I'm the host of The Gobbet, our every other week segment on all things related to medieval food. I live in An Tir and am active in what was once called the Rivers Region, mostly in the Shire of Dragon's Mist and the Barony of Three Mountains. My persona is a widow living in the late 13th century English countryside. In the SCA I make stuff -- I cook, sew, and spin, and dabble in about a billion other things. I'm really interested in the everyday lives of women, especially peasants and commoners.
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Is there anything medieval food-ish that people are interested in learning more about? While I'm happy to ramble about things that interest me, I'd also love to ramble about things that interest others. So, what would you like to see covered on the Gobbet?
Godfrey, the modern medieval tasty food is "membrillo" which is quince paste imported from Spain. Look for it in your favorite gourmet grocery store! :)
Mark, I think that's a good idea. I've just been posting stuff here to the forum, but I'd be more than happy to send you neater versions of recipes and some kind of summary to post all in one place. Just like a real cooking show, lol!
The other tasty treat on this week's Gobbet is quince paste, one of my absolute favorite medieval foods.
The quince is a yellow, fragrant fruit that somewhat resembles an apple (they are in the same family). They can smell like anything from roses to pineapples, and were believed at one time to have been the infamous fruit in the garden of Eden. You can't really eat them raw, they are very sour and astringent. They contain huge quantities of pectin.
Quinces can be a little tricky to find. I buy them in late fall at the farmers market, and I've also seen them at big gourmet / natural food stores (New Seasons in the Portland area is a good bet). They also seem to turn up in grocery stores that cater to Latino people. Otherwise, I suggest seeing if anyone in your area has a tree.
I've found quince paste recipes in quite a few medieval sources, but it was most popular in Elizabethan England. It was often molded and then allowed to dry, and apparently under the right conditions you can keep it for a while.
To make quince paste, chop and core your quinces, then weigh them. Put them in a shallow pan with enough water to just barely float the quince bits. Simmer until the quince is very soft. At this point, you can either be very medieval and pass the quince through a strainer (careful! it's hot!) to goop it and get the peels off, or you can be speedy and use a stick blender to goop it peels and all. It turns out better with the authentic method, by the way. Put the goop back in your pan and add sugar equal to the weight of your quinces back when you started. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the paste becomes gummy (you will notice that the tracks left by your stirring don't disappear). You can cook it until it is fairly soft and pink and delicate or until it is very firm and red. Pour the hot paste onto parchment paper and use a spatula to smooth the top. Let it cool and cut into pieces. If you want to mold it, I use a metal mold that is lightly oiled.
By the way, if you don't want to actually make quince paste, fancy grocery stores sell it imported from Spain, it's called "membrillo" and it's usually kind of pricey.
I have also made quince paste in period pottery in my fireplace. If you start here and move forward in my photostream you can see the process in photos.
This week on the Gobbet we ate some meat pie. If you would like to try this at home, here's how!
Pies containing a mix of meats, spices, dried fruits, and some kind of liquid or binder were fairly common at feasts in medieval England. They were especially popular at Christmas, and evolved into modern "mincemeat" pie (which contains no meat! ha ha!). To make a typical one, you will need:
-1.5 to 2 pounds of any mix of meats, beef, lamb, pork, game, poultry, etc. To be more authentic, cook your meat first and then chop it small; to save time, use raw ground meat.
-2 cups of mixed dried fruits, such as prunes, dates, figs, raisins, "currants" (Zante currants, which are not botanically currants but tiny dried grapes)
-2 eggs or 4 egg yolks (optional, recommended if you start with cooked meat)
-Up to a half a cup of liquid, either broth or wine
-Salt and sugar to taste (remember that sugar was used in period much like salt, a little pinch here and there to liven things up)
-Any combination of spices that pleases you. Try: pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, or some of the more exotic ones like cubeb, galangal, long pepper, grains of paradise
-Crust, either a top and a bottom or just the bottom. In period this would have been made with lard, flour, and boiling water, but I have yet to master this. A simple modern recipe for a single crust is 1.5 cups of flour, 1 stick of butter, a pinch of salt, and cold water. Cut the butter into the flour and salt until the whole thing looks crumbly, then add cold water a spoonful at a time until the pastry barely forms a ball. Let it rest, then roll it out and line your pie pan.
Mix the filling well and put into the pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour (less time if you started with cooked meat, more time if you started with raw meat).
The pie I made from the show was a little different from this because I happened to have a bunch of leftover stewed prunes (2 pounds of prunes simmered in 1 bottle of red wine with 2 cinnamon sticks and half a "bear" of honey) that I wanted to use up. I used 1 pound each of ground beef and pork, nearly 3 cups of stewed prunes, and a huge assortment of spices: salt, sugar, galangal, long pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, grains of paradise, and clove. I made both a top and bottom crust and cooked the pie in a deep dish pie pan. I made it the day before the show, I think that these kinds of pies taste better after sitting a day.
Like a lot of medieval foods, there aren't a lot of hard and fast rules. Experiment and have fun!
If there's interest in having food-related content, I'm happy to contribute stuff to it.
I like the idea of leaving presents in shoes left outside of tents! I'm almost always up early at events and usually go for long walks around the site, I'm going to start bringing little weird objects with me to leave in shoes. Then it will be like Yule Boots, only even more confusing.
Maybe leaving your boots out for the spirits weren't a part of pagan Yule celebrations, but it does sound shockingly similar to the ritual my German-American family still participates in every year of leaving your shoes out for St Nicholas:
http://www.wf-f.org/st.nicholas.html
I'm a grown up and I still insist that there has to be candy in my shoes on December 6th. (But I'm with Tryggvy, please leave the honeycomb out...)
Did this mostly modern tradition inspire the bunk?
That was an awesome medieval or bunk. I'm still laughing at Oath Pig.
I had an awesome time recording this week's show, and I can't wait for our upcoming special on medieval Christmas food.
Today I am cooking some Yule food myself, for my Shire's annual Yule potluck feast. I'm making the main dish and I opted for roast beef with various sauces. (Roast beef, although popular in the SCA, doesn't seem to have been too common medievally, since I have seen almost no recipes for it in all my reading.)
Recipes for the sauces can be found on my blog.
Enjoy!
-Eulalia
