Bone skate experiment

I took the skates out at the local lake today and had better luck than the last time. I used my newest pair, which I had flattened some more and then sanded as smooth as possible. I actually got some glide this time, and was only a little slower than the slow skaters. I did a half loop at the lake and noticed that the right skate worked much better than the left. I switched the skates to see whether the the difference was from the skate or my leg. It was definitely the skate. On my left foot, that skate still demonstrated more slide, though the one now on my right foot did improve somewhat as I went along. My plan had been to test the old skates as well, since I had polished them with wax. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the laces into the holes. I will need to make more laces and insert them ahead of time, using a knitting needle or something similar. Total distance was about half a kilometre, and my thighs were getting tired from the exertion. I could have done a full kilometre into complete today’s tests, but probably not much more. I was happy to switch to my modern skates, which are so much more efficient!

Read Full Post »

Lucet Class

I taught a class on lucet work yesterday, with the aim of showing lucet techniques for more than basic cord. I have not researched whether any of these techniques might have been used pre-1600, though the frogging seems plausible. No matter; it’s pretty and fun.

I also took a class on making lucet cord without a lucet. It was different from how I normally do it (using two fingers like prongs) but it was easy and I had a nice time continuing the cord while I listened in on other classes. I have added a new page with my course notes into the pages section. There are lots of youtube links, which should help people who learn best that way. Here is the result of yesterday’s efforts:

from top to bottom: cord without a lucet; two colours (alternating every stitch, alternating blocks, strips, buttonholes); beads inserted using a fine thread like a gimp; beads strung on the lucet thread in advance; gimp (one colour and two colour); frogging; frogging with beads

Read Full Post »

Another stuffed egg recipe (courtesy of Volker Bach)

Volker is a cookbook author and translator of medieval German recipes. He has given me permission to share his latest recipe.

Filled eggs

The Mittelniederdeutsches Kochbuch (Middle Low German Cookbook) aka Wiswe MS or Wolfenbüttel MS is the earliest of the very few Low German recipe sources we have. The collection of 103 recipes was written in the late 15th or very early 16th century and edited by Hans Wiswe, a German scholar, in 1956. Very little is known about its context, but it shares some recipes in parallel with the Harpestreng tradition. I will continue my attempt to translate a recipes daily to post online as a sanity stabiliser in lockdown times.

32 Item if you would make half eggs that are filled, take eggs and boil them hard. Cut them apart through the middle. Take the yolk out of the white. Pound the yolks in a mortar. When they are pounded, break raw eggs into them. Take sage and garden mint, pepper and saffron. And fill the yolk back into the white. Lay them in butter and fry them all hard. Take vinegar and other eggs and make a good sauce (soet) (to go) over it. Add honey, pepper and saffron. Salt it to its measure. And serve it.

You can find more stuffed egg recipes here: https://siglindesarts.wordpress.com/2021/01/02/medieval-recipes-for-stuffed-eggs. Two of them are quite similar to this recipe in that they use raw yolks in the filling and then are fried. A third recipe has been translated as baking them, but I think that may be a translation or interpretation error, because they were vile. The ingredients were not much different than the others, so I think it would have been fine if fried on both sides. Frying on just one side was insufficient.

Read Full Post »

Scappi’s Saveloy – Take Two

In discussion with cooking experts following my first experiment, I learned that the Italian pound was only 12 ounces, which might have affected my results, so I decided to try again. Once again, I had just over three pounds of pork, so I started doing the math. The cheese was easy, since it was in pounds. I simply needed to reduce it by the same proportion as the pork. That gave me a half pound of cheese. Then I started to figure out the spices and realized that – rather than decreasing the amount – using a 12 ounce pound as my basic unit would actually mean a greater proportion of spice. Therefore, I left everything the same except for the saffron, which I measured more carefully this time (I used 1/4 teaspoon once it was ground). I also ground my pepper more finely using a mortar and pestle.

the final result was tasty without the strong pepper flavour from the first batch. I still find them a little salty for my taste, but that may settle once the sausages are boiled. The proportion of salt to meat is definitely in the normal range for safe preservation, so it may just be that my taste buds are too used to less salt in my meals. Though I swore last time I wasn’t going to publish more pictures of uncooked links for a while, here is a bowl of sausage just before I pop them into a freezer bag for storage.

Read Full Post »