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[la_marquise]

New words today: 1074
First new line: ‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

There's a feast and I am struggling. Unlike desperance, I do not have the gift of food porn. Chaz, how do I make fish and pork and root vegetables sound exciting?

Mooncat likes her new outdoor litter tray very much, though the structural engineer doesn't appreciate our neighbour's trees. Builders are taking tomorrow off while the engineer and the architect talk foundations.
It's too hot. I am wearing one of my lightest skirts and I'm still warmer than I like. Horus is basking in the shade, Moon is monitoring all activities. Ish I haven't seen all day: he has Duties, after all.

Skirt of the day: floral flippy.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Attack of the killer carrots?

Parsnips of doom?

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

To be more prosaic, do you want to borrow our copy of "Pleyn Delit" for inspiration. (Admittedly, it does interpret "Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks")

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That's kind, but I'm dealing with a very restricted diet here --- 9th century Wales was something of a backwater, and I don't know how much access, if any, they'd have had to the kind of things that turn up in most of the extant mediaeval recipes, which all tend to be royal or very high nobility.

[ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com]

Hello Mooncat, I hope you're keeping the builders in good order . Miss Panda is looking after mine.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Moon is supervising, and is quite taken with the cement mixer. Hopefully she won't climb into (as opposed to onto) it.

how do I make fish and pork and root vegetables sound exciting?

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Make them talk?

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

(more)seriously - how did the average eater feel about his food? Did he - or she know there was any alternative. What time of year was it? Were the vegetables fresh or had hey been in storage all winter, Was the fish or pork fresh or salted, or dried or off? How did it look / how did it smell? How did the elements of this meal differ from what might be on offer on a usual day? Food exists within an historical context as much as a book or a goblet or a horse. Find out that and write about it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I've done that bit. It just reads flat because, well, food doesn't excite me. Owain is delighted with the variety, but that's about it.
There are almost no sources for diet at this time and place -- many archaeology. So we have no idea how things were cooked, which doesn't help.

[zaan.livejournal.com]

I can put you in touch with a reader of mine who is a Chef. :) Would you like that? She is definitely a foodie. Give her your parameters and I bet she can come up with something for you.

Will email you her address. Her name in Kada in my tiny small fan club. :) She's Aussie and married, lives in LA and has a newish beautiful baby. Hubby works as camera man on the TV series "Monk".

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That's very kind, thank you. I know mostly what they're eating: the main problem is that I find writing about it dull!

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Nice smells and tastes are important. What seasonings they use - herbs and salt, I assume. Colours (if any), the plates or bowls the food is served in, if they use them. A general impression of conviviality and pleasure (like all those Chinese poets going on about the joys of good company and wine, though probably at a less elevated literary level).

In a culture of permanent food insecurity, which I assume this is, things are generally minced small and mixed with other things to go further. Richard Mabey's "Food For Free" has a lot of information on wild forage that might well have been part of the diet, especially in an area with a lot of forest and scrub. Euell Gibson's "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" and "Stalking the Healthful Herb" might also be useful; he also rhapsodises a bit, which might help to get you in the right frame of mind. Gibson was an American, but he notes which plants have Eurasian distribution or cousins. If you can find out anything about the flora of Britain in that period, it might be useful for correlations.

[zaan.livejournal.com]

I think these links will be more useful. Salt was only for the top table it was so expensive, which is where "below the salt" saying came from, meaning you had no real standing.

Here are links to genuine cookery of the 10th Century Britain, and later.

http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/goderec.htm
http://nicholasacademy.com/marfood.html This Link even has a Menu for the banquet given for the English king in 1397, shortly after King Richard II's marriage to Isabella of France in 1396.
This is interesting, a food timeline! What foods were "discovered" when and where... http://www.foodtimeline.org/

Tell you who will know lots, The Far Isles through Helen McCarthy who was in fandom, maybe before your time, I dunno. She did come back to do the 1990 British Eastercon with me when I was co-chair for it. She and I hatched the idea to put on a bid for 1990 together!
Or any group of the SCA in London will know.

OOH! Brian Ameringen was in Helen's group, he's with Caroline Mullen isn't he? He should be able to put you onto someone as they were always doing authentic banquets!

I got info from them once and found out they even go through the port records for the period they are interested in, in this case Renaissance Italy. They could tell me it took 40 guilds to make velvet for clothing, including the Guild of gold wire makers... they have encyclopedic knowledge some of those guys.