Today a friend was elevated to the Order of the Laurel, the highest recognition in the Society for Creative Anachronism. He is renowned for his work as a weaver and dyer. The event was held outdoors due to COVID, so it was a great opportunity to to play with dyes.
Various people brought pre-mordanted skeins of wool, linen and silk, pots, dyes, and even propane stoves. visitors were invited to try different dyebaths and take home the results. The choices were indigo (blue), weld (yellow), brazilwood (purple-red), madder (brick red), and a mystery dye that had been from India withput a label that we decided was kamala. We created a glorious rainbow of colours.
Kamala was new to me but someone thought the colour looked right. Kamala comes from an evergreen tree in India and gives a tawny gold to tangerine colour. If treated with soda ash (to raise the ph), the colour becomes more intense. When we dipped a bit of the wool in a tub of water treated with soda ash, it turned a lovely salmon colour.
The first line of skeins hung to dryMore coloursKamala with the soda ash treated sample to the rightMy results: weld, indigo over weld, indigo, kamala, madder, brazilwood from a long bath, brazilwood from a shorter bath to get pink
A friend is being elevated to the Order of the Laurel today, so I offered to make food. They wanted gluten-free, which meant a bit of experimenting. I pulled out my trusty Pleyn Delight and Betty Crocker cookbooks, bought a bag of gluten-free flour, got some advice from a cooking friend who is gluten-intolerant, and set to work.
The filling for the Brie tarts and the mushroom and cheese tarts are exactly as recommended in Pleyn Delight. I used Betty Crocker’s oil pastry recipe, but with lots more water than normal. The dough doesn’t stuck together well, so I moulded it into greased muffin tins. i am not displeased with the result.
Leoba’s kitchen continues to inspire, this time with another fritter recipe.
FRITTERS MADE WITH EGG WHITES, SIFTED FLOUR AND FRESH CHEESE Follow the directions and method described in the preceding recipe [Elderflower Fritters], but add neither milk nor elderflowers to these fritters.
ELDERFLOWER FRITTERS Take some good fresh cheese and a little aged cheese, and crush well, adding a bit of sifted flour to them and the necessary amount of egg whites; likewise, a little milk and some sugar; and grind all these things well together, remove from the mortar, and add a sufficient amount of elderflowers at your own discretion; they should not be crushed or crumbled, so as not to make the mixture too clear, that is, too liquid, so that you can form the round fritters using your hands, or in whatever shape you like, and then fry them in good rendered lard or butter, or in good oil; and serve very hot. (Maestro Martino of Como, The Art of Cooking, trans. Jeremy Parzen, p. 92).
I had egg whites, so this was a tasty way to use them up. I did about half the recipe, using a bit more more egg white than recommended (oops), and therefore more flour to stiffen the dough. I used cottage cheese rather than ricotta, and whole wheat flour. They were fried in extra-virgin olive oil that had been infused with thyme.
The most surprising thing to me was that the sugar wasn’t awful. I much prefer savoury to sweet flavours, and this promised to be a mish-mash of both, but it was fine. The resulting small frytours were very filling.
I had some chicken that needed using up so I searched a medieval cooking forum and was reminded of this dish. I have made it before, but from a different recipe. It was quite popular in Italy, and appears to have been equally popular in the Arab world, where probably originated. it shows up in even more Arabic cookbooks. It had the added advantage of helping me use up some pantry items.
Sommacchia: Chicken or fowl in sumac sauce – Take a chicken cut into pieces and fry it in lard; and take almonds and sumac with water and cook them with the chicken, and let it thicken, and serve it. – Anonimo Toscano, Libro della Cocina, Italian, late 14th or early 15th c.
I had about 2 pounds of chicken, so I fried it up with 2 Tbsp of bacon grease in lieu of lard (both lard and bacon are a major deviation from the Arabic originals, as Muslims would not have used pork products). While that was cooking, I ground up a half package of slivers (one of those pantry items I wanted to use up) then added 2 Tbsp of sumac and 2 cups of water to the ground almonds and let them soak until the chicken was cooked. Finally, I added the liquid to the chicken and continued cooking until I had a thick sauce.
I serve it simply, over rice or on a slice of bread. The sumac imparts a fresh citrusy flavour, so I don’t think it needs any other spicing. It would go very well with a salad of fresh herbs, dressed with oil and vinegar.
A few weeks ago, I came across this recipe for a frytour of erbes, which is basically a pancake. When I made plans to go camping for a couple of days, it seemed like a perfect time to experiment. There were a few hiccups, though.
I used sourdough instead of commercial yeast, but I consider that a reasonable adjustment, not a hiccup. Forgetting the keys to the trailer where I store my griddle and (hopefully) my cooking utensils including a bowl and pancake flipper was definitely a hiccup, as was forgetting the salt, so I improvised. I had brought along my Viking spiral iron so I wrapped it in aluminium foil to prevent the batter from dripping, and I carefully used a knife to flip the frytours.
I used a mix of chives, lovage, parsley, oregano, and even a couple of nasturtium leaves.
Freshly poured on the pan.
The frytour has been flipped and I am cooking the second side.With a drizzle of honey, it was a surprisingly delicious mix of savoury and sweet flavours. Pardon the pink plastic plate. it was not a medieval camp.
Experimental archaeology thoughts: 1) making pancakes is a very slow process on cast iron over an open fire. by the time i had cooked three little pancakes, I had also eaten half a sausage and was no longer hungry; 2) this leads me to conclude that such pancakes are unlikely in cultures that do not use some sort of stove; 3) that is consistent with written evidence for frytours, and although some cultures did not write down recipes (I’m looking at you, Vikings), it is really difficult to argue that they might have done so because they had the ingredients since they didn’t have the technology.
I used a lot of wood getting my little iron hot enough for the frytours. This got me thinking about the work involved in gathering wood for cooking. Was it women’s work? In the early period, especially, it’s not clear. Certainly saws were extremely rare and axes seem to have been used primarily by men, including as a weapon. In the modern developing world, wood gathering is primarily female labour. It takes so much time in many places that reforestation, efficient wood stoves, and building in calculations of the impact of unpaid labour on women are all part of best international development practice today.
I spent at least three hours replenishing my wood pile afterwards, using a saw and fallen trees very near my fire pit. Admittedly, not all the wood had been used to cook the frytours, but i estimate that I would need nearly the same amount of wood every day or two, especially if I was cooking for a family. This is true even if the fire is indoors, and therefore more efficient. Available wood close to the house would run out quickly. I need to do some digging on firewood and gender, and on what we know about deforestation and sustainable livelihoods as the readily-available wood is burned. I think there is some for later periods in Europe but not so much for the early middle ages.
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