Yay! New Project!

My copy of a Medieval Home Companion finally came in after much shipping drama. For those unfamiliar with the work, basically, an elderly man in Paris in 1393 married a 15 year old and wrote her a manual in how to be a good wife, since he would probably die soon and he wanted her to reflect well on him to her next husband. Yeah, I know, weird.

However, it is one of the most complete looks into housekeeping in the fourteenth century. The book also has some fantastic woodcuts, including a few of some dresses I would really like to make.

I plan to do a blog-along as I read. So you, too, can enjoy my reactions to the husband’s suggestions of his wife’s house-keeping.

 

Recipes for Leonete to eat

My persona project gets a little harder because while Leonete may be able to eat anything that she could get in Lyon in 1480, I have more strict dietary issues. I am trying to come up with a meal I could eat that is wheat and soy free, and preferably legume and grain free.

Obviously, this has been…. exciting.

I have found 2 vegetable dishes I can have, now I just need to figure out where cress might be available in my area. I’ve never seen it at the grocery store, certainly.

Cress in Lent with Milk of Almonds

Menagier p.M14

Take your cress and parboil it with a handful of chopped beet leaves, and fry them in oil, then put to boil in milk of almonds; and when it is not Lent, fry in lard and butter until cooked, then moisten with meat stock; or with cheese, and adjust it carefully, for it will brown. Anyway, if you add parsley, it does not have to be blanched.

Lenten version:

2 c cress = 1/3 lb
1/2 c beet leaves (or spinach)
1 T olive oil
1/2 c almond milk
1/4 c parsley = 1/2 oz
pinch salt

Fish-day version:

2 1/4 c cress = 6 oz
1 1/2 c (2 ounces) beet leaves
2 T butter
1 1/2 oz brick cheese
(3 sprigs parsley)
(1/8 t salt)

Meat-day version:

2 1/4 c cress = 6 oz
1 1/2 c (2 ounces) beet leaves
2 T lard and/or butter
1 1/2 oz brick cheese
(3 sprigs parsley)
(1/8 t salt)

Chop the cress and beet leaves. Dump them into boiling water, let the water come back to a boil, then drain them (about 2 minutes total in water). Heat oil or lard or butter in a skillet, add drained greens (and chopped parsley if you are using parsley). Stir fry for about 3 minutes. For Lenten version, add almond milk, let boil with greens about a minute. For fish-day version, add cheese, chopped up and stir until cheese is melted into the greens. For meat-day version, add meat stock and cook down 2-3 minutes. Add salt, serve.

Notes: Greens should be measured pressed down in the measuring cup. Use a mild cheese such as brick cheese. Substitute spinach for beet leaves if necessary; the Menagier regards spinach as a kind of beet leaf. We have tried several ratios of cress to beet leaves; all seem to work reasonably well.

Mustard Greens

Anthimus p. 37

Mustard greens are good, boiled in salt and oil. They should be eaten either cooked on the coals or with bacon, and vinegar to suit the taste should be put in while they are cooking.

1 1/4 lb mustard greens (including smaller stems)
1 t salt
3 T oil
4 slices bacon
4 t vinegar

Wash mustard greens. Boil stems two minutes, then add leaves, boil 6 more minutes and drain. Fry bacon (6 minutes in microwave). Heat oil, add greens and stir, then add salt and cook five minutes. Crumble bacon and put over greens with vinegar. Stir it all up and cook another 3 minutes.

 

These are recipes from Cariadoc’s Miscellany. The Miscellany is Copyright (c) by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook, 1988, 1990, 1992.

 

Artifacts of a Life, an SCA project

This looks like a fantastic deadline and goal for my project. Obviously, this project will never be completely finished, but I like the idea of creating 3-5 artifacts from Leonete’s life quite a bit.

Artifacts of a Life, an SCA project.

 

To Do List – Reading

On Sunday, I posted a link to the Met’s Publication website, where they are making out-of-print publications available online. I scoured through what they had available, and boy am I excited. I mean, it is going to take forever to get through them all, but there are a ton that I am interested in, both from a persona development standpoint, and a general interest standpoint.

What follows is a list of links to the books I am most interested in. Collecting them in one place will let me easily plow through them. This post will also allow me to link to any reviews, citations, or other posts I write about any of these books, so that it is easy for me to put together bibliographies in the future, and you can see which ones I’ve read, and what I have found.

I am quite excited that most of these can be downloaded in pdf format, and therefore put on my kindle. I spend two hours on the MBTA every day commuting, so things are more likely to get read if they are in a format that is easily available to me.

Tapestry in the Renaissance

A Walk Through the Cloisters

The Saint Martin Embroideries

The Armored Horse in Europe

Tres Riches Hours

The Art of Renaissance Europe

The Cloisters Apocalypse

David and Bathsheba: Early 16th Century Tapestries

European Helmets

15th to 18th Century Drawings

Frankish Art in American Collections

The God of War

Man and the Horse

Masterpieces of Tapestry from the 14th to 16th Century

Medieval Art: A Resource for Educators

Medieval Art from Private Collections

Metropolitan Jewelry

The Met Vol 6: Europe in the Age of Monarchy

 

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – MetPublications

The Met has published online some of their best collections of art, many of which are medieval. This includes such favorites of mine as the Tres Riches Hours de Berry, which has fantastic 14th century costuming and life illuminations.

I am about to dive in and see what I can find to help me with my current project as well as just for fun, but I thought I would stop to share with all of you, first.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – MetPublications.

Edited to add a link to the list of books with full publication online.

 

Things I Never Knew About Peas

“And first a SOUP of OLD PEAS. It is appropriate to shell them, and to find out from the people the place the nature of the peas of the area (for commonly peas do not cook well in well-water: and in other places they cook well in spring-water and in river water, as in Paris, and in other places, they do not cook at all in spring-water, as at Besiers) and this known, it is appropriate to wash them in a pan with warm water, then put in a pot with warm water on the fire, and boil them until they burst. Then separate the liquid from the solid, and put the liquid aside, then fill the pea-pot with warm water and put on the fire and separate a second time, if you wish to have more liquid: and then put back without water, for they will produce enough. and boil in it; and it is not appropriate to put the spoon in the pot after the separating, but shake the pot and the peas together, and little by little feed them with warm water or a little more than warm but no cold, and boil and cook completely before you add anything except hot water, be it meat or anything else: do not add salt, nor bacon, nor absolutely anything whatsoever until they are fully cooked. You can add bacon water or meat stock, but you must not add any salt, nor even the tip of the spoon, until they are well cooked; you can always stir them by moving the whole pot.

On meat days, you should, after the separating, add water from bacon and from meat, and when it is almost cooked, you can put bacon in; and when you remove the bacon from these peas, you must wash it with meat-stock, so that it looks nicer to put in slices on the meat and so that it does not appear to have peas stuck to it.”

Source: Le Menagier de Paris

 

I wonder what the modern explanation for the peas not cooking well in various types of water is.

This sounds like a pretty easy recipe to try, and pretty much like modern split pea soup, at least the way I cook it.

 

Map of Lyon

This is a little late for Leonete, but it is a jumping off point.

Lugdunum

Digitation source:
Braun and Hogenberg
Civitates Orbis Terrarum I ₁₀
Date: 
first Latin edition of volume I
was published in 1572
Engraving: admitted to
Balthasar van den Bosch, 1550

Source

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/france/lyon/maps/braun_hogenberg_I_10.html

 

Housewifery and Cooking

As I expand this project, I hope to begin adding what I have learned to my in-person SCA experience. I am setting myself a goal of Spring Crown Tourney to pack a lunch that is accurate to what Leonete would have packed for a tourney or festival day. I hope to do some tryout runs of different recipes and redactions before then.

So far, thanks to my resourceful facebook friends, I have collected the following manuscripts to read:

Ouverture de Cuisine– printed in 1604, it is a little late for my time period, but I am told that much of it is still relevant.

Du fait de cuisine – 15th century

Le Managier de Paris – More of a household handbook, which I am excited to read, as I think that it will help put me more in the mindset of Leonete. I have ordered a translation off of Amazon, but will also read the online one.
le Viandier de Taillevent – 14th century cookery. Slightly earlier than Leonete, but again, good reference.

My wonderful friends have more suggestions for me on the way, but I think that these four will put me off to a good start towards Leonete’s meals being accurate and appetizing.

 

The Order of the Tyger’s Cub

At Endewearde Hunt last weekend, a Tyger’s Cub was made. Three, actually. In the court report that Mistress Brita posted to the East Kingdom Gazette, it was noted that one the members of the order who welcomed the new members had received his Tyger’s Cub 20 years ago.

That made me go check the OP.

I received my Tyger’s Cub at Panteria, on May 25, 1998. It was given to me by Timothy and Gabrielle, who, funnily enough, almost won crown in Aethelmearc this past weekend.

I was 11 when I received the award, which makes it now older than I was when I got it.

This past summer, at Great Northeastern War, the average age of the members of the Order was 17. I was proud to stand next to my companions, ranging in age from 25 to 7.

I think it is incredibly important for those of us who have grown up in the SCA and received that honor, and gone on to continue our careers look back and recognize those who are on that same path. I make a point of always rising and joining the Order when called, even when others my age felt it was “time for us to be grown-ups” I am a grown-up. And because of that, I am a role model to those younger than me.

It is important to recognize the service that has gotten them recognition, and also to show them the company they are in. Of the Tyger’s Cubs I’ve known personally, I can think of two Barons, a Baroness (besides myself), multiple members of the Queen’s Order of courtesy, a Duchess, a member of the Order of the Tyger’s Combattant, more than one member of the Order of the Sagitarius, two young men who died while in service to their country, fencers, fighters, and archers. Throughout the kingdom, members of the Order of the Tyger’s Cub continue to do service, to participate, and to make our society a better place.

It is important to show our youngest members what we expect from them, and how much we believe that they are an integral part of our society.

 

Massacre of the Innocents Hugo van der Goes

Massacre of the Innocents Hugo van der Goes (1).

I think I need to make this outfit. This is a fantastic color.