A&S

Syrup of Pomegranates

34.

And a third and final recipe inspired by this month’s Montengarde Culinary Group’s meeting.

While looking for a “light” recipe or one that made me think of warmer climates I decided on Andalusia. Southern Spain sounded warm to me and during the time period it would have been very exotic as well, being one of the main connecting points for Muslim Africa and Christian Europe.

This recipe was chosen mostly for my son who has decided that he loves pomegranates (pomegranate candy as he calls it).

Today’s recipe is from An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century as translated by Charles Perry. The cookbook is originally known as Kitab al-Tabeekh fi ‘l-Maghrib wa ‘l-Andalus fi ‘Asr al-Muwahhidin or Cookbook of Al-Maghrib and Andalusia in the era of Almohads (Writing Food History: A Global Perspective)

Syrup of Pomegranates

Take a ratl of sour pomegranates and another of sweet pomegranates, and add their juice to two ratls of sugar, cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup, and keep until needed. Its benefits: it is useful for fevers, and cuts the thirst, it benefits bilious fevers and lightens the body gently.

It’s a fairly straightforward recipe. A few points need to be added though.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Fried Spinach

33.

This month’s Montengarde Culinary Group night is themed “In the Bleak Midwinter”

 “In the Bleak Midwinter” theme – cook period dishes that remind you of warmer times or are from warmer places! No comfort food here – let’s see your vegetables, sallets, light desserts, and the like!

So with that in mind I was looking at spinach pie again, but then I got thinking – I wonder what other spinach recipes there are, maybe something simple, with a few ingredients, and something old, a base concept that gets reused later in other dishes.

So with that in mind it’s time for Fried Spinach.

Today’s recipe comes from Forme of Cury from 1390 England as reproduced in 1780.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Spinach Tart

32.

I was doing the prep work on January’s Culinary Group and I realized I never posted the Spinach Tart. Now this is an easy dish we usually use for potlucks. It’s fast, takes very little time to make, and everyone loves it. We’ve done it as a big tart, we’ve done it as individual tarts, we’ve even done it gluten free.

We originally found the recipe at Medievalcookery.com and went back to the source then worked from there, but we have also made it the way Daniel Myers described and it’s just as good.

The recipe is from one of my go-to cook books Le Menagier de Paris as translated by Janet Hinson.

TO MAKE A TART, take four handfuls of beet-leaves, two handfuls of parsley, one handful of chervil, a bit of turnip-top and two handfuls of spinach, and clean them and wash them in cold water, then chop very small: then grate two kinds of cheese, that is one mild and one medium, and then put eggs with it, yolk and white, and grate them in with the cheese; then put the herbs in the mortar and grind them up together, and also add to that some powdered spices. Or in place of this have first ground up in the mortar two pieces of ginger, and over this grate your cheeses, eggs and herbs, and then throw in some grated old pressed cheese or some other such on to the herbs, and carry to the oven, and then make it into a tart and eat it hot.

 

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

A Meal Onboard Ship in the 16th Century

Update April 2018: I went back and reworked the entirety of this entry for Kingdom A&S. You can see the documentation here:Stew on Ship and photos here.

 

28. 29.

At Lionsdale’s Winters Tourney this year I entered the Arts and Sciences competition and won.  The theme of

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the competition was the chorus of “The Ship Called Lionsdale” which is a filk some of our local members wrote a few years ago.  In that theme I decided to make a meal that could have been eaten on that ship.  For this I used naval regulations, food preservation, and other, journals, information on the recovered Mary Rose and cookbooks from the 16th century to work out a potential meal.

 

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Swetnam Ch. 12 The manners of a passage

This is part of an ongoing project to summarize and provide SCA focused commentary on The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence by Joseph Swetnam, published in 1617.

For links to the other sections of the Swetnam Project please go here.

I am using this facsimile: http://tysonwright.com/sword/SwetnamSchooleOfDefence.pdf for the project.

Here is the third part of this section in Chapter 12.

The manners of a passage.

When making a passing lunge (Swetnam calls this a passage) you must be fast, nimble, and focused.  It is a dangerous attack as it brings you very close to your opponents weapon, and is more dangerous the more skilled your opponent is.  To counteract the innate danger in this lunge you must be skillful, have practiced, and have good judgement, especially in knowing where your opponents weapon is.  You must make your passing lunge as fast as possible, as soon as you see an opening with your opponents sword high you need to step forward with your left foot quickly, and parry your opponents weapon with your dagger, pushing it up and out of the way at the same time that you attack with your rapier.  Your parry and attack must happen at the same time rather than as two actions or it will be too slow.  The passing lunge is most effective if your opponent likes to stay in the same guard, but is more dangerous if he moves from guard to guard frequently.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

On Practice

Randy over at Box Wrestle Fence had a great post today – granted they’re all great, and what are you doing reading my blog, his is much better go read it – but within today’s was a brief reminder about the same thing Swetnam and every other period master talked Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Swetnam Ch. 12 Three manner of waies for the holding of a Rapier

This is part of an ongoing project to summarize and provide SCA focused commentary on The Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence by Joseph Swetnam, published in 1617.

For links to the other sections of the Swetnam Project please go here.

I am using this facsimile: http://tysonwright.com/sword/SwetnamSchooleOfDefence.pdf for the project.

We just finished covering stance/guard and a few basic parries.  Now we move on to the next part of this section.  I’m not sure why this section of chapter 12 is so long.

Three mannor of waies for the holding of a Rapier.

Three mannor of waies for the holding of a RapierSwetnam tells us that there are three ways to hold a rapier.

  1. With the thumb upon the rapier blade (he calls this the natural fashion)
  2. With the whole hand in the pummell, I believe he means on the grip of the rapier, with the thumb locking on the forefinger.
  3. Gripping the pommel (button of the pummell) with your fingers and palm while your index and thumb are on the grip.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago