout cooks much faster than salmon. I have a good quince crop this year, and I have been cooking quinces instead of apples, with honey and poudre forte (a spice mixture good with savoury foods) as an accompaniment to either fish or meat. Honey sauce with lemon or lime juice and quince paste is really nice with duck.

[XanaduTrigger]

That technique also works well with trout, though precooking the fruit is a good idea because trout cooks much faster than salmon. I have a good quince crop this year, and I have been cooking quinces instead of apples, with honey and poudre forte (a spice mixture good with savoury foods) as an accompaniment to either fish or meat. Honey sauce with lemon or lime juice and quince paste is really nice with duck.

You really know your stuff! Good to find another one like me.

[Róisín]

For my part, I have a long lifetime of being an enthusiastic cook, food gardener, hunter, fisher and wild food forager. One of my close friends is a spicer whose specialty is the recreation of ancient spice recipes, particularly from the Middle Ages, so I get to play with all manner of interesting flavours.

[deadrose]

I was given a grocery bag full of quinces last fall, so I did the sensible thing and turned them all into membrillo paste. Considering how much we still have left, I may need to divide the batch this year. Hm, jam? cider? Maybe just can some to serve for desserts? I need to see if I can get more figs, too. Our tree is too small to be able to preserve any.

Oh, and hi, Róisín! One of my regular forums (fora?) is getting quiet, so I may be here a bit more now. We can talk fun medievalist food and other things. 

[Buteo]

I'm going to be listening avidly.

[Róisín]

I would enjoy such a conversation. Excess of quinces, and indeed of apples, is a non-problem I also have this year. Last year was pretty light on both, and I hadn't enough excess to do much brewing, but this year I have good plenty of both. As well as giving fruit to my friends and selling it at the Farmers Market, I have been giving a lot to the local Produce Share.

 One of the things I plan to make is a quince mead (not sure whether that would be classified as a perry, a cyser, or just quince melomel). And some year when I get to my neighbour's medlar crop before the birds do, I'd like to try making a mead using honey with the medlars. Quinces and medlars, unlike apples, are hard to juice, so I just boil those in water, strain off the pulp for making fruit paste, fruit leather, pemmican or for adding to cakes, and use the liquid instead of plain water for adding to honey to make mead.

Come to think of it, I don't know whether Minna even drinks alcohol.

Deadrose, if you are into old recipes, you might find the magazine of the Tudor Society, 'Tudor Life', quite interesting. Ríognach O'Geraghty, the spicer I have mentioned before, writes cookery articles and does videos for them. The February edition had some great old recipes for gingerbread, and there is one on rosehips coming up in the next few months -the photos in that one are from my garden.

I won't always be reliably here over the next month or two, but will drop in when I can - this weekend I'm doing plant workshops for some of the local Druids, first weekend in May is the Mediaeval Fair at Gumeracha, third weekend is the Mylor English Ale, and around the middle of May is when the Autumn/Winter foraging workshops start. Busy times.

[XanaduTrigger]

I would enjoy such a conversation. Excess of quinces, and indeed of apples, is a non-problem I also have this year. Last year was pretty light on both, and I hadn't enough excess to do much brewing, but this year I have good plenty of both. As well as giving fruit to my friends and selling it at the Farmers Market, I have been giving a lot to the local Produce Share.

 One of the things I plan to make is a quince mead (not sure whether that would be classified as a perry, a cyser, or just quince melomel). And some year when I get to my neighbour's medlar crop before the birds do, I'd like to try making a mead using honey with the medlars. Quinces and medlars, unlike apples, are hard to juice, so I just boil those in water, strain off the pulp for making fruit paste, fruit leather, pemmican or for adding to cakes, and use the liquid instead of plain water for adding to honey to make mead.

Come to think of it, I don't know whether Minna even drinks alcohol.

Deadrose, if you are into old recipes, you might find the magazine of the Tudor Society, 'Tudor Life', quite interesting. Ríognach O'Geraghty, the spicer I have mentioned before, writes cookery articles and does videos for them. The February edition had some great old recipes for gingerbread, and there is one on rosehips coming up in the next few months -the photos in that one are from my garden.

I won't always be reliably here over the next month or two, but will drop in when I can - this weekend I'm doing plant workshops for some of the local Druids, first weekend in May is the Mediaeval Fair at Gumeracha, third weekend is the Mylor English Ale, and around the middle of May is when the Autumn/Winter foraging workshops start. Busy times.

Wow! Busy Australian I see . I am under aged so I can't really develop a nice honey ale but that will be on my radar in the years to come. I'd love to learn about some medieval cuisine sometime, so if ya got any good resources I'd be ecstatic!

[Róisín]

The SCA sell a bunch of mediaeval cookbooks, with the original recipes and their redactions. 'Pleyn Delyt' and 'Take a Thousand Eggs or More' are a good start. Project Gutenberg, which free-publishes out-of-copyright books online, is another excellent resource. Look for 'The Knight's Closet Open'd' by Sir Kenelm Digby, and Hugh Platt's 'Delights for Ladies'. A modern author who has redacted a number of old recipes for everything from perfume to liqueurs to cosmetics is Jeanne Rose, who wrote 'The Herbal Body Book' and 'Herbs 'n' Things'. Her style is a bit out-there (she used to be Jimi Hendrix's tailor), but her explanations of the recipes are very clear. Paul Huson's 'Mastering Herbalism' also has useful recipes.

[deadrose]

I've collected a fair few myself, including Annals of the Caliph's Kitchen, The Art of Cooking by Martino di Como, Food & Drink in Medieval Poland, The Medieval Kitchen - Recipes from France & Italy, and a few more. I've been really helped by Seattle being such a foodie town, for the most part. Now that people are discovering things like verjuice, it's much harder to buy it before the year's crop runs out. But we also have a wonderful spice shop that has their own poudre forte and douce blends as well as 11 different curry blends from different areas, 4 masalas, 2 za'atars, black lemons, grains of paradise, long pepper, and just about everything else you could hope for. And yes, they ship internationally, but promise nothing when it comes to customs in individual countries.

[Róisín]

Nice! Looks similar to what Rí does. Her business is 'The Spice Alchemist'.

[XanaduTrigger]

The SCA sell a bunch of mediaeval cookbooks, with the original recipes and their redactions. 'Pleyn Delyt' and 'Take a Thousand Eggs or More' are a good start. Project Gutenberg, which free-publishes out-of-copyright books online, is another excellent resource. Look for 'The Knight's Closet Open'd' by Sir Kenelm Digby, and Hugh Platt's 'Delights for Ladies'. A modern author who has redacted a number of old recipes for everything from perfume to liqueurs to cosmetics is Jeanne Rose, who wrote 'The Herbal Body Book' and 'Herbs 'n' Things'. Her style is a bit out-there (she used to be Jimi Hendrix's tailor), but her explanations of the recipes are very clear. Paul Huson's 'Mastering Herbalism' also has useful recipes.

Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes.