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The Æthelmearc Gazette

~ Covering the Kingdom of Æthelmearc of the SCA

The Æthelmearc Gazette

Category Archives: Cooking

Dutch Oliebollen, a deep-fried new years’ delicacy

08 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Cooking

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The one bake both famous, and infamously, associated with the end of the year in English speaking culture is the fruitcake. The rich in dried fruit dense cake is known for its heavy load of calories as well as its unusual shelf life – especially when copiously drenched in booze. Although the booze is tempting, this story is about another year end tradition… other cultures have their own tasty traditions, and the one celebrated by the Dutch won’t ever be rather launched by trebuchet into fruitcake oblivion as there won’t be any leftovers! [1]

The last two balls of the fourth batch, a few minutes before Simon came in from the school bus.

A particularly yummy end of the year tradition, [2] Dutch oliebollen (literally, oily balls) are essentially a sweet and fruity deep fried dough. Probably all cultures, at some point or another, invented fried dough, in some way or shape, but I dare to bet the Dutch version is the only one consumed solely at years end. What the two do have in common is that both the English fruitcake and the Dutch oliebollen are a high caloric food, perfect for adding some extra padding in anticipation of meager, winter times.

It is not quite clear when the oliebol first appeared in Dutch baking. Perhaps the Batavi and Friesian cultures offered fried dough to their goddess Perchta, hoping excess grease would help deflect her sword from cutting? More mainstream, fifteenth century sources mention the consumption of linseed oil cakes at the court of the count of Holland. Or perhaps oliebollen are derived from a Jewish sweet fried dough, part of the traditional Jewish celebration Hannukah and introduced to the Netherlands in the sixteenth century by Sephardic Jews emigrating from Spain and Portugal.

What we do know for sure is that cakes fried in oil were already a thing in the middle ages. At the time, Christmas indicated the end of a fasting period which started November 11th, Saint Martins Day. The end of this fasting was celebrated with oily cakes, not only great tasting but also loaded with calories and fats. Quite useful, right before the cold and dark and nutritiously poor season. At the time these cakes were not just for the winter season. They could be eaten the whole year through, cheap and nourishing, especially for the poor or during sieges. Fresh food would be eaten or spoil quickly, but oily cakes could keep a house, keep or castle going. [3]

“Meid met oliebollen” (Maid with fried dough balls) by Aelbert Cuyp (1652)

As oil was expensive, deep frying was not a thing quite yet. Olykoeken or oily cakes would be pan-fried and thus flat, not bulbous as they are now. With better economic circumstances and increased trade [4] in the seventeenth century deep frying became a mainstream option. The 1668 cookbook ‘De Verstandige Kock of Sorghvuldige HuysHoudster‘ (The smart cook or careful housekeeper) lists a recipe for oily cakes that uses just about a liter and half of oil, and this extra space would allow the cakes to swell and become rounder. Similar can be seen in the painting “Meid met oliebollen” (Maid with fried dough balls) by Aelbert Cuyp (1652) which shows oily balls looking pretty close to our modern oliebollen. By the eighteenth century the cakes really turned into balls as shown by the recipe book De Volmaakte Hollandsche Keukenmeid (The perfect Dutch kitchenmaid) from 1746. Not only do the oliebollen float around freely in a deep kettle filled with copious oil, the dough is added by forming it between two tin spoons – just like I do every year.

A typical seasonal Oliebollenkraam, with lights, and a long, long line of expectant customers…

The oliebol as a specific new years tradition did not really start until the nineteenth century. And with the invention of cooking stoves – and modernly, electric deep fryers – the baking of these treats became much saver for the general public. Although, growing up, I remember many would purchase their dozen of oliebollen from seasonal street vendors instead of frying from scratch. And as a kid, it sure felt magical, peering up into these beautifully lit and mirrored palaces of deep fried dough and getting handed a steaming hot oliebol, copiously covered in powdered sugar, which in turn would copiously cover us kids too – magical memories, indeed… [5]

But… that is not where the story of the oliebol ends. Like much that is Dutch, the oliebol also emigrated to the american continent; New Amsterdam to be specific, and then went about to reinvent itself, again. But instead of becoming the big, round and fluffy dough balls we know today, over here the oily cakes lost their marbles! [6] Specifically, a circular hole was cut right through the center. I had heard it was to cut down on the possibility of an under cooked center but of course there are other, often much more colorful, explanations… Was it to stint on ingredients? Did the hole make the whole easier to digest? Did Captain Gregory, whose mum is credited with rebranding the oily cakes, use the hole to stick it to his ships wheel during rough weather?

The Willy wonka-like automaton use to make cider donuts by our local Littletree Orchards

Whatever the reason, from then on Dutch oily cakes became forever known as the American doughnut (courtesy of Captain Gregory’s mum – she’d put walnuts in the middle to help it bake throughout; a dough-nut). production was automated in the 1920’s by a Willy Wonka-like machine, [7] doughnuts became poster boy in the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago as a prime example of “food to hit the Century of Progress.” And a 1937 popular song suggests you can live on coffee and doughnuts if you’re in love… I won’t comment on the latter, but I do know from experience coffee and donuts make for a great survival combination: many a day at Market I’ve had apple cider donuts for ‘lunch’! [8] Simon thinks it fantastic, me moving next door to the ‘donut people’ as they give away any leftover at market end, [9] especially to the vendor with the hungry teenager… but personally? I’d take a Dutch oliebol anytime! [10]

Happy new year!
elska

Would you like to make your own oliebollen?
I uploaded a short youtube video with (dairy free) recipe of the last batch I made this past weekend. Enjoy!

Want to see how the donuts machine works? Click here; my market neighbors Littletree Orchard brings it out for special events.

References:

  • https://isgeschiedenis.nl/nieuws/de-nederlandse-traditie-van-de-oliebol
  • https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-history-of-the-doughnut-150405177/
  • https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fruitcake-101-a-concise-cultural-history-of-this-loved-and-loathed-loaf-26428035/
  • https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/the-secret-history-of-fruitcake
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meid_met_oliebollen,_door_Aelbert_Cuyp.jpg43
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Visser%27s_oliebollenkraam.jpg
  • https://www.littletree-orchards.com/

[1] This would be in Manitou Springs, Colorado, which holds an annual fruitcake toss where unwanted loaves are bid adieu by medieval means—namely, catapults.
[2] I might be prejudiced as I am a Dutch native. Or perhaps not…
[3] Until their stores of flour and oil ran out, of course.
[4] Think Dutch Golden Age.
[5] Perhaps not for the mothers, having to deal with sugar covered kids (going by the memory of my mom’s disapproving face).
[6] You know, a donut hole, looks just like edible marbles.
[7] Very clever, and certainly attracted loads of intrigued customers.
[8] Perfect COVID lunch, quick to eat and mask back on!
[9] Which does not happen nearly as often as Simon had hoped.
[10] Well… anytime that is years’ end, of course!

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Twelfth Night Pies

05 Wednesday Jan 2022

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Cooking, Food

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cooking

By THFool Dagonell the Juggler

I made these for the last shire Twelfth Night I physically attended, two years ago this week. They were well received. This would make a good feast dish; combine, cook, serve. Serves 12. More of my recipe redactions may be found on my website.

Original:

Harleian ms. 279, “Dyed Bake Metis” (“Various Baked Dishes”) (Found in “Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books”)

“Chawettys. Take Porke y-sode, & mencyd dates, and grynd hem smal to-gederys; take yolkys of Eyroun, & putte þer-to a gode hepe, & grene chese putte þer-to; & whan it ys smal y-now, take Gyngere, Canelle, & melle wyl þi commade þer-with, & put in þin cofyns; þan take yolkys of Eyroun hard y-sothe, and kerue hem in two, & ley a-boue, & bake hem; & so noyt y-closyd, serue forth.”

Translation:

“Small pies. Take pork seethed & mined dates, and grind them small together; take yolks of eggs, & put thereto a good heap, & green cheese put thereto; & when it is small enough, take ginger, cinnamon, & mix well thy mixture therewith, & put in thine coffins (pie shells); then take yolks of eggs hard seethed, and carve them in two, & lay about, & bake them; & so not closed, serve forth.”

Commentary:

My wife and I “live country, live clean”. We have a huge chest freezer in our basement. We literally buy our beef by the half cow. I didn’t have any pork, but I have lots of ground beef. The recipe calls for small pies. I keep frozen pie shells to hand, so I made full size pies and increased the cooking time I would use for tarts. Professional food historian (now I know what I want to be when I grow up!) Cindy Renfrow speculates in “Take a Thousand Eggs or More” that green cheese was literally green cheese, what we now call blue cheese. (Wikipedia says, according to legend, blue cheese was discovered when a shepherd accidently left his cheese behind in a cave and found it again three months or so later.) If green cheese is actually blue cheese, I’m wondering if the moon being made of green cheese wasn’t simply a way to describe the color.

Ingredients:

  • 3 lbs. ground beef
  • 1 cup minced dates
  • 12 eggs
  • 1/2 lb. blue cheese
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 commercial pie shells

Method:

Leave the pie shells and frozen beef in the fridge to thaw overnight. Pre-heat oven to 435*. Hard boil six eggs. In a large mixing bowl combine ground beef, minced dates, 6 egg yolks (reserve the whites for tomorrow’s breakfast), crumbled blue cheese, ginger, and cinnamon. Mix thoroughly. Scoop the mixture into two pie shells, pushing it down to fill the crust evenly. ‘So not closed’ means it’s an open face pie, like a quiche. Shell the hard-boiled eggs, cut them in two, and ‘lay about’ six half egg yolks in a circle on the top of each pie. Save the whites for tomorrow’s breakfast. For tarts, I would put one on each tart. Bake for 50 minutes. Let cool. May be eaten hot or cold.

 

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Virtual Known World Cooks and Bards Symposium

01 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Bardic, Brewing, Cooking, Event Announcements & Updates, SCA @ Home, Tidings

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Welcome to the Ninth Known World Bardic Congress and Cooks Collegium, to be held online on September 10th, 11th, and 12th.  We are hosted this year by the Mid-Realm’s Barony of Ayreton.

Join us for a weekend filled with classes, concerts, and bardic circles. In addition to cooking and bardic, we will also have brewing & vinting, along with instrumental & choral music classes –and more!

We encourage attendees to register on the website.  Much like Pennsic, you can use your account to offer classes, suggest others, request stage time, or create your personal schedule.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/359545818902748

Webpage: http://tilted-windmill.com/kwcb2021/

Host Webpage: https://ayreton.midrealm.org/

Event Steward: Cerian Cantwr (Charles Grab) via email

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Join the Æthelmearc Foresters’ Guild!

23 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by Krista in Arts & Sciences, Camping, Cooking, Forestry, Gaming & Fun

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Tags

Aethelmearc Forestry Guild, Forestry, Wilderness Studies

Master Morien McBain, hopes to foster a Forestry Guild here in our Kingdom, and is off to a great start, with online classes and lively discussions, plus and outdoor activities already in planning and even scheduled! He sat down with Gazette to answer our inquiries. 

Tell us about yourself (name, title, etc.)

Hello! I’m Morien MacBain, and I really like to lurk about in the shrubbery, tie knots, and set things on fire.  In addition, I’m a big fan of chopping things with axes, rowing about in boats, backpacking about,  and eating plants and animals.  I also ride – but do not eat – horses.

Tell us about the new group (name, goals, etc.)

At the moment, our group is called the Æthelmearc Wilderness Skills Study Group (find us on Facebook!), but we hope to soon be the Æthelmearc Royal Foresters when we become a chartered branch of the Known World Forester’s Guild!

How does one get involved?

Ideally, I’d say join our FB group, as well as the Known World Forester’s Guild and East Kingdom Royal Foresters groups.  Then  check out any and all documents in the “Files” sections that strike your fancy, but especially the New Member’s Guide . As well as Foresters 101.

Then, once all that woodsy goodness has blown your hair back,  fill out the Forester’s Guild Application: https://ekfg.eastkingdom.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Foresters-Guild-Application.pdf. And shoot it off to Gwillim Kynith at: warden@ekfg.eastkingdom.org

He’s a lovely fellow, and the Warden of the Guild of Foresters for the East Kingdom.  You will be applying for an “affiliate” (out-of-kingdom) membership.  Æthelmearc’s program is just getting started, so we’re operating under the aegis of the East’s program until we have our own set up, and getting as many affiliate members as possible operating in Aethelmearc is an important early step.

What are your hopes for how the Forestry community grows and functions here in our Kingdom?

Our application to the Guild for a “Letter Temporary” is in draft, and is making the rounds collecting signatures. We’ll have several members advancing to the rank of Forester by the end of the summer, I’d say.  I anticipate we’ll be in a position to apply for Æthelmearc’s own Regional Charter by this time next year. Hopefully whoever is on the thrones at that point will sign our Charter!  We will be patrolling and protecting all their Sylvan wilds, after all!

How does the East come into play? 

We turned to the East Kingdom Royal Foresters since they have the best-established and most accomplished body of people doing this in the SCA.  They’ve been instrumental in helping Atlantia, Meridies, and An Tir get their kingdom programs running, so working with them while we get our ducks in a row was the obvious choice.  They have been incredibly supportive, and we look forward to working with them going forward, although of course I hope our progression to a full-fledged chartered kingdom program of our own will come quickly!

What specific kinds of things can people learn about, research, and do?

Good night, it’s astonishing the wealth of skills we can get up to!
-Period fire making
-Travel by boat, horse, and on foot
-Shelter making
-Hiking
-Backpacking
-Stealth and leave-no-trace camping
-Orienteering and celestial navigation
-Wilderness survival (including cold and wet environments)
-Foraging wild edibles
-Hunting, fishing, and trapping
-Flint knapping
-Making salt
-Tanning leather
-Crafting tools
-Skills challenge courses
-Weapons and gear of outdoor life
Tracking
-Sign cutting and evasion
-Recreation of pilgrimages
-Campfire cooking
-Preparation of period trail rations
-Identification of trees and herbs, and their many uses.

The list goes on, and people can go insanely hardcore, or just try a few things that interest them.  Glorious stuff!

What got you interested in this? 

I’ve been running around in the woods since I was six.  I was in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, The Order of the Arrow (the Scouting national honor society), and I was in the Army, where I got to mess around in the woods in various places, so I’m a big fan!  I’m also into the modern bushcraft movement, which involves watching lots of old-time wilderness skills being brought to modern people to keep them alive (both the skills and the people, I suppose).

What are your favorite pieces of forestry/wilderness advice for the re-enactor? 

“Two is one; one is none,” meaning you should always have a backup for each crucial piece of gear you need in the woods (multiple blades, ways of starting a fire, methods to purify water, ways to signal for help, etc.).   Also, hydrate like a crazy person when you’re thirsty, hungry, hot, cold, tired, irritable, being chased by wolves, whatever!  DRINK WATER!  Also, purify your water, even if the stream looks fresh.  Waterborne illnesses like giardia are no joke!  Essentially, read everything you kind find by Dave Canterbury and especially Mors Kochanski, that guy was a beast!

What’s the essential gear? Or how can I get started? 

Essentially, you need some green garb, good boots, and a decent knife (preferably single-edged), and a desire to learn about the natural world and all the adventures, lessons, treasures, and mysteries it has for us!

Get online and find other Foresters near you, and start getting out in the woods and waters together (I love getting out there solo, but even I admit that a partner makes stuff safer and usually more fun.)

Here’s a clip on the topic by Llywd Forester, the founder of the Guild on the topic of gear and getting started.  Good stuff!

Any parting thoughts?

I’d like to add that forestry has opened up a sweet new dimension in my Scadian life, and that wealth of skills that one can study and practice can be a real ornament to a life and balm and oil to a weary heart! There’s been a rich air of mystery and romance around people with the skills to live and thrive in the wilderness for centuries, and recapturing, practicing, and transmitting those skills to new generations connects us with a profoundly human part of ourselves which many of us have almost forgotten was there!

We’re not the Sylvan Kingdom for nothing.  Æthelmearc is covered by woods, and we have deep wells of wilderness skills in our area.  We have some amazing people coming together to train and share skills.  Come and join us!

 

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Medieval Foods for Modern Allergies

22 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Cooking, Food

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

food allergies, food intolerance, food sensitivities, medieval cuisine, Myrkfaelinn

An exiting new endeavor by Meadbh ni Clerigh of the Dominion of Myrkfaelinn is the launching of a collaborative website intended for cooks who would like both to cook medieval recipes as well as cater to modern food allergies and sensitivities.

She explains: “I’m interested in authentic medieval recipes that accommodate modern food allergies and intolerances. After some research I found that there’s not a site currently there that categories medieval recipes with this in mind, so I built one.”

Her primary goal is to have a repository of medieval recipes that any feast cook can go to when a guest says “I can’t eat X and Y.” There already are a lot of recipes out there that are perfectly good as originally written (or with a negligible substitution), and the website aims to help connect cook with recipe.

Meadbh adopted a medieval English persona who really enjoys spangled gowns. She has been interested in medieval cuisine as a culinary flavor for some time and tries to adhere to the original recipes as closely as possible. Her primary goal is to create food that a modern diner will enjoy, including diners who have food allergies and intolerances. She only has a dozen recipes on the website at the moment but intends to keep adding to the collection.

She would really like to see contributions by other people with different recipes, alternative redactions, and varied culinary interests. A recipe doesn’t need to be completely allergen free (there are a couple there, and she is looking for more.) As she mentioned: “you don’t need to have made it recently. You don’t even need fantastic pictures. I want this to feel attainable by anyone. Feel free to browse, and to contribute!”

Visit Medieval Food for Modern Allergies here!

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C³R 2021 Cook-Along-At-Home Feast

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by aethgazette in Cooking, Feast, Food, SCA @ Home

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Tags

Cauldron Bleu Cooks Guild, College of Three Ravens, Online event, Online feast, Thescorre

Unto the Known World does the Barony of Thescorre send Greetings!

DO you miss playing in an SCA kitchen with other cooks? Are you sad you won’t be able to sit down to yet another famous College of Three Ravens feast prepared by the Cauldron Bleu Cooks Guild?

We, members of the Barony’s 43-year-old cooks guild, invite you to join us in celebrating our favorite past time; we cordially invite all who are interested in helping us prepare a virtual feast for this year’s C3R.

While we cannot have this event in person, we are provided with the perfect opportunity to have ALL OF YOU “in the kitchen” with us! We are currently choosing period recipes from our favorite places and times, with absolutely no respect given to any semblance of order or plan for a “menu” (this is still a pandemic folks – we can’t be THAT organized).

We have been redacting, cooking, and photographing or video recording our endeavors and sharing them with all of you throughout this month right up until the event on February 28. Our hope is to have quite a fun time learning redactions, techniques, and sharing in each others’ tables.

What we would like from you:

Join the Cook-Along-At-Home Feast page on Facebook. We invite you to choose your own items that you love or have always wanted to make, redact (or choose a redaction that you like, or work with someone you know to create the redacted recipe).

Post your medieval recipe(s), your redaction(s), your process, your photos, videos, etc. Whatever you would like to share with everyone. MISTAKES ARE WELCOME. Please share as you go through the process and PLEASE do not leave out what didn’t work. We are here to learn, to enjoy cooking, and to share with those we love. No one is perfect and food can be pretty, but let’s hear about all of it – the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are no parameters except that you choose an item that interests you and that you work safely (please do not break any rules handed down from the BOD about social distance, etc. This is meant to be done safely in your own space, not as a get- together.)

You are welcome (and encouraged) to safely drop off test batches or extra surplus foods created to your neighbors and local friends, whether SCA or not.

Let’s have some fun! This is open to the entire Known World, so feel free to share far and wide – If you cannot share, but would still like to participate, please email the info to our webminister and she will update for you: webminister AT thescorre DOT org. Just let her know your name and any info you’d like in the post so she can properly credit.

So far, we have honey-glazed carrots and Boxing Day coffins, among other dishes. Thank you to everyone who is cooking along at home with us!

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Straight Outta Cairo: Irnin (stuffed cookies)

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Cooking, Food

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Tags

medieval recipe, redaction, Straight Out Of Cairo

by Maitre Gilles de Beauchamps, OC, OP, OL

Yule came and went and I did not bother to make cookies once again. Perhaps this was fortuitous, because now that I am ready to work at another baking project, we find ourselves on the slow and steady march towards Valentine’s Day. While the  chocolate laden gestures and rosy seductions of that over commercialized holiday seems to have little to do with the desserts from the medieval Middle East, bear with me.

The cookies I have in mind are known in Arabic as Irnin, which means “stuffed cookie.” The origins of that name, however, hint at a remote pagan past, particularly in Sumeria, the regions of what is now Iraq and eastern Persia. Irnin, it is thought, is a linguistic twisting of Innana, sometimes known as Ishtar. She was a well-regarded goddess of love and war, sometimes gentle, sometimes ferocious. One of the hallmarks of celebrations of Innana was the fashioning of moon-shaped stuffed cookies. Even if worship of Innana/Ishtar began to wane as patriarchy rose in the eastern Levant, Innana’s, cookies, if not her cult, retained the loyalties of many bakers.

Inanna/Ishtar is known to the Greeks as Aphrodite, to the Romans as Venus. Another one of her cults in the western Levant was that of Astarte, and it is speculated that the German spring goddess Eoster is related to that. So the cookies also have a  relation to our Eastertide, but for the moment I am sticking with Valentine’s Day or I will never get any baking done.

One ingredient in Irnin dear to both Inanna and Aphrodite would be rosewater as roses were closely associated with these two. Rosewater was in common use in the Middle East before the rise of Islam, and it became even more readily available due to the discovery by ibn Sina of how to produce rosewater and oil through the process of distillation. Rosewater has cooling properties, and is considered good for ailments of the chest and stomach. A rosewater syrup may indeed pull you through a hangover. The proportion of sugar is a bit hefty (two pounds of sugar to ½ cup water) and might give you pause, but then, a hangover can be a relentless foe, a thought that  should have struck home the night before.

The use of rosewater provides one of the most distinctive of tastes in Middle Eastern cooking, and it entranced European cooks up until the beginning of the eighteenth century, which more or less marks the beginning of modern cookery. Some people have an instant aversion to a perfumed scent in their foods, others find it pleasing enough to consider the advent of modern cookery to be something of a mistake.

The particular cookie we are baking this time calls for the addition of almonds, pistachios, and sesame seeds. Almonds form the backbone of medieval cooking, so much so that one might speculate that, without the almond, much of the ingenuity  and pleasure in eating this type of food would be gone. Almonds contain a moderate amount of heat which will balance the coolness of the rosewater. They are considered slow to digest but have the effect of unblocking one’s system — it relieves costiveness, not only constipation, but also slowness of speech, understanding, and movement. Taken with sugar, they are good for curing a dry cough as well as increasing the virility of both body and mind. Because there is nothing that does not exact a price for its benefits, be forewarned that almonds are fattening. Ibn Sina suggests that eating 50 bitter almonds before drinking will prevent one from becoming intoxicated, should this however fail, one may resort to the rosewater syrup.

Pistachios are considered hot and drying, and they have a quality of bitterness and astringency, indicating that eating them is good for one’s liver. They are popular as served salted along with wine, and also eaten alone are thought to sweeten the breath.

Abu Ishaq al-Sabi enthused over them in a poem:

I describe them as a philosopher might
With pleasant and charming words
An emerald wrapped in silk
Enclosed in an ivory vessel.

Some even claim that eating them brings on its own type of euphoria. Perhaps under the effects of such euphoria, Ibn Wabshiyya claimed that if one took the kidney of a goat sliced open and buried it with a bone from a peacock’s spine, sprinkled this with fumewort, and buried it for the better part of a month, a pistachio tree will sprout. Presently I am fresh out of fumewort, but if any of you wish to give it a try, do let me know if you attain success.

Sesame seeds are best toasted and taken in small quantities as they contain a powerful heat. This can be useful for curing earache and dispelling gas but they are also hard to digest and, consuming too many of them, can bring on excessive internal drying. Perhaps the rosewater in this recipe is indeed a necessary cooling factor given the combined heat of these elements. That said, rosewater and ground nuts, particularly these two, provide a taste that is quintessentially Middle Eastern.

To make these cookies, you will need the following ingredients:

  • 2 ½ cups of flour
  • 2 teaspoons sesame seeds
  • 4 tablespoons chopped pistachios (I used shelled, salted pistachios and if you don’t have these, add a teaspoon of salt to the recipe; you may also substitute walnut for pistachio)
  • 8 tablespoons ground almonds
  • 6 tablespoons melted butter (I used ghee)
  • 6 tablespoons almond oil
  • 6 tablespoons sugar
  • 8 tablespoons water
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 3 tablespoons rose water
  • 3 tablespoons honey

If your almonds still have skins, slip them by bringing the almonds to a boil for a minute in a pan of water. Let cool and slip the skins free. Process three tablespoons of the almonds and two of the pistachios and add them to the flour and sesame seeds in a bowl. Blend thoroughly and make a well in the center. To this, pour in your melted butter, oil, and water. Mix very well and form a dough. It will be a little stiff and will become more elastic as it rests. If it is still stiff after two hours of resting, add a little more oil to the dough and knead it very well. It should then be sufficiently elastic. Cover your dough and let it rest for two hours or so.

While the dough is resting, grind or chop finely the remaining pistachios and almonds. Place them in a bowl and add the sugar, the spices, and honey. Add the rosewater and work it into a thick paste.

Take the dough and knead it briefly. Break off a small round and work it into a ball, approximately two inches in diameter. Push your finger into the bowl and smoosh a teaspoon of the rosewater nut filling into the ball so it fits into the center. Work the dough to cover it and then lightly press the ball between your palms. When these cookies were made for ritual use, the Sumerians used a special mold, but this is not necessary. The recipe above will provide for a little more than a dozen cookies. You could of course make them smaller, but that is a tease, not a cookie.

An additional finishing touch, if desired, would be a dusting of confectioner’s sugar. Place these morsels on a greased baking tray and bake at 350* for about half an hour. They are done when lightly brown. Watch carefully, as lightly brown turns to scorched quite easily. Carefully place them on a cooling tray and, just as carefully, transfer item onto your serving platter when ready. The cookies are crumbly, not too dry, not too sweet, and for those not familiar with its perfumed goodness, not saturated with rose  water. Good enough, one might say, to make a long-forgotten goddess smile.

Sources:

Annals of the Caliph’s Kitchens: Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq’s Tenth Century Baghdadi
Cookbook: Nawal Nasrarallah. Brill. 2010.

Sweet Delights From a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of Traditional Arab
Sweets: Habeeb Salloum, Muna Salloum, Leila Salloum Elias; I.B. Tauris 2013.

The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition: Shihab al-din al-Nuwayri. Penguin
Classics. 2016.

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Event Announcement: College of Three Ravens, February 27, 2021

08 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Bardic, Competitions, Cooking, Event Announcements & Updates, Feast, Largesse, SCA @ Home, Uncategorized

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Tags

C3R, College of Three Ravens, online A&S, Online Activities, Thescorre

This winter, join the Barony of Thescorre at our annual schola as we move our festivities to a virtual space for the year’s C3R…. The COVID Corvid College of Three Ravens!

We are gathering together on Saturday, February 27, 2021 and using Zoom, Facebook, and our Barony Website to organize and run the event! While we are still physically distanced from one another, this is an opportunity to join in classes, A&S, workshops, bardic activties, feasting, and court from the safety of our homes.

This year, we are celebrating all that we love about the SCA and we have the unique opportunity to share that love with any and all who want to participate. We hope that this virtual format will allow gentles from Æthelmearc and the Knowne World entire to join in our fun as we work to learn together and come together in the safest ways possible.

If gentles have any questions, please reach out to the Event Autocrats, Lady Gwen Cooke (Jenn Bigelow-Carlson) or Lord Torbjorn Sigurdson (Jon Carlson).

REGISTERING FOR THE EVENT

You must complete the Google forms appropriate (listed below) to get the Zoom log-in information.

To register to attend the event and access the ZOOM Rooms, please fill out this form.

To register to teach a class for C3R, please fill out this form.

To submit an entry for A&S or Largess, please full out this form.
(Entries can be traditional SCA projects OR can be projects you have worked on during the pandemic to help your neighbors using your SCA skills, such as mask making, cooking for neighbors, etc.)

To perform during our feast (singing, playing instruments, or storytelling to name a few things), please contact Torbjorn.

We look forward to seeing everyone in this digital platform this winter when we come together for this year’s COVID Corvid College of Three Ravens!

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Join us for #15forSCA!

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Awards, Cooking, Costuming

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#15forSCA, merchants, Service

Join us for #15forSCA! The goal is to spend 15 minutes a day doing something Scadian to get ready for when we are able to do in-person activities again.

This can be:

· 15 minutes of exercising; Hit the Pell!
100 Day Pell Challenge 2.0 on the Book of Faces

· Shoot some arrows; design a new target or a range
SCA Target Archery Ideas & Design on the Book of Faces

· Research garb on Pinterest; do a thing, ask questions
Migration Era Costume Research Group on the Book of Faces
Viking Clothing on the Book of Faces
Medieval Clothing on the Book of Faces
Tudor Gowns on the Book of Faces
Elizabethan Costume on the Book of Faces

· Browse JStor, which has free access during the pandemic (JStor resources during COVID-19)

· Reach out to someone in your Shire, Canton, or Barony

· Cook a medieval recipe
SCA Cooks on the Book of Faces

· Find your favorite SCA youtubers!
Kingdom of Æthelmearc Virtual Resources, including populace YouTube channels

· Shop or leave a review for an SCA merchant that you like
SCA Merchant Relief on the Book of Faces
as well as the Æthelmearc Gazette archives for recently published articles on populace merchants

· Write an award recommendation for someone either in at local or Kingdom level
Sylvan Kingdom of Æthelmearc Award Recommendation Form

· Reach out to that mundane friend that keeps posting “Cool!” on your SCA pictures and see if they are interested in learning more
SCA Newcomer’s Portal

· Participate in one of the local, Kingdom or Society challenges (two birds with one stone on this option)
Pandemic Portraits, an SCA photography challenge; also on the Book of Faces
(and when you happen to come across one, please share with the Æthelmearc Arts & Sciences Book of Faces page!)

the possibilities are endless…

This 15 minutes is whatever you have the energy for – the only requirement is that you do something, anything! Complete 30 days (does not have to be consecutive) and you will earn a ‘war pay’ against the Plague.

Hashtag #15forSCA to show what you are doing today!
(Set your social media settings to global so that your hashtag can be shared.)

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Straight Outta Cairo: Valencia Pumpkin Pudding

30 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by aethgazette in Arts & Sciences, Cooking

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Tags

Period Recipe, Pumpkin, recipes, valencia pumpkin pudding

If you, like us, have a pile of gourds left from your farmshare, or if you just want an extra-autumnal treat for a chilly day, we know you’ll enjoy this redaction of a medieval gourd (pumpkin) pudding recipe from Maitre Gilles de Beauchamps!

It is entirely possible that future food historians will write about our present day cookery “at some point large numbers of people substituted pumpkin spice for every flavor value, but why this particular combination became the basis for a new, if somewhat unsustainable cuisine, no one knows.” All I know is that towards late summer large numbers of people begin to chatter enthusiastically about pumpkin spice flavor, and posting memes of this kind of food items on Facebook.

I’m not hostile to the idea, only a bit perplexed. A simple crème brulee trumps any latte with pumpkin spice, as would a berry tart. For me there is simply no contest, and apparently, for them, the obverse is equally true.

In the spirit of reconciliation and in the interest of spreading the joys of medieval desserts from the Middle East, let’s walk through the process of making a satisfying pudding that will delight everyone in the pumpkin spice fan club, and yet not horrify the others who find pumpkin spice a bit too cloying.
____________________

Valencia Pumpkin Pudding neither originated in Valencia, Spain, nor was its main component initially the pumpkin we revere (or, admittedly, some loathe) today. This pudding is a cousin of a dessert covered earlier in this series, khabis, which take a number of forms and use a wide variety of ingredients. The pudding we are discussing presently was made from some type of gourd, although in medieval times the pumpkin we would recognize was evolving from the numerous hybrids cropping up in every garden from eastern Persia to western Spain.

What we know as a pumpkin today is the result of thousands of years of farming gourds, as are our cantaloupes, cucumbers and watermelons. One big, confused, watery family, some bitter, some unpalatable and only good when hollowed out and used for storage. Some which displayed wonderful capacity for sweetness.

Our pumpkin pudding was originally made from the flesh of mild fleshed gourd that was simmered in honey or a sugar syrup until the pulp was soft and sweet. Another method of doing this was cooking carrots in a sweet broth, sometimes with milk added. Its earliest iterations point to Persia or Syria.

Neither is it likely that the dish had its origins in Valencia, but was more probably named after that city by an anonymous scribe who added it to a collection of recipes. If so, he had probably enjoyed it there.

In order to enjoy it here and now, you will need the following ingredients:

  • one pound of canned pure pumpkin (16 oz can)
  • one large egg
  • zest of half of a lemon
  • ¼ teaspoon each of ground cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon
  • ½ cup of sugar
  • ½ cup of almonds, slipped and finely crushed
  • 20 additional almonds, slipped and set aside for garnish.

Begin by slipping the almond skins from the nuts. If you haven’t done this before, it’s a very easy process. Place the almonds in pan and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil. As the water boils, pull the almonds from the heat, drain and let cool. You should be able to slip the almonds out of their skins quite easily.

Grind the almonds in a food processor until fine, or if you’re a purist, grind them by hand using a mortar and pestle. Remember to set aside your garnish almonds.

While the almonds are cooling, take a zester and remove the peel from half of a lemon.

Place the ground almonds and the lemon peel in a bowl. Mix in the dried spices and let this sit for an hour. This step is not absolutely necessary but it allows the almonds to absorb the other scents and flavors. It also makes your kitchen smell good.

Beat the egg and add it, along with the pumpkin to your dry mix. Mix it thoroughly, and then pour this into a well greased 8”x 1” round tin. A nine inch pie tin will serve.

Bake for an hour at 375 degrees F.
[ed. note: recipe continues below]

Now that the pudding is baking, let’s think about the relation of the spices used with our primary ingredient. All gourds, (qar in Arabic) are classified by the humoral system of medicine as being wet and cold in nature. Therefore cooking gourds is a necessity, even if one could eat a raw gourd, this would not be desirable from a medical standpoint. It would engender bad humors within the body. This means, among other things, that digestion would be poor. Your thinking would be hampered by the difficulties your system was having trying to digest the food. Finally, the undigested remnants of the food would clog your body. A lifetime of eating this way can lead, it was thought, to potentially fatal conditions.

The exceptions to the cooking rule for gourds are the sweet ones, such as cantaloupe and watermelons, and the sweet melons of Persia. This is not explained by the wise ancient physicians, but for whatever reason, everyone came to their senses and decided not to cook these wonderful types of gourds.

Happily, the pumpkin is not only cooked to pulp, but is also being baked. In addition, the spices used – cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon – all are noted by physicians to have heating properties. That they happen to combine well with squashes when baked is a delicious coincidence, but now you have an insight into the baking of the first pumpkin pies. That combination has not changed in nearly a thousand years, and it remains satisfying.

The use of qar medicinally makes use of its cold properties. It is recommended for lowering a fever. The seeds and oil of qar were thought make people sleepy and ingesting this makes it a good treatment for insomnia. This, undoubtedly, is why people fall asleep after dessert at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s not the tryptophan in the turkey – it’s the cold humors of the pumpkin at work.
___________________________

An Arabic gentleman worthy of the name was expected to be able to compose poems on specific topics. Food was very much one of these topics. In the case of Abu I-Fath Kushajim, a tenth century scribe and astrologer, gourds provoked these lines from his pen:

You, who plucks the melon from its vine,
You harvest the fruit of praise.
Before you brought it to me
I’d never smelled fragrances purer than ambergris.
With a skin coarser than a hedgehog’s
And flesh softer than butter
It’s as though the knife reveals it to be
Saffron mixed with honey.

We still have the better part of an hour before the baking is done, and you could busy yourself by working on your own poem.

After removing the dish from the oven, let it cool slightly. Take your reserved slipped almonds and push them into the surface of the pudding. I prefer the mild sweetness already provided with no further additions, but some people sprinkle the top with confectioner’s sugar.

Then refrigerate your dish for another hour or so. It’s best served chilled, but unlike revenge, it should prove agreeable when presented.

Maitre Gilles de Beauchamps OC,OP, OL
_____________________________________________

Sources:

Annals of the Caliph’s Kitchens: Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq’s Tenth Century Baghdadi Cookbook; Nawal Nasrarallah Brill 2010.

Scents and Flowers: A Syrian Cookbook; Charles Perry; New York University
Press 2017

Sweet Delights From a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of Traditional
Arab Sweets ;
Habeeb Salloum, Muna Salloum, Leila Salloum Elias; I.B. Tauris 2013

The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition ; Shihab al-din al-Nuwayri;
Penguin Classics 2016

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