Silver Desert Feast and Championship Debrief


When:  August 10, 2013
Prep Start:  9:30AM
Served:  6:PM

Autocrat:  Agnés berengarii de girona
Feastocrat:  Abrahe çaragoça
Sous:  Eithne ingen Gille Challíne
Assistants:  Tearlag Anna Ghille Mhuire, Toirdhealbhach Mor mac Gille Mhuire, Willow, Benjamin d'Aquataine, Douglas of Fendrake Marsh

Overall:  The feast was hard to plan for.  The event does not normally have a feast associated with it, but it was held in Fendrake Marsh this year instead of Silver Desert.  Also, the prince of Cynagua came to the event.  We used 50 people as a rough estimate.  Several of us counted the actual number of people at the feast.  Our counts ranged from 29 to 34 people.

Sopas Doradas (Golden Soup): Redacted from  "Libre de Coch" by Ruperto de Nola, 1529.  The soup was started by Abrahe and finished by Toirdhealbhach.  We used a large crockpot at the church.  The crockpot held Eight Quarts.  We originally estimated 12 quarts of soup.  We separated and wisked enough eggs for 12 quarts of soup and added them before realizing the difference.  Although the soup was heavy on eggs, the dish was very popular with the populace.

Cerdo Asado con Salsa de Ciruelas Secas (Roast Pork with Prune Sauce):  Redacted from "Libro de Arte Culinaria" by Maestro Martino da Como, 1456. We used another medieval Prune Sauce recipe to make adjustments to the original because the original recipe by Como relied on Almonds and we wanted to avoid any possible nut allergies.  The Pork was done by Abrahe and Eithne.  We rubbed the Pork in the morning after we arrived at the church and put the Pork in the Oven by 10:30AM.  The Prunes were steeped in the wine the previous night.  We started the sauce and let it simmer most of the day.  Due to the large amount of prunes used in the sauce, we found it hard to pull out all of the prune skins.  Eithne used a hand blender to pulverize the remaining skin.  The dish was very popular with one member of the populace getting up during the feast and loudly pronouncing the dish “Awesome.”

Chike Endorred (Chicken with Golden Glaze):  Redacted from “Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks”.  This dish was worked on by the entire team.  We applied the “Simon and Garfunkel” rub to the chicken in the morning.  About 4:30, we started the Glaze process.  We created the Glaze in small batches .  Toirdhealbhach kept the Chicken glazing system from devolving into a Keystone Cops routine. He and Abrahe juggled each of the five trays of chicken, setting it to be glazed, then putting it back in the oven only to pull it out a few minutes later after the glaze set.  Tealag mixed the glaze and Willow glazed the chicken.  We didn't mix as much glaze as anticipated for the recipe and the glaze was thinner than expected on much of the chicken.  We also still had the issue with the herb rub lifting off with the glaze.  The chicken came out tasting well and was well received, but it faltered in appearance.

Bread:  Homemade by Eithne ingen Gille Challíne and Agnés berengarii de girona.

Sharbat-e Sekanjabin (Sekanjabin Simple): First mentioned in "Fihrist of al-Nadim" in the Tenth Century.   Redacted by Cariadoc of the Bow from Kitab al-tabij, 13th Century Al-Andalus Cookbook.  Agnes made the Sekanjabin and used homegrown Mint provided by Eithne.  When it was made, Agnes noted a “Gasoline” like odor from the Mint and that it had a slightly off flavor.  We made  Sekanjabin again at home the following week at Cooking Night.  This time we used the Mint we normally buy at the store and we did not have the off flavor.

Andalusian Eggs:  Redacted from Kitab al-tabij, 13th Century Al-Andalus Cookbook. This dish was prepared at the last minute. We had leftover eggs and decided to make an additional dish to use them.  We did not have all of the ingredients normally used in the dish, but we made adjustments to the recipe for what ingredients that we had onhand in the kitchen.  All of the eggs were eaten and we received positive comments on it, but we noticed that they were excessively salty and the Soy Sauce used overpowered the flavor. 

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