This is not really period, but it has lots of period design elements and it allowed me to deal with some unfinished objects around my house. The basic design of the pouch is similar to Merovingian finds, though those were made of leather and mine was done with scraps of linen. I used linen because I had a piece of embroidery I wanted to show off. It is my first-ever Bayeux tapestry stitch, from a class I took a couple of years ago and finally finished. The button/toggle is the tip of an antler I found on a beach in Newfoundland during a trip some years ago, but never found a use for.I made the lucet cord loop from embroidery floss, using a lucet I had made a very long time ago (possibly 30 years!). The forks had gotten so worn from use that it was no longer a very good tool, but today I sanded out the ruts so it is good for years of more use now. Inside, I have a firesteel a friend made for me. I’ll add a piece of flint and some char cloth (made with more leftover linen scraps) later.
Sometimes, benign neglect works to my advantage. About seven years ago, I planted madder in my back yard. I knew the best colours came after three years, so I just let it grow. Then I forgot about how many years I had been doing that, until I came across my old blog post where I mentioned planting it. A week or so later a friend posted pictures of her most recent project using fermented fresh madder, so I was inspired to dig some up.
I washed it thoroughly, then chopped it as finely as I could with a pair of garden shears and tossed it into a large glass jar that I filled with water. I left the lid loose to encourage fermentation. So far it has been two days. I have read that I should allow madder to ferment for anywhere from 3 to 30 days.
This has been sitting for almost two days, so far. I had to put it in the window to show the colour, as it is almost black in regular light in my kitchen.
I will need to spin some wool to dye now, and then get it mordanted with alum. Apparently I need equal weights of madder and fibre. One of the joys of madder is that exhaust baths are possible. Hopefully I can achieve some nice pinks.
These are cooked the same way, but for nargesi eggs are added, and it will become nargesi. Take three mans of hogget (lamb meat from a yearling lamb) and chop up. Chop half a man of tail fat too, – if desired – [and melt]. Throw the chopped meat (qaliye) in water, [heat,] and remove the foam, then fry in the tail fat oil. If it is desired, wash the meat pieces (qaliye) thoroughly, fry in oil, and drizzle broth or warm water, whichever that is available.
Once the meat is half-done, throw half a man of rings onions, cinnamon, and warm spices in it. Throw one and a half mans of carrots on top of the onions, half a man of peeled chickpeas on top of the carrots, and small meatballs on top of the chickpeas and spread [the ingredients]. Boil until [all is] cooked and steam with the lid on. If it is desired, add half a man of warmed clarified honey. For the nargesi qaliye, clean and wash the amount of a man of spinach, and once the carrots are half-done, sprinkle evenly over the carrots. Crack thirty eggs on top of the spinach one by one and sprinkle some ground salt and a little warm spices on top of the eggs and burn a fire [underneath] until the eggs are cooked and steam with the lid on. At the time of serving, first cut the spinach [and egg layer] into four pieces inside the pot, take out, and put on a dish. Then serve [the rest of] the stew (qaliye) and top the stew with that {divided layer of of spinach and] eggs which would appear well. Note: 1 man = 2.7 kg. I used that measure to set up my basic proportions, but cut down amounts for a more manageably-sized dish
Ingredients:.
.4 kg lamb chopped into small pieces, 200 g of this ground and formed into tiny meatballs (add in a little of the spices for extra flavour)
fat for frying (I used olive oil)
water
1/2 onion sliced into rings
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c cooked chick peas
2 carrots
For the spinach nargesi, 2 c spinach and 4 eggs
Boil meat, then scoop out the foam, drain (reserving a bit of the liquid for steaming, if desired) and fry in fat until partly cooked. Add in a bit more water or the reserved broth. Optionally, add in 1/4 c of honey.
For the carrot version, layer onions, cinnamon and other spices, carrots, chickpeas, and meatballs. Cover and steam until the meatballs are done.
For the spinach version, cook until the carrots are half cooked, layer spinach on top, then crack four eggs carefully and sprinkle them with salt and a little warm spices. Cover and steam until the eggs are firm and the carrots are done.
This recipe is from A Persian Cookbook: The Manual by Bavarchi. ranslated from the Persian by Saman Hassibi & Amir Sayadabdi, Prospect Books: 2018, p 62.
Take yogurt and smoothen it [with water] – or use duq (a traditional yogurt, water and salt drink, or buttermilk) – whichever is desired, and strain it through a clean muslin. Pour enough water in a pot [and add duq or diluted yogurt] and stir with a ladle. When it boils, wash the lamb and throw it in. Throw in some salt, peeled chickpeas and diced onions. Once the lamb is half-done, throw in the necessary amount of rice and throw in any vegetables that can be attained, such as beet (or beet greens) tarragon, and spinach, mint, or oregano – whichever is available – so they cook together. Dissolve pounded garlic in cold water, too, and fry dried mint in oil to enhance its colour, [then] serve which would be good.
Ingredients:
.5 kg lamb chopped into large pieces
1 c water
1 c yogurt
1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)
.5 c chickpeas, cooked
.5 c onion, diced
.75 c rice
1 c beet, chopped
1 c spinach
1/2 tsp dried tarragon, or 2 tsp fresh
1/2 tsp dried mint fried in oil (or more to taste – I didn’t use much as I am not fond of mint)
1/2 tsp dried oregano, or 2 tsp fresh
1 clove garlic
Mix yogurt and water together, then bring to a boil in a pot. Once it starts to boil, throw int the lamb, salt, chickpeas and onions and continue cooking for about 10 minutes. Add rice, beet, spinach tarragon and oregano, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, fry mint in oil and grind up the garlic. Be careful not to burn the mint; stir it in the hot oil until it gives off a minty aroma, then remove immediately from the heat source.
This is not the most authentic of masks, but it amuses me in these COVID times. A challenge was put out to make a heraldic mask, and I may get to one with my arms on it eventually. In the meantime, I love this one because it allowed me to test a new pattern (instructions were poor but the pattern was easy) and use up a baronial favour with the hare of Skraeling Althing and the Kingdom of Ealdormere trillium.
Over a year ago, I started to make myself linen socks patterned after those from the Hjerofnes finds. I quickly realized they would stay up much better if I had some garters. Back in the spring I did an on-line workshop with the Braids and Bands Society where one of the options was a simple striped band using a rigid heddle loom. Mine is hand-held rather than on a stand like this one from Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848 Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse) — Zürich, ca. 1300 bis ca. 1340.
Unlike this one (at the top) from Journey to the Holy Land (ÖNB 2838, fol. 107r), 1476, min does have a small handle.
This post was sparked by a follow-up question regarding sweets. If the Vikings in Scandinavia didn’t use ovens to bake things like pies, would the Varangians in Byzantium have used ovens? This is far from my normal area of knowledge, but I do happen to have some books on Byzantine foods, so here are a few thoughts: I have no information on clay ovens in Byzantium but there were definitely Roman and Greek influences that continued in the region. We do have lots of evidence for Roman ovens, starting with the finds from Pompeii.
The question recently arose in a group on authentic Viking-age foods, and I thought it would be useful to save my answers here since I have trouble keeping track of my berries.
Sweets highly-prized and rare treats. Aside from honey, mostly it appears to have been berries and plums (likely blackthorn sloes – prunus spinosa – which are native to Europe and grow throughout Scandinavia). They would have been eaten fresh or possibly dried. Berry types that are native to Scandinavia include lingonberries (partridgeberries in Newfoundland), bakeapples (cloudberries in Newfoundland), raspberries, blackberries, bilberries (similar to blueberries, but smaller), cranberries, crowberries, bearberries (smaller than crowberries, and not to be confused with barberries, which grow on bushes and are more tropical), wild strawberries, and possibly black currants (in more temperate areas).
Cloudberry photo in a Tromso marsh in 2020, available on Wikimedia Commons
For several months now, friends have organized a portrait painting night via Zoom. Tonight our friend Laura agreed to be our model, in all her Italian Renaissance glory. I was late to join and was completely disorganized. I know there is a large bottle of linseed oil somewhere in the house, but it is not where it was when I decided I didn’t need to buy more after the last paint night. As a result, I ended up using watercolours. It has been years since I touched mine, and they are not forgiving! Still, I am not displeased with tonight’s effort. I need to work add in the remaining elements tomorrow, once this part is completely dry.
I have been riding, almost weekly, for about 15 years. I have owned a horse for the last 8. When Their Majesties Ealdormere decided to create their own light cavalry and sent our horse’s heads for everyone to build a hobby horse, I figured it would be easy to build a bridle so I could keep my horse in the right position. Ha! Apparently I do not pay attention at all to how a bridle is constructed. It took a while, but today I finished, and I am quite pleased with the results. It is not that different from some of the medieval images I found.
The challenge was to name my horse. The name hobby comes from an extinct breed of Irish horses developed prior to the 13th C. Before that, palfreys (lighter weight riding horses with a smooth gait) in France were called haubinis, which later became hobbeye; these horses were exported to Ireland
A plain sensible name seemed like a good choice. I looked at lots of medieval horse names. My horse was not a bay, so all the variants of Bayard were out; not a grey so names like Grane and Greyfell were eliminated. Likewise all the names for mythical horses. Horse (Old English for “horse”) was tempting, as was Rohesia (the Latin form of a Germanic name that probably meant “horse), or Grusha (the diminutive Russian form of Agrippina, or “wild horse). The best, though, was Dobbin, which can be documented to Act 2, Scene 2 of The Merchant of Venice, here in modern English: “My Lord, what a bushy beard you have! You’ve got more hair on your chin than Dobbin my horse has in his tail. Then Dobbin’s tail must be growing backward. I’m sure he had more hair on his tail than I have on my face when I last saw him.”
Siglindesarts's Blog 