A&S

Artist: Clara Peeters

How to Eat in the 16th Century

Meals change over time. What we eat, and how much we eat changes. In the 16th century we see the transition from the medieval context of two main meals a day, with the first one happening sometime after 10 am, to a more modern concept of three meals a day. However, even still, they were not the same style of meals we’re used to.

How to put together a basic set of food for a day, not a feasting day, but a standard day. For some of this I’ll be using previous work I’ve done, the OED, and I double checked a few various texts. Think of this one not so much of an article as a set of guidelines for making things more period for those of us who are 16th century.

In Tudor England the three meals of the day were called Breakfast (brekfast, brekefast, breckfast), though this was not eaten by everyone, however it did gain in promenence through the 16th century; Dinner (diner, dyner, dinere, dener, dynnor, dennar) was the meal eaten around the middle of the day, from what I can tell it could be eaten as early as ten or as late as two, this also tended to be the larger meal of the day; Supper (soper, sopper, soupier, suppare, suppair, super) was the final meal of a day. There is the implication that this meal was a lighter meal than dinner and probably generally consisted of either soup or pottage.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Kingdom Arts and Sciences 2018

Swearing in the competitors

This past weekend was Avacal’s Kingdom A&S Championship and The University of Avacal. It’s the first time the Championship has been done at its own event, and based on how many people I saw there, the event was a massive success. There were a ton of classes in 12 tracks, an A&S display area, and of course the Kingdom Arts & Sciences Championship.

Champion of Arts and Sciences

There were two full entrants for the Championship, Her Ladyship Niesa Abdelmessah, and myself. It’s a difficult and stressful competition, but at the end, I felt very accomplished just for getting through the creation, documentation, display, presentation, and questioning. HL Niessa had an amazing display, and entered bone carving and hide tanning and I am in awe of her skills in that area. I entered a research paper on the history of bacon, and a beef stew that could have been prepared on board a Tudor naval ship. At court that evening it was announced that I had won both the highest single entry and the championship, and I swore fealty to Their Royal Majesties Kvigr Ivarsson and Svava Suanhuita.

 

I never have a problem getting rid of the leftovers

Here are links to my documentation:

Pre 17th Century Bacon PDF: Pre-17c Bacon

Stew On Board Ship PDF: Stew on Ship

The rest of the post is fairly photo heavy.
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By Tomas de Courcy, ago
Paston Letter

Letter Writing

I enjoy getting to write letters in period style, the formulaic method that was used makes it easy to transform an invitation to the Crown into something that adds to the game.

Here are three letters I’ve written in the past by taking letters from about the same time period and utilizing the same formula in an SCA context. The letters were then given to those with a much better hand than mine to write out.

An invitation to the King and Queen of An Tir to attend an event I was running:

To Ieuan Dei Gracia Rex An Tir et Viscomes Tir Righ et dominus Aquilon, and Gweneth Dei Gracia Regina An Tir et Viscomitessa Tir Righ.

Your faithful subjects of Lionsdale wishing to observe their oaths and the fidelity due to God and to you, wish health, and tender their lawful service with all respect and honour. To this we desire for you to attend our Winter’s Tourney the Saturday following the celebration of the Presentation of our Lord (February 4th AS XLVI) that we may render our thanks unto you for being our sovereigns.

At Lionsdale, on the 15 day of January in the XLVI Year of the Society.

Lord Tomas de Courcy

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Ravioli

This month at Montengarde Cookery Group the theme is Eat Your Vegetables, so it’s time for some spinach ravioli.

I’ll let you in on a secret, although I love redacting recipes and cooking them my wife, HL Kayleigh de Leis, is the better cook, especially when it comes to pastas. So she’s the one making it this time.

This month’s is coming from Sabina Welserin’s 1553 German cookery book. Rabiolin zú machen or “to make ravioli”.

31 To make ravioli

Take spinach and blanch it as if you were making cooked spinach, and chop it small. Take approximately one handful, when it is chopped, cheese or meat from a chicken or capon that was boiled or roasted. Then take twice as much cheese as herb, or of chicken an equal amount, and beat two or three eggs into it and make a good dough, put salt and pepper into it and make a dough with good flour, as if you would make a tart, and when you have made little flat cakes of dough then put a small ball of filling on the edge of the flat cake and form it into a dumpling. And press it together well along the edges and place it in broth and let it cook about as long as for a soft-boiled egg. The meat should be finely chopped and the cheese finely grated.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Fall Feasts

I’m looking for my next dish, so I thought I’d take a look at feast menus, and I think others might be interested as well.

This feast menu is recommended in the Boke of Kervynge by Wynken de Worde, 1508 for Autumn (end of September to end of December).

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Stewed Camel

My wife, Her Ladyship Kayleigh de Leis, likes to suggest strange dishes for me to try making . At her recommendation we’re trying camel. Nope, that’s not a typo. Today’s recipe comes to us from Anissa’s Blog, and was originally translated by Charles Perry. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of A Baghdad Cookery Book (aka Kitāb Al-ṭabīkh by Al Baghdadi), from which this comes, so I don’t have a page number for you.

The dishes from Culinary Night, they’re a bit brown as everyone did a protein dish this time

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Medieval Candy

This was my first time doing a poll to determine what I was going to make for Culinary Night. Candy won out over Andalusian bread. I’m thinking I may continue to have polls to determine what I’m making.

First off, this one  isn’t my research or recipe, instead I’m basing it on the work of Jana of the Time Travel Kitchen. More specifically I’m taking this from the entry To make Penydes (I believe it’s pronounced pen-ids based on the Middle Eastern “panids” see here )

With that being said, this comes originally from Curye on Inglysch, specifically from Harley manuscript 2378. Here’s the original:

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Suet

Just a quick post today.

This week the Montengarde Culinary Group is making meat balls. I’ve been meaning to render the suet I’ve had in the freezer for a few months now. This seemed like a good time so we can use some of it in the meatballs if needed.

I’ve done this the way where you need to be constantly standing near a stove as it renders, a slow cooker is just as effective but you can go do other things while it cooks. Basically you’re heating up the suet until all the fat has melted then you strain the bits of connective tissue and meat out of it and let it set. Once that’s done it’s basically shelf stable (probably want to use it within a year).

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago