Stormvale's Hallowe'en event, Harvest of Souls, has been creeping back farther in the month of October for a while. We had reached the middle of the month the last couple of times, and that was the plan this year as well, but apparently there is a conflict with the desired site. It was mentioned at the revel that the planners are thinking of moving back another week, to the 6th. I've been thinking about this, and I wonder if we ought not to consider some possible problems:
1st: This is pretty far from Hallowe'en. How far away do we get in time before the event doesn't make nearly as much sense? Shouldn't we consider getting closer to the date? The weekend of the 20th is Crown, but the weekend of the 27th is open, much closer to the appropriate date. We once had the event on the actual date of the holiday, and were worried that it would be a problem for attendance, but we did fine.
2nd: On the 6th, there are two other events fairly close by - Vineyard Raids in Westmere (Paw Paw, Michigan) and Pounce VI in Catteden (Findlay, OH). These are outside the 100-mile rule, so there is no problem with stepping on anyone's toes, but I wonder if three rather smallish events, the other two sponsored by sizable nearby baronies (Andelcrag and Red Spears) is not going to divide the event-going population in Pentamere that day pretty comprehensively. Aren't we trying to attract more people to this event?
3rd: Here's the clincher. I understand we feel it is necessary to send a letter to Andelcrag mentioning our plan and expressing our regret for having an event on the same day as one of theirs. I don't think anyone will think ill of us - they are on the other side of the state, but... if we think it is necessary to excuse our action, should we be taking the action to begin with? We're a long way out from October. We could use a different site, or move our date in the other direction, or even change to a different theme, in theory. If we were in a jam about the date or site, then ok, of course. But I'm not sure we're in a jam yet.
Just my idle thoughts on the topic.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Coronation
Just took a look at the Coronation site. The event is taking place on April 28, 2007, and hosted by Roaring Wastes and Northwoods. I think this is very nearly a model site - I found all my questions quickly answered. I'm excited about both the unique (in my experience) noon feast and the rules for the bear-pit tourney, which incentivizes period display and armor rather than demanding them. Excellent idea in my opinion. I think I can meet all or virtually all of the rules, by then, too.
Clancy Day and Canadian Trips
Over on the Stormvale list, we're discussing Clancy Day and trips to Canada. Over the years, I have noticed there is perhaps a little less interaction between the SCA in Canada and the US than there used to be. When Ealdormere was part of the Middle Kingdom (indeed, at one time part of Pentamere), we used to head over pretty regularly. Even after the separation, it was no big deal to hop over the Blue Water Bridge into Sarnia for an event or a practice. Since 9/11 and the possibility of long lines and more intrusive checks at the border, there has perhaps been a little less contact.
Clancy Day is an event of very long standing held by the Shire of Starleaf Gate in Windsor. Starleaf Gate is the only Ontario group not to go with Ealdormere. Windsor is of course much closer to Roaring Wastes and Detroit than to the Ealdormere population center around Toronto. I don't know whether the Starleaf Gate crew feels a bit isolated since 9/11 or not - I actually haven't been to a Canadian event since the late 1990s. Melisande and I went quite frequently in those days and made good friends; our apartment hosted parties of event-goers from Toronto on a regular basis in return.
We never had any trouble going back and forth over the border. The only incident was one time, the Canadian border guard asked whether we had any weapons, and to my flabbergasted surprise, Melisande innocently volunteered the fact that she was carrying mace in her purse. Mace is illegal in Canada - it had never occurred to me that she might not have realized that. There was a brief delay at that point... but actually they didn't give us a hard time, just made us go back over the border and get rid of the mace and come back.
No passports are required yet unless you're flying, but I've been planning to get passports for us soon anyway. (Not before Clancy Day, obviously.) Strange that I've never had one, but I've never needed one, having travelled only in North and Central America. But we want to go to England in the forseeable future, Canada will be an issue sooner or later, and passports make remarkably good ID no matter where you are.
Not sure about Clancy Day. Definitely going to Coronation at the end of April.
Clancy Day is an event of very long standing held by the Shire of Starleaf Gate in Windsor. Starleaf Gate is the only Ontario group not to go with Ealdormere. Windsor is of course much closer to Roaring Wastes and Detroit than to the Ealdormere population center around Toronto. I don't know whether the Starleaf Gate crew feels a bit isolated since 9/11 or not - I actually haven't been to a Canadian event since the late 1990s. Melisande and I went quite frequently in those days and made good friends; our apartment hosted parties of event-goers from Toronto on a regular basis in return.
We never had any trouble going back and forth over the border. The only incident was one time, the Canadian border guard asked whether we had any weapons, and to my flabbergasted surprise, Melisande innocently volunteered the fact that she was carrying mace in her purse. Mace is illegal in Canada - it had never occurred to me that she might not have realized that. There was a brief delay at that point... but actually they didn't give us a hard time, just made us go back over the border and get rid of the mace and come back.
No passports are required yet unless you're flying, but I've been planning to get passports for us soon anyway. (Not before Clancy Day, obviously.) Strange that I've never had one, but I've never needed one, having travelled only in North and Central America. But we want to go to England in the forseeable future, Canada will be an issue sooner or later, and passports make remarkably good ID no matter where you are.
Not sure about Clancy Day. Definitely going to Coronation at the end of April.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
History Posters
Nothing quite medieval, but perhaps some of my readers might find something amusing.
March Stormvale Revel
Another delightful afternoon and evening at Lady Terryl's for the March revel! We met on Sunday afternoon, the 18th. We counted 30+ attendees. The food was wonderful - I saw (and in some cases sampled) sauerkraut and sausage, chicken, three kinds of cheese tarts, scotch eggs, meatballs and lots of other delightful things.
There were four heavy combatants and a couple of folks interested. I missed the youth combat, but I gather there was some. No fencing, as far as I know. Where are all the fencers?!
I was the recipient of a couple of gifts. Carrie gave me a splendid covered dish for feast gear. She told me she was sufficiently impressed with my feast gear talk, which featured several modern pieces that sufficiently resemble period items, to seek out her own. Having done so, she was kind enough to give me one, too! Thank you, Carrie! (She also gave me tips about how to find them on eBay - I'd had no luck at that for years.)
Later, THL Skalla-Geirmundr gave me two magnificent painted banner stands for Melisande (purple and black) and me (blue and white). Thank you, Geirmundr!
It wasn't even my birthday!
There were four heavy combatants and a couple of folks interested. I missed the youth combat, but I gather there was some. No fencing, as far as I know. Where are all the fencers?!
I was the recipient of a couple of gifts. Carrie gave me a splendid covered dish for feast gear. She told me she was sufficiently impressed with my feast gear talk, which featured several modern pieces that sufficiently resemble period items, to seek out her own. Having done so, she was kind enough to give me one, too! Thank you, Carrie! (She also gave me tips about how to find them on eBay - I'd had no luck at that for years.)
Later, THL Skalla-Geirmundr gave me two magnificent painted banner stands for Melisande (purple and black) and me (blue and white). Thank you, Geirmundr!
It wasn't even my birthday!
Saturday, March 03, 2007
The Pale Youth Issue
The March issue of The Pale came today, and it is loaded with useful information and articles on youth activities. This seems particularly interesting in Stormvale these days. For anyone who isn't subscribed and would like to read the articles, please let me know at balian@chartermi.net.
Good News for Pennsic
SCAToday reports that the Kingdom of Atlantia will be allied with the Middle this summer. Former MidRealm monarch Valharic is Atlantia's prince and will be king at Pennsic. Good news.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Question
Is it time for Stormvale to rethink its habit of having most meetings in private homes?
We actually almost always met in public locations throughout most of our history. Revels were sometimes in private homes, but we were fortunate in being able to obtain meeting space at the University of Michigan-Flint, Red Dragon Hobby Shop, Mundy Presbyterian Church, Flint Public Library, Mott Middle College, and the Grand Blanc MacFarlane Library. We also met for a long time at the Black Dragon Farm location, although that was also a private home.
So our recent rotation of populace meetings and revels in private homes, with the occasional revel in semi-public rooms at the Collingwood Village Apartments in Davison, is a relative change. It doesn't seem to be a problem, exactly. For a long time, the SCA generally discouraged meetings of this kind simply because experience tends to show that it discourages some new members, who are more shy about introducing themselves in someone's home rather than a public place. I haven't heard complaints about this, but maybe we wouldn't.
A more immediate question is whether we may have literally outgrown the practice. There were a reported 17 attendees at the February 17 populace meeting, and about 33 people at the February 19 revel. There were 17 at a recent Artisan's Guild meeting, too. I haven't heard about attendance at either the February 24 meeting or tonight's March 2 meeting, but I wonder whether we may not have reached the point where we will effectively cap our membership at the number that will rationally fit in one of our homes!
I'm not suggesting a solution, just asking the question.
We actually almost always met in public locations throughout most of our history. Revels were sometimes in private homes, but we were fortunate in being able to obtain meeting space at the University of Michigan-Flint, Red Dragon Hobby Shop, Mundy Presbyterian Church, Flint Public Library, Mott Middle College, and the Grand Blanc MacFarlane Library. We also met for a long time at the Black Dragon Farm location, although that was also a private home.
So our recent rotation of populace meetings and revels in private homes, with the occasional revel in semi-public rooms at the Collingwood Village Apartments in Davison, is a relative change. It doesn't seem to be a problem, exactly. For a long time, the SCA generally discouraged meetings of this kind simply because experience tends to show that it discourages some new members, who are more shy about introducing themselves in someone's home rather than a public place. I haven't heard complaints about this, but maybe we wouldn't.
A more immediate question is whether we may have literally outgrown the practice. There were a reported 17 attendees at the February 17 populace meeting, and about 33 people at the February 19 revel. There were 17 at a recent Artisan's Guild meeting, too. I haven't heard about attendance at either the February 24 meeting or tonight's March 2 meeting, but I wonder whether we may not have reached the point where we will effectively cap our membership at the number that will rationally fit in one of our homes!
I'm not suggesting a solution, just asking the question.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Stormvale's February Revel
The revel last Sunday was quite a success. It was at the home of Lord Gerard, and it nearly overwhelmed the available space. It was so crowded that when it was time to leave, I did something I never do and went home in garb just to avoid staying in everyone's way while I gathered my kit and occupied a bathroom. There were 33 by my count.
There were some little problems to solve. We need to take care about providing suitable activities for youngsters. And we might be outgrowing our custom of using private homes for revels if attendance is going to stay up near the levels we used to attain back in the early 90s.
My dish was Bourbelier de Sanglier (Loin of Pork in Boars Tail Sauce). I've done it before, many times, but there are always refinements. This was one of my finer efforts, if I may say so. I basted the roast, which I usually don't bother with, and the sauce turned out better than usual. A highly satisfactory dish.
There were some little problems to solve. We need to take care about providing suitable activities for youngsters. And we might be outgrowing our custom of using private homes for revels if attendance is going to stay up near the levels we used to attain back in the early 90s.
My dish was Bourbelier de Sanglier (Loin of Pork in Boars Tail Sauce). I've done it before, many times, but there are always refinements. This was one of my finer efforts, if I may say so. I basted the roast, which I usually don't bother with, and the sauce turned out better than usual. A highly satisfactory dish.
Cooking Ambitions
Well, I've cooked a dozen feasts or so for Stormvale, plus a good many dishes for revels and what not. I could cook many more dishes without getting tired of the cuisine, but it occurs to me to consider what I actually need to work on.
First, I've never baked bread. Never even tried it. The topic is a complete mystery to me.
Second, candy-making. While I've cooked many period desserts of the pudding or tart variety, candy-making (other than chocolate truffles, which are both easy and entirely non-period) has always been a disaster. I've literally never successfully cooked a piece of medieval candy. Marzipan was a failure, orengat produced nothing edible, and sugar-coated spices... well, left me wondering about the relationship of any of the recipes to the physical world I live in. Even springerle cookies completely defeated me the first time I tried them. I may have a couple of problems here - I tend to cook recklessly, adding or subtracting here and there, using eye and judgment rather than strict adherance to recipe or temperature. But this is, I gather, not the attitude to take about candy. Temperatures need more exactness, I am told, time and quantities are not to be casually tampered with. Well, ok.
Third, pie dough. Ok, I'm impatient about pie dough. When you can buy it cheaply and get good quality (and note that you generally can't do that with the average medieval ingredient of any kind), it's hard to resist just moving on to something less annoying. The damn stuff just doesn't want to roll out the way I want it to. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.
So, three additional skills to master.
First, I've never baked bread. Never even tried it. The topic is a complete mystery to me.
Second, candy-making. While I've cooked many period desserts of the pudding or tart variety, candy-making (other than chocolate truffles, which are both easy and entirely non-period) has always been a disaster. I've literally never successfully cooked a piece of medieval candy. Marzipan was a failure, orengat produced nothing edible, and sugar-coated spices... well, left me wondering about the relationship of any of the recipes to the physical world I live in. Even springerle cookies completely defeated me the first time I tried them. I may have a couple of problems here - I tend to cook recklessly, adding or subtracting here and there, using eye and judgment rather than strict adherance to recipe or temperature. But this is, I gather, not the attitude to take about candy. Temperatures need more exactness, I am told, time and quantities are not to be casually tampered with. Well, ok.
Third, pie dough. Ok, I'm impatient about pie dough. When you can buy it cheaply and get good quality (and note that you generally can't do that with the average medieval ingredient of any kind), it's hard to resist just moving on to something less annoying. The damn stuff just doesn't want to roll out the way I want it to. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.
So, three additional skills to master.
Taste of Diversity
For the Taste of Diversity function, I made Sir Kenelm Digby's Excellent Cake from Cariadoc's Miscellany, Fruit Rissoles from Early French Cooking and Tarts de Bry from Pleyn Delit.
The cake is an old favorite that I have cooked many times. This time I cut the currants in half (Cariadoc's, or perhaps Digby's, recipe is so absurdly currant heavy that the currants actually diminish the physical integrity of the cake) so that seemed to work well. The icing was not a huge success - it wanted to stay runny instead of setting up, but that was not a major problem, just made the top of the bar cookies sticky.
Next were the brie tarts. I bought a tartlette pan for this (I've been meaning to buy one), and made pie dough from scratch. Jesus, what a pain. The filling came out salty, and too eggy to suit me. Next time less egg and more brie, I think. Either that or sugar them. Still, they looked and smelled good.
The fruit rissoles were successful. I cut the sugar in half (Early French Cooking's quantities need to be evaluated carefully in my experience) and added dates. I'm not a tremendous hand at pie dough, so after the experience making the tart dough, I ran to the store and bought rolled pie dough. Cheating, but frankly, I don't care that much. I baked them instead of frying, as usual, and brushed them with egg yolk.
Unfortunately, after dropping the food off at the function (where everyone was appeciative), I had to dash off on another errand, so I don't know what the reaction was, nor did I have a chance to see what else was being provided. Hopefully I'll get some feedback soon.
The cake is an old favorite that I have cooked many times. This time I cut the currants in half (Cariadoc's, or perhaps Digby's, recipe is so absurdly currant heavy that the currants actually diminish the physical integrity of the cake) so that seemed to work well. The icing was not a huge success - it wanted to stay runny instead of setting up, but that was not a major problem, just made the top of the bar cookies sticky.
Next were the brie tarts. I bought a tartlette pan for this (I've been meaning to buy one), and made pie dough from scratch. Jesus, what a pain. The filling came out salty, and too eggy to suit me. Next time less egg and more brie, I think. Either that or sugar them. Still, they looked and smelled good.
The fruit rissoles were successful. I cut the sugar in half (Early French Cooking's quantities need to be evaluated carefully in my experience) and added dates. I'm not a tremendous hand at pie dough, so after the experience making the tart dough, I ran to the store and bought rolled pie dough. Cheating, but frankly, I don't care that much. I baked them instead of frying, as usual, and brushed them with egg yolk.
Unfortunately, after dropping the food off at the function (where everyone was appeciative), I had to dash off on another errand, so I don't know what the reaction was, nor did I have a chance to see what else was being provided. Hopefully I'll get some feedback soon.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Unusual Venue
They are having a cooking diversity day at my college, which I think is a pretty nifty idea, and invited the faculty to contribute dishes. I figured you couldn't get more diverse than medieval English! Not sure what I'm cooking yet, but some sort of finger food - perhaps small fruit pies of some sort.
No Val Day for Me!
The week ended with many meetings and a lot of work. In particular, a project that didn't have a deadline (and consequently wasn't on the front burner), suddenly acquired a deadline - now - so I won't be going to Val Day after all. Ides of March looks like the next event opportunity, realistically.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Medieval Cooking Sites
Skalla Geirmundr inquires about useful medieval cooking or food sites, particularly regarding food cooked in the field or on campaign. Most medieval cookbooks, of course, refer to dishes for aristocrats, but a good start would be a SCA publication called Traveling Dysshes, which discusses medieval cooking from that very perspective.
Some other favorite sites:
Gode Cookery
Medieval and Renaissance Food Hompage
Cariadoc's Miscellany
Marijah's Bibliography
Cindy Renfrow
To tell the truth, I've never explored the web for medieval cooking sites very carefully. I've got a fairly substantial collection of cookbooks and books on medieval cooking in general, and haven't come anywhere close to exhausting the possibilities there.
Some other favorite sites:
Gode Cookery
Medieval and Renaissance Food Hompage
Cariadoc's Miscellany
Marijah's Bibliography
Cindy Renfrow
To tell the truth, I've never explored the web for medieval cooking sites very carefully. I've got a fairly substantial collection of cookbooks and books on medieval cooking in general, and haven't come anywhere close to exhausting the possibilities there.
Choices on Feast Planning
There are several important decisions which have to be made about a feast early on.
How many to feed? A typical small event in Pentamere may expect 40-50 would-be diners under normal circumstances. A larger event may expect 50-100. Stormvale should consider 100 or more only if hosting a kingdom event such as crown or coronation.
Budget? Most of our feasts are budgeted based on a feast fee of $8-$10. For example, selling 40 $10 tickets will yield a gross revenue of $400. This gives us an indication of a maximum expediture for the feast. The head cook should remember that he should shoot for spending only 50-75% of this, in order to ensure that we will at least break even if we do not sell out, as not infrequently happens. There are, of course, other considerations. For a special feast, we may want to pull out the stops and spend the expected revenues, or even lose money. This should only be done with the full groups approval.
Menu? There are several possibilities for a menu. Stormvale prides itself on serving period feasts - even if the recipes are not strictly drawn from period cookbooks, we like for all our food to be composed of period ingredients. We have a lengthy list of favorite recipes from past feasts to draw on, and several members have extensive collections of recipes and books on medieval cooking. A theme is also a possibility - all Italian recipes, or Norse, or Middle Eastern. Remember to avoid New World foods - no potatoes, no tomatoes, no chocolate, no corn. If you want to be picky (and some of us do), you could be still more careful about food choice - iceberg lettuce and orange carrots would be out, for example.
Courses? You may have heard them called removes, but course is the medieval word. Most SCA feasts consist of from two to five courses. Often the first course are appetizers and the last are sweet dishes. For the main courses in between, it may be wise to structure them like mini-meals. For example, you might have one meat, fish or fowl type main dish in each course, along with a vegetarian dish, and something with some color, like greens or other vegetables, and no more than one exotic dish per course. It is probably wise to have no more than one salad, one soup and one savory pie per feast, though of course there are exceptions. But the idea is to have some balance and some sense of timing. You may be tempted to interject sweet dishes during the feast, because they did in the Middle Ages, but it is probably not a good idea - modern American diners have got it in their bones that they aren’t supposed to have sweets until the end of the meal, and they will feel full if they get the cookies or cakes too soon.
Vegetarians? A certain proportion of diners at any SCA feast will either need or prefer vegetarian dishes. It is wise to prepare at least one dish per course without meat products. Trying to be more accomodating than this is a chancy business. Many vegetarians are merely trying to avoid red meat, but others won’t eat fish or fowl, either, and some won’t eat any animal products, which removes eggs and dairy products from the equation. A casual glance at any collection of real medieval recipes would reveal that a meatless dish is easy to prepare, since the medievals had many holy days with restricted diets, but doing without eggs and dairy products is far more difficult, and it should be remembered that these ingredients enable the cook to prepare rich foods at low cost. Also, if you get carried away with vegetarian dishes, you will disappoint the many diners who expect meat as a necessary part of any meal.
Special Requests? It is customary to ask people with special dietary needs to contact the head cook, but it may not really be very wise to invite this. If you do, you may find yourself trying to prepare not one coherent meal but to be prepared to be a short order cook. You should try to accomodate people with especially detailed needs or problems - you want them to enjoy the feast, too. But you should face the fact that you can’t actually please everyone, and you’re not running a professional restaurant. If you can plan ahead to leave the cheese out of one pie, for example, great, but remember that you’re adding to your organizational burden and you’ll have to make sure that the one special pie gets to the special diner - and what if they don’t show up after all? You do this sort of thing at your extreme peril, and it may be better to simply anticipate the vegetarians and people with delicate stomachs and provide a suitable variety of dishes to begin with and not yield to complications.
Cholesterol and etc.? If you prepare a rich feast with lots of red meat, elaborate sauces and vast quantities of eggs and cream, some people will inevitably complain that it isn’t healthy. Remind such persons that you are preparing a special meal for a festive occasion, not trying to model a healthy diet for daily use. If they are really that worried, they can eat small quantities. If real butter, saturated fats or red meat must never touch their lips, they’re in the wrong place and they should go out for dinner.
Exotic Dishes? How adventurous should you be when planning the feast? Do visions of oxtail soup, oysters on the half--shell and grilled eel dance in your head? It is ok to try a few exotic foods, but you should space them out and stage them early in the feast when the diners are still hungry enough to eat nearly anything. If something unusual is in a main dish, you may want to consider serving it in small quantities. In particular, greens and seafood should be served with some care as to quantity. (Of course, you run the risk of getting just the crowd that will unexpectedly devour your steamed asparagus and fish with lemon sauce, and not have enough.) The fact is, SCA members are modern Americans, and are pretty picky about food. The same people who could name the parts of every suit of armor in Old French or are eager to wear only the latest Milanese fashions of 1470 are quite capable of becoming as stubborn as a child who will only eat hot dogs and macaroni and cheese when they get to the feast table. Few SCA members transfer their enthusiasm for the Middle Ages to food, so don’t shock their sensibilities. Feed them roast meats and fowls, and salads and soups and stews, with sweet dishes toward the end, and slip in a few exotic items here and there. You’re feeding people who may have trouble dealing with something as simple as the taste of ground meat and fruit in the same dish, a staple of many medieval recipes. Take it easy on them - they had a long day on the list field or need some carbohydrates before they go dancing, and they’re only going to be just so adventurous. They’ll probably enjoy and appreciate the one odd thing you do in each remove, but if it’s all weird, you’re going to bomb. We served a fine cooked pig’s head, complete with snout and ears, to an astonished tournament winner one time, which was funny, but you had to feel for the young lady who turned green when it was put down next to her in a crowded feasthall. On the other hand, don’t cater to the people who would be happy with pizza in the feasthall - this is a medieval feast, not just an everyday meal. Don’t be afraid to cook medieval dishes - just choose at least a few that will look, smell and taste sufficiently like modern food that people will eat it. This is supposed to be a meal, not an arts and sciences exercise.
Beverages? Water and lemonade are conventionally served at all our feasts. Apple cider and other fruit juices are also possibilities, but cost becomes an issue. Most people will bring their own wine, beer, cola or other tipple of their choice, so water and lemonade will usually do the job. We could consider serving alcohol if we do not charge directly for it, do not spend shire monies directly on it, and are careful to card. We have done this for the high table on at least one occasion.
Service? Most of our feasts are served on platters directly to tables seating either six or eight. There are other possibilities. Smaller feasts in particular may be easy to serve buffet-style (which presents portion-control problems), or the feast could be served tavern fashion, with diners ordering from a menu or choosing dishes from different booths (this might be manpower-heavy.) Another option is the so-called Above/Below the Salt arrangement, in which an elaborate feast is prepared at a higher price for some diners and simpler fare for a lower price for others. Stormvale has not had very great success with this idea, since most people who bother with the feast at all often prefer to pay more for the more elaborate feast. The idea has been used with success by other groups, however.
How many to feed? A typical small event in Pentamere may expect 40-50 would-be diners under normal circumstances. A larger event may expect 50-100. Stormvale should consider 100 or more only if hosting a kingdom event such as crown or coronation.
Budget? Most of our feasts are budgeted based on a feast fee of $8-$10. For example, selling 40 $10 tickets will yield a gross revenue of $400. This gives us an indication of a maximum expediture for the feast. The head cook should remember that he should shoot for spending only 50-75% of this, in order to ensure that we will at least break even if we do not sell out, as not infrequently happens. There are, of course, other considerations. For a special feast, we may want to pull out the stops and spend the expected revenues, or even lose money. This should only be done with the full groups approval.
Menu? There are several possibilities for a menu. Stormvale prides itself on serving period feasts - even if the recipes are not strictly drawn from period cookbooks, we like for all our food to be composed of period ingredients. We have a lengthy list of favorite recipes from past feasts to draw on, and several members have extensive collections of recipes and books on medieval cooking. A theme is also a possibility - all Italian recipes, or Norse, or Middle Eastern. Remember to avoid New World foods - no potatoes, no tomatoes, no chocolate, no corn. If you want to be picky (and some of us do), you could be still more careful about food choice - iceberg lettuce and orange carrots would be out, for example.
Courses? You may have heard them called removes, but course is the medieval word. Most SCA feasts consist of from two to five courses. Often the first course are appetizers and the last are sweet dishes. For the main courses in between, it may be wise to structure them like mini-meals. For example, you might have one meat, fish or fowl type main dish in each course, along with a vegetarian dish, and something with some color, like greens or other vegetables, and no more than one exotic dish per course. It is probably wise to have no more than one salad, one soup and one savory pie per feast, though of course there are exceptions. But the idea is to have some balance and some sense of timing. You may be tempted to interject sweet dishes during the feast, because they did in the Middle Ages, but it is probably not a good idea - modern American diners have got it in their bones that they aren’t supposed to have sweets until the end of the meal, and they will feel full if they get the cookies or cakes too soon.
Vegetarians? A certain proportion of diners at any SCA feast will either need or prefer vegetarian dishes. It is wise to prepare at least one dish per course without meat products. Trying to be more accomodating than this is a chancy business. Many vegetarians are merely trying to avoid red meat, but others won’t eat fish or fowl, either, and some won’t eat any animal products, which removes eggs and dairy products from the equation. A casual glance at any collection of real medieval recipes would reveal that a meatless dish is easy to prepare, since the medievals had many holy days with restricted diets, but doing without eggs and dairy products is far more difficult, and it should be remembered that these ingredients enable the cook to prepare rich foods at low cost. Also, if you get carried away with vegetarian dishes, you will disappoint the many diners who expect meat as a necessary part of any meal.
Special Requests? It is customary to ask people with special dietary needs to contact the head cook, but it may not really be very wise to invite this. If you do, you may find yourself trying to prepare not one coherent meal but to be prepared to be a short order cook. You should try to accomodate people with especially detailed needs or problems - you want them to enjoy the feast, too. But you should face the fact that you can’t actually please everyone, and you’re not running a professional restaurant. If you can plan ahead to leave the cheese out of one pie, for example, great, but remember that you’re adding to your organizational burden and you’ll have to make sure that the one special pie gets to the special diner - and what if they don’t show up after all? You do this sort of thing at your extreme peril, and it may be better to simply anticipate the vegetarians and people with delicate stomachs and provide a suitable variety of dishes to begin with and not yield to complications.
Cholesterol and etc.? If you prepare a rich feast with lots of red meat, elaborate sauces and vast quantities of eggs and cream, some people will inevitably complain that it isn’t healthy. Remind such persons that you are preparing a special meal for a festive occasion, not trying to model a healthy diet for daily use. If they are really that worried, they can eat small quantities. If real butter, saturated fats or red meat must never touch their lips, they’re in the wrong place and they should go out for dinner.
Exotic Dishes? How adventurous should you be when planning the feast? Do visions of oxtail soup, oysters on the half--shell and grilled eel dance in your head? It is ok to try a few exotic foods, but you should space them out and stage them early in the feast when the diners are still hungry enough to eat nearly anything. If something unusual is in a main dish, you may want to consider serving it in small quantities. In particular, greens and seafood should be served with some care as to quantity. (Of course, you run the risk of getting just the crowd that will unexpectedly devour your steamed asparagus and fish with lemon sauce, and not have enough.) The fact is, SCA members are modern Americans, and are pretty picky about food. The same people who could name the parts of every suit of armor in Old French or are eager to wear only the latest Milanese fashions of 1470 are quite capable of becoming as stubborn as a child who will only eat hot dogs and macaroni and cheese when they get to the feast table. Few SCA members transfer their enthusiasm for the Middle Ages to food, so don’t shock their sensibilities. Feed them roast meats and fowls, and salads and soups and stews, with sweet dishes toward the end, and slip in a few exotic items here and there. You’re feeding people who may have trouble dealing with something as simple as the taste of ground meat and fruit in the same dish, a staple of many medieval recipes. Take it easy on them - they had a long day on the list field or need some carbohydrates before they go dancing, and they’re only going to be just so adventurous. They’ll probably enjoy and appreciate the one odd thing you do in each remove, but if it’s all weird, you’re going to bomb. We served a fine cooked pig’s head, complete with snout and ears, to an astonished tournament winner one time, which was funny, but you had to feel for the young lady who turned green when it was put down next to her in a crowded feasthall. On the other hand, don’t cater to the people who would be happy with pizza in the feasthall - this is a medieval feast, not just an everyday meal. Don’t be afraid to cook medieval dishes - just choose at least a few that will look, smell and taste sufficiently like modern food that people will eat it. This is supposed to be a meal, not an arts and sciences exercise.
Beverages? Water and lemonade are conventionally served at all our feasts. Apple cider and other fruit juices are also possibilities, but cost becomes an issue. Most people will bring their own wine, beer, cola or other tipple of their choice, so water and lemonade will usually do the job. We could consider serving alcohol if we do not charge directly for it, do not spend shire monies directly on it, and are careful to card. We have done this for the high table on at least one occasion.
Service? Most of our feasts are served on platters directly to tables seating either six or eight. There are other possibilities. Smaller feasts in particular may be easy to serve buffet-style (which presents portion-control problems), or the feast could be served tavern fashion, with diners ordering from a menu or choosing dishes from different booths (this might be manpower-heavy.) Another option is the so-called Above/Below the Salt arrangement, in which an elaborate feast is prepared at a higher price for some diners and simpler fare for a lower price for others. Stormvale has not had very great success with this idea, since most people who bother with the feast at all often prefer to pay more for the more elaborate feast. The idea has been used with success by other groups, however.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Armor Project So Far
My plan to completely refurbish my harness and kit is in the early stages.
1. The cuisses. Haven't been able to get back to the repair project again. However, bought a new set of leg harness from James River Armoury. Within two weeks, that problem should be completely solved. I will still finish repairing the old set, which will be used for loaners.
2. My half gauntlets are a disgrace. Battered, rusty and the straps are failing. I resorted to the brute force method here, too. Bought new ones from Sussen Armory.
3. Helm, full gauntlets, leather vambraces and segmented breastplate are all fine. I even have an old spare breastplate for practice. Some polishing and general upkeep will be sufficient here, although a new mail aventail is needed, and I will at some point have to do something about a more period padding system for the helm, which deserves better than the foam lining it has.
4. New dressy arm and leg harness have been on order for some time from a custom armorer. Hope to hear about that soon. These will get worn for tournaments only.
That's it so far. I need new fighting surcoats or tabards, the swords need retaping, etc., and I mentioned the arming doublet problem which will have to get prioritized. When will I fight at a tournament again? I'm thinking the Ides of March event in Iron Oak in March, considering the calendar, the list of things I need to do and the degree with which work and other concerns tend to delay matters.
1. The cuisses. Haven't been able to get back to the repair project again. However, bought a new set of leg harness from James River Armoury. Within two weeks, that problem should be completely solved. I will still finish repairing the old set, which will be used for loaners.
2. My half gauntlets are a disgrace. Battered, rusty and the straps are failing. I resorted to the brute force method here, too. Bought new ones from Sussen Armory.
3. Helm, full gauntlets, leather vambraces and segmented breastplate are all fine. I even have an old spare breastplate for practice. Some polishing and general upkeep will be sufficient here, although a new mail aventail is needed, and I will at some point have to do something about a more period padding system for the helm, which deserves better than the foam lining it has.
4. New dressy arm and leg harness have been on order for some time from a custom armorer. Hope to hear about that soon. These will get worn for tournaments only.
That's it so far. I need new fighting surcoats or tabards, the swords need retaping, etc., and I mentioned the arming doublet problem which will have to get prioritized. When will I fight at a tournament again? I'm thinking the Ides of March event in Iron Oak in March, considering the calendar, the list of things I need to do and the degree with which work and other concerns tend to delay matters.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Arms and the Heraldry Geek
I've been moving the furniture around a bit at Clarion Hall... the blog, not the bricks and mortar location. And it occurs to me that I need to do something about the little picture of me in armor. That is a bright new tabard circa 1997 with my arms of the time, and it is no longer accurate.
I'm on my third set of arms at this point. I began in the mid 80s with a design I felt was handsome. It was, let's see now, ahem, Azure, a tyger statant between in chief an arch of five estoiles and in base a clarion argent. Pretty, but you can tell from the lengthy blazon, not the epitome of medieval elegance. Too many charges, and the arch of charges isn't medieval. It would never be registered today, as the standard of scholarship in the SCA College of Arms is much higher. Also, the tyger is the badge of the East Kingdom, and therefore inconvenient.
So I wanted something simpler, or at any rate more appealing. By the early 1990s, I was an active herald, and knew a lot more. So I put together some nicer designs and took them to a couple of events at which I buttonholed every senior herald I could find. I just showed them the designs and asked them which they preferred, thinking I would rely on their collective taste. Without much fuss, they all preferred Per pale argent and azure, three clarions counterchanged. So that's the one I registered. I was very pleased with it; it would have not have looked out of place on a battlefield circa, oh, say 1350. That was what I was looking for - elegant and authentic.
Funny story: what I really wanted was the much simpler Azure, three clarions argent. Ok, you perhaps have to be a herald to understand why a smile comes to my face merely to type a four word blazon. That's a design that wouldn't have looked out of place just as early as they began to use clarions in heraldry, probably about 1285 (according to Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme and Akagawa Yoshio, the authors of the fine SCA heraldry publication A Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry, and I imagine they're right). But somebody named Robin Clarian had Per chevron azure and argent, three clarions counterchanged, and I thought, foolish young lad, that it conflicted with the simpler design. But a couple of years ago, I decided to try to find Robin Clarian and see if he would grant me permission to conflict with his elegant arms (which are actually one of the examples in the Pic Dic, and well they might be.) But when I put the word out, a helpful herald in the CoA pointed out to me that I had failed to understand a subtlety about the rule of conflict. Suffice to say that there actually were two clear differences between Robin Clarian and my preferred design. Oh joy!
So I registered Azure, three clarions argent, somewhat gleefully.
People have occasionally asked me why I picked clarions. Do they have some special meaning for me? Am I a musician? No. No damn reason at all, except they date from 1285 and are distinctive. And I like the sound of the word: clarion. They were also called claricords and claricymbals. And clarions are suggestive, to me, anyway, of chivalry and horns blowing in a stricken field.
I'm on my third set of arms at this point. I began in the mid 80s with a design I felt was handsome. It was, let's see now, ahem, Azure, a tyger statant between in chief an arch of five estoiles and in base a clarion argent. Pretty, but you can tell from the lengthy blazon, not the epitome of medieval elegance. Too many charges, and the arch of charges isn't medieval. It would never be registered today, as the standard of scholarship in the SCA College of Arms is much higher. Also, the tyger is the badge of the East Kingdom, and therefore inconvenient.
So I wanted something simpler, or at any rate more appealing. By the early 1990s, I was an active herald, and knew a lot more. So I put together some nicer designs and took them to a couple of events at which I buttonholed every senior herald I could find. I just showed them the designs and asked them which they preferred, thinking I would rely on their collective taste. Without much fuss, they all preferred Per pale argent and azure, three clarions counterchanged. So that's the one I registered. I was very pleased with it; it would have not have looked out of place on a battlefield circa, oh, say 1350. That was what I was looking for - elegant and authentic.
Funny story: what I really wanted was the much simpler Azure, three clarions argent. Ok, you perhaps have to be a herald to understand why a smile comes to my face merely to type a four word blazon. That's a design that wouldn't have looked out of place just as early as they began to use clarions in heraldry, probably about 1285 (according to Bruce Draconarius of Mistholme and Akagawa Yoshio, the authors of the fine SCA heraldry publication A Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry, and I imagine they're right). But somebody named Robin Clarian had Per chevron azure and argent, three clarions counterchanged, and I thought, foolish young lad, that it conflicted with the simpler design. But a couple of years ago, I decided to try to find Robin Clarian and see if he would grant me permission to conflict with his elegant arms (which are actually one of the examples in the Pic Dic, and well they might be.) But when I put the word out, a helpful herald in the CoA pointed out to me that I had failed to understand a subtlety about the rule of conflict. Suffice to say that there actually were two clear differences between Robin Clarian and my preferred design. Oh joy!
So I registered Azure, three clarions argent, somewhat gleefully.
People have occasionally asked me why I picked clarions. Do they have some special meaning for me? Am I a musician? No. No damn reason at all, except they date from 1285 and are distinctive. And I like the sound of the word: clarion. They were also called claricords and claricymbals. And clarions are suggestive, to me, anyway, of chivalry and horns blowing in a stricken field.
Arming Doublet Mishap
I mentioned below that I had received a beautiful blue gambeson or arming doublet from Revival Clothing, but that it was too small. Yesterday, I spoke to the nice lady at Revival about exchanging the item for a medium. Unfortunately, they may not have the blue medium for many weeks, perhaps as long as late summer. This is dismaying news. Red or natural are available, but... it must be blue.
So I am sending it back, and will wait patiently. In the meantime, because my old arming doublet is in sad shape, I will have to make a new one. What the heck, maybe I'll make it out of some absurd and costly fabric and hope it holds up until the blue one comes. The problem is, I can't sew a lick and Melisande has tendonitis. So we will see if I can make it while she supervises.
So I am sending it back, and will wait patiently. In the meantime, because my old arming doublet is in sad shape, I will have to make a new one. What the heck, maybe I'll make it out of some absurd and costly fabric and hope it holds up until the blue one comes. The problem is, I can't sew a lick and Melisande has tendonitis. So we will see if I can make it while she supervises.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
What I'm Reading III
Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, edited by Peter Coss and Maurice Keen. This is an academic collection of articles on the topic. I've actually read it before, or most of it, but I'm particularly enjoying "Knighthood, Heraldry and Social Exclusion in Edwardian England" by Peter Coss (that's the first three Edwards, not Edward VI, by the way) and "Heraldry in Medieval England: Symbols of Politics and Progaganda" by Adrian Ailes.
I just finished re-reading Living and Dining in Medieval Paris: The Household of a Fourteenth Century Knight by Nicole Crossley-Holland. So useful and entertaining I decided at last to order my own copy and to stop monopolizing the MSU library copy.
I just finished re-reading Living and Dining in Medieval Paris: The Household of a Fourteenth Century Knight by Nicole Crossley-Holland. So useful and entertaining I decided at last to order my own copy and to stop monopolizing the MSU library copy.
More Arts
Wow! The second session of the Stormvale Artisan's Guild drew 17 attendees! I gather there was a great deal of sawdust as Geirmundr led everyone in making medieval boxes and chests.
I had a panel discussion on regional cooperation to attend. I was going to blow it off, as originally I was supposed to give a talk on medieval tableware before the box session, but one of my colleagues reminded me that some of my suggestions and interests guided the selection of topics and speakers, and I felt I ought to attend. (In my non-SCA life, I am, among other things, a fiend for land use topics and New Urbanism.) It went very well.
So, I'll give the feast gear talk next time, and I'll have to start on my chest project before our next meeting, too.
I had a panel discussion on regional cooperation to attend. I was going to blow it off, as originally I was supposed to give a talk on medieval tableware before the box session, but one of my colleagues reminded me that some of my suggestions and interests guided the selection of topics and speakers, and I felt I ought to attend. (In my non-SCA life, I am, among other things, a fiend for land use topics and New Urbanism.) It went very well.
So, I'll give the feast gear talk next time, and I'll have to start on my chest project before our next meeting, too.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Armor in Progress
My beautiful blue arming doublet from Revival Clothing came today. Unfortunately, as I had feared, I guessed wrong on the size. From their chart, I'm right on the cusp between the sizes, but it looked like small was a better bet. Nope. So there will be a further delay as I exchange it. But it is a thing of beauty, and I'm certain I'll be very pleased with the medium.
Tomorrow, more work on the aforementioned cuisses. I did buy new power shears - they were actually less expensive than replacing the blades for the old one that belongs to Stormvale.
Tomorrow, more work on the aforementioned cuisses. I did buy new power shears - they were actually less expensive than replacing the blades for the old one that belongs to Stormvale.
Progress of a Student of Arms IV (Or How Insults Can Be Compliments)
Well, my last fighting story was a bit of a downer. Here's a more cheerful one.
In the fall of 2001, we were having an armored combat practice at the Black Dragon Farm site, and I was having a rather prolonged sparring match with my friend Kveld-Ulfr Hersir inn Berserkr, of Stormvale, Iron Oak and more recently Northwoods. Kveld-Ulfr has a relaxed defensive style, very hard to get past, and an offensive style of waiting for his opponent to come into range and make a mistake. A good combination, and a bad match-up for me, with a relatively sophisticated offense but relatively poor defense. I had trouble getting past his guard, and staying in range to do so was likely to prove fatal. No point in dancing around with Kveld-Ulfr, my usual style, he would just stand and wait for me to come to him.
On this occasion, we stood in each other's range and whacked away somewhat cautiously, and a few other combatants were standing around watching. It was a highly satisfactory bout, one which went on for a long time and in which neither participant made any serious mistakes.
At last we paused, still in close range, and looked calmly at each other, for quite a long time (by combat standards, meaning it seemed like a long time to me but probably wasn't really all that long). We each waited for the other to do something. The circumstances called for something heroic. One of us, sooner or later, would snipe the other and hit the miniscule opening we might provide with a violent, perfectly delivered snap. That was how this bout ought to end.
Instead, and I don't know what possessed me, because I rarely use this particular tactic - it must have been the time I had to think it over - I brought the hilt of my sword smoothly before my face, let the tip fall so that it pointed toward him and gently poked him in the face. It was without a doubt the most elegant face thrust I've ever delivered, all so perfectly calm and relaxed that he never reacted.
Down went his sword and shield, and Kveld-Ulfr cried "Balian, you dick!" and began to laugh. Ever since, that has been my favorite insult. Kveld-Ulfr was always one for the bon mot.
In the fall of 2001, we were having an armored combat practice at the Black Dragon Farm site, and I was having a rather prolonged sparring match with my friend Kveld-Ulfr Hersir inn Berserkr, of Stormvale, Iron Oak and more recently Northwoods. Kveld-Ulfr has a relaxed defensive style, very hard to get past, and an offensive style of waiting for his opponent to come into range and make a mistake. A good combination, and a bad match-up for me, with a relatively sophisticated offense but relatively poor defense. I had trouble getting past his guard, and staying in range to do so was likely to prove fatal. No point in dancing around with Kveld-Ulfr, my usual style, he would just stand and wait for me to come to him.
On this occasion, we stood in each other's range and whacked away somewhat cautiously, and a few other combatants were standing around watching. It was a highly satisfactory bout, one which went on for a long time and in which neither participant made any serious mistakes.
At last we paused, still in close range, and looked calmly at each other, for quite a long time (by combat standards, meaning it seemed like a long time to me but probably wasn't really all that long). We each waited for the other to do something. The circumstances called for something heroic. One of us, sooner or later, would snipe the other and hit the miniscule opening we might provide with a violent, perfectly delivered snap. That was how this bout ought to end.
Instead, and I don't know what possessed me, because I rarely use this particular tactic - it must have been the time I had to think it over - I brought the hilt of my sword smoothly before my face, let the tip fall so that it pointed toward him and gently poked him in the face. It was without a doubt the most elegant face thrust I've ever delivered, all so perfectly calm and relaxed that he never reacted.
Down went his sword and shield, and Kveld-Ulfr cried "Balian, you dick!" and began to laugh. Ever since, that has been my favorite insult. Kveld-Ulfr was always one for the bon mot.
NPR Story on Medieval Book
NPR did a nice story last year about a medieval book which conceals a lost text by Archimedes under the prayers.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Progress of a Student of Arms III
I was just thinking about the worst mistake I ever made in armor.
It was in 1996, and I had fought at the Red Dragon Tournament in Tirnewydd the day before. I was fighting more than I had in years, and having a wonderful time. I got a little beaten up, mostly the result of an unexpected encounter with a couple of fighting styles I hadn't seen before, having mostly fought in Pentamere. In particular, I got hit several times in my left bicep, where I had no armor (I fought almost exclusively in the so-called Florentine style for about a decade, with reasonable success, and my usual sparring partners either didn't hunt for that opening out of habit, or they knew my style and used other methods to get me). I never got hit there, so I was pretty sore.
In Stormvale the next evening, I probably would not have armored up for the practice, but we had a new young man in armor for the first time, and I was the only one handy, so I got in harness to spar with him. I was making several kinds of mistake without realizing it.
First, I was tired and bruised, more so than I realized. Second, it was dark, and we were fighting under a floodlight. I have always had difficulty fighting in anything other than natural daylight or very well-lit halls, and I wear contact lenses. The only time I had ever fought without them (at that time) was a disaster, and I had sworn never to do that again. But I didn't realize how much trouble I was going to be in.
The young man turned out to be an athlete. He was strong and fast, and he grasped the essentials immediately. I literally could not stop him from hitting my left leg. I mean, literally. I had been fighting for 12 years by then and was no slouch, but this kid could hit my leg at will with perfectly timed blows and excellent force. I could not shift my shield fast enough to stop him. (And I probably had not picked up a shield in months.)
Now, here's the thing. Damn near everybody is faster than me. I'm not that athletic, have no more than ordinary upper body strength, if that. So why don't I always have this problem? Well, because in a normal fight with someone with experience, I can manuever, I can time my blows to take advantage of relative inexperience (that was the only way I could ever lay rattan on Aileran O Faelain, years later), I can charge and keep my opponent too busy to hit me back, I can feint, I can play head games (yeah, look at my nice armor and smooth body language - are you sure you know what you're getting into? God, I've won dozens of fights with that.) I'm pretty good at manipulating range, especially with two weapons, and if I'm not the best fighter around, I actually have rather a lot of "helmet time" and can almost always adjust if I have time and opportunity. Hell, I've adopted styles I've never used before but merely heard described out of desperation to cope with sparring partners who were giving me trouble.
But a newby? It wasn't fair to pull out the bag of tricks just to salve my ego, or even spare me a bruise or two. Our iron rule in Stormvale, and I am the one who literally wrote it down, is "don't break the newby!" So he was faster than me. Good! We would make him a really good fighter in short order. If he surpassed us all, then we would be proud!
No, we wouldn't. Because I couldn't adjust, and I couldn't see, and really ought not to have been in armor that night at all, I stood there and let him beat the hell out of me. And afterwards, he had beat up one the local pros, so to speak, and his head swelled a bit. At the next week's practice, full of himself, the other fighters in the shire had little choice but to do what I had chosen not to do that night: they showed him that there was a whole universe of things to do to him that did not involve standing in his range and suffering his admittedly great speed and strength. And he was surprised and discouraged and never came back.
I assign this as my fault. The moment I realized he could hit me at will, I should have started manuevering and ramped up the pressure on him, even if it was breaking my own rule. I could then have stopped and told him that he was doing great, and kept everything in its proper perspective. Instead, I stubbornly stuck to our usual plan, which was of course designed to help ordinary beginners by not throwing the kitchen sink at them, not a stud like this guy. And then he had a week to have the wrong impression instead of minutes, and had to have it beaten out of him.
That wasn't all. Within a day, my overdoing it that weekend had resulted in a dreadful case of tendonitis that kept me out of armor for over six months and pretty much ended my serious fighting career. It took codeine to keep me upright before long, and I never recovered that enthusiasm I had the day before in Tirnewydd.
I don't know what happened to the kid. Maybe he rediscovered the SCA and is a knight in some other kingdom. Or maybe he has forgotten all about a brief flirtation with our hobby. But I haven't forgotten him, or how badly I messed us both up.
It was in 1996, and I had fought at the Red Dragon Tournament in Tirnewydd the day before. I was fighting more than I had in years, and having a wonderful time. I got a little beaten up, mostly the result of an unexpected encounter with a couple of fighting styles I hadn't seen before, having mostly fought in Pentamere. In particular, I got hit several times in my left bicep, where I had no armor (I fought almost exclusively in the so-called Florentine style for about a decade, with reasonable success, and my usual sparring partners either didn't hunt for that opening out of habit, or they knew my style and used other methods to get me). I never got hit there, so I was pretty sore.
In Stormvale the next evening, I probably would not have armored up for the practice, but we had a new young man in armor for the first time, and I was the only one handy, so I got in harness to spar with him. I was making several kinds of mistake without realizing it.
First, I was tired and bruised, more so than I realized. Second, it was dark, and we were fighting under a floodlight. I have always had difficulty fighting in anything other than natural daylight or very well-lit halls, and I wear contact lenses. The only time I had ever fought without them (at that time) was a disaster, and I had sworn never to do that again. But I didn't realize how much trouble I was going to be in.
The young man turned out to be an athlete. He was strong and fast, and he grasped the essentials immediately. I literally could not stop him from hitting my left leg. I mean, literally. I had been fighting for 12 years by then and was no slouch, but this kid could hit my leg at will with perfectly timed blows and excellent force. I could not shift my shield fast enough to stop him. (And I probably had not picked up a shield in months.)
Now, here's the thing. Damn near everybody is faster than me. I'm not that athletic, have no more than ordinary upper body strength, if that. So why don't I always have this problem? Well, because in a normal fight with someone with experience, I can manuever, I can time my blows to take advantage of relative inexperience (that was the only way I could ever lay rattan on Aileran O Faelain, years later), I can charge and keep my opponent too busy to hit me back, I can feint, I can play head games (yeah, look at my nice armor and smooth body language - are you sure you know what you're getting into? God, I've won dozens of fights with that.) I'm pretty good at manipulating range, especially with two weapons, and if I'm not the best fighter around, I actually have rather a lot of "helmet time" and can almost always adjust if I have time and opportunity. Hell, I've adopted styles I've never used before but merely heard described out of desperation to cope with sparring partners who were giving me trouble.
But a newby? It wasn't fair to pull out the bag of tricks just to salve my ego, or even spare me a bruise or two. Our iron rule in Stormvale, and I am the one who literally wrote it down, is "don't break the newby!" So he was faster than me. Good! We would make him a really good fighter in short order. If he surpassed us all, then we would be proud!
No, we wouldn't. Because I couldn't adjust, and I couldn't see, and really ought not to have been in armor that night at all, I stood there and let him beat the hell out of me. And afterwards, he had beat up one the local pros, so to speak, and his head swelled a bit. At the next week's practice, full of himself, the other fighters in the shire had little choice but to do what I had chosen not to do that night: they showed him that there was a whole universe of things to do to him that did not involve standing in his range and suffering his admittedly great speed and strength. And he was surprised and discouraged and never came back.
I assign this as my fault. The moment I realized he could hit me at will, I should have started manuevering and ramped up the pressure on him, even if it was breaking my own rule. I could then have stopped and told him that he was doing great, and kept everything in its proper perspective. Instead, I stubbornly stuck to our usual plan, which was of course designed to help ordinary beginners by not throwing the kitchen sink at them, not a stud like this guy. And then he had a week to have the wrong impression instead of minutes, and had to have it beaten out of him.
That wasn't all. Within a day, my overdoing it that weekend had resulted in a dreadful case of tendonitis that kept me out of armor for over six months and pretty much ended my serious fighting career. It took codeine to keep me upright before long, and I never recovered that enthusiasm I had the day before in Tirnewydd.
I don't know what happened to the kid. Maybe he rediscovered the SCA and is a knight in some other kingdom. Or maybe he has forgotten all about a brief flirtation with our hobby. But I haven't forgotten him, or how badly I messed us both up.
Skalla's Steading
My brother-in-arms now has his own blog: Skalla's Steading. He just started, so check back every now and then. (By the way, this is the Geirmundr not infrequently mentioned below. He is the Honorable Lord Skalla-Geirmundr Ulfsson, CDH, APF, AoA. Everyone else calls him Skalla, and I have always called him Geirmundr.)
Armoring Concerns
Well, I got in armor for the first time in a while on Sunday, and while the fighting was fine (aside from conditioning issues, which are easy enough to correct), I was greatly dissatisfied with the state of my harness, which has become rusty, dented and ragged.
So I have begun to refit and rebuild. An immediate issue is getting my leg harness shaped up. There are three problems: they need urgently to be polished; the belt-based pointing won't do anymore, especially since I actually have a nice new pourpoint to attach them to; and the left cuisse is so battered that it is really rather unseemly. (Early in its life it did more duty as a loaner for newbies than I ought to have allowed for my primary gear.)
The cuisse was the first priority. Geirmundr helped me remove it; I flattened it out and used it for a pattern for a replacement piece. We immediately ran into problems about cutting out the replacement, but nothing we can't solve by Friday night, our probable next stab at at. I hope to have a new cuisse cut, polished, bent and attached by the end of the weekend. A trip to MidState Bolt for the right size of rivet is indicated tomorrow, along with an attempt to purchase a replacement set of shears for the shire's power shears. (Or judging by prices I'm seeing online, I may just buy a new set of shears...)
The second problem is the pointing arrangement. I plan to use the method described in Brian Price's Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction at p. 307. Geirmundr has done something like this and reports it works well.
The polishing, well, that's easy enough, if tedious.
Beyond that, of course, there remains much to do. My new arming doublet from Revival Clothing should be here by the end of the week (and I hope to God I ordered the right size). My helmet needs some short term adjustments and will need a lot of work later to substitute a period padding scheme. I need a new shield, need to retape all my swords, and my gauntlets are in a disgraceful condition.
With luck and effort, I hope to be in decent shape by the weekend of February 2-4, and back in the style I prefer to present by the end of February (see the picture above for what I looked like at the peak of my form). My new brass-trimmed arms and legs are supposed to be done soon, or so I hope, so that will be a major upgrade.
My other ambition is to effectively have a somewhat plainer rig for practice and save the nicer equipment for tournaments. Also, I will during February attempt to substitute proper kit down to the skin, including hosen, a medieval shirt and shoes, the whole bit.
Monday, January 22, 2007
January Revel Report
We had a good turnout at the revel, although many regulars were absent. New member Carrie brought her young sons – I may have lost track, but I think there were four or five, and some youth combat practice was done. We had surprise visitors at the practice, longtime member and former seneschal Lord Gavin and Sir Jocelyn le Jongleur. Gavin, Lord Torashi, Lord Geirmundr and I all donned armor and practiced a bit. Lady Terryl’s garage is as promised, highly suitable for single combat, with plenty of room for others to stand back and watch the fighting in reasonable safety.
In the evening, we dined on stew, delicious sauerkraut and sausage, meatballs, roast chicken and other delicacies. I provided mulled wine, which was not that timely, considering the number of young men in attendance. We discussed upcoming projects, and I proposed, as suggested below, that I form a committee to plan a somewhat upgraded version of Founders Day for the 25th Anniversary of the shire. This met with agreement. We will report back on our plans, I hope, at the February Revel and business meeting.
Lady Eron suggested that we might want to consider new t-shirts and the like for the shire to commemorate the occasion, and Geirmundr and I were able to report that we have already been looking into this. Cafepress.com is a very convenient method, cost free for set up, but we need suitable art. Eron, of course, is just the person for this, so we will consult. In my opinion, we’ll need both regular Stormvale wares, hats, t-shirts, cups and so forth, and also specialized items to commemorate the 25th year.
In the evening, we dined on stew, delicious sauerkraut and sausage, meatballs, roast chicken and other delicacies. I provided mulled wine, which was not that timely, considering the number of young men in attendance. We discussed upcoming projects, and I proposed, as suggested below, that I form a committee to plan a somewhat upgraded version of Founders Day for the 25th Anniversary of the shire. This met with agreement. We will report back on our plans, I hope, at the February Revel and business meeting.
Lady Eron suggested that we might want to consider new t-shirts and the like for the shire to commemorate the occasion, and Geirmundr and I were able to report that we have already been looking into this. Cafepress.com is a very convenient method, cost free for set up, but we need suitable art. Eron, of course, is just the person for this, so we will consult. In my opinion, we’ll need both regular Stormvale wares, hats, t-shirts, cups and so forth, and also specialized items to commemorate the 25th year.
25th Anniversary Celebration
As noted below, we're forming a committee to organize a suitable celebration for 25 years of the SCA in Stormvale. So far me, Geirmundr and Melisande are on the committee, and we've got feelers out for more. Watch this space to keep an eye on our plans and thoughts on the topic. Suggestions are also welcome - email them to balian@chartermi.net.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
25 Years Ago
It was just about this time of the year. Several of us had encountered the SCA while we were students at UM-Flint. I was the editor of the Michigan Times student newspaper and did a story on the local SCA branch, the Shire of Westvale. I had a heck of a time persuading them that I actually wanted to join, too, not just write about them.
I don't know quite how to describe Westvale. It was a long time ago, and I was young. There was something wrong with the branch. In standard SCA language, it would make sense to say that they were a household trying to be a branch and not realizing that they had other options and were only frustrating themselves and everyone around them. Even my choice of terms, I guess, reveals the problem. I was never one of them, and there were many like me.
In September, they did a series of things that were unjust and cruel, attempting to persuade me to join in their scheme, and they made me angry, and that, I guess, is when it started. In October, Garth Brandon and I persuaded the kingdom to recognize a different slate of officers, including me as seneschal. For all intents and purposes, again to use modern SCA language, Westvale was a "proto-incipient group" or perhaps "attempting to organize", and the kingdom seneschal decided that they weren't going to pull it off and it would be better for the SCA in mid-Michigan to let us give it a try.
It is possible to look back at myself at age 21 and smile. That shouldn't have worked, and it shouldn't have lasted. There were only three of us at that first meeting on October 27, 1982. But the next week there were four, and the next week five, and we never looked back.
The next 25 years had some high points. We held a Crown Tourney, and maybe 40 more events. We birthed four peers, two kingdom officers, several regional officers or senior heralds. We have fought for our kingdom, and made our little contribution to its glory.
One year, we constituted most of the army of our friends in the Barony of Andelcrag at the Border War with Northwoods... represented mostly by Cynnabar! I will never forget standing in the midst of a little army of green and white surcoats, assailed on two sides by white and red, and being privileged to rally my comrades in a loud voice, and being told by friends on the other side that we made an impression in that moment.
We began to form a good-sized camp every year at Pennsic in the late 1980s. One year, we camped on the edge of the battlefield (the only year that was permitted in the modern configuration at Cooper's Lake, I believe), and some fine young men of our shire built a magnificent castle wall for the camp. Passersby asked us which barony we were, or sometimes which kingdom. Our neighbors from the Barony of Carolingia in the East Kingdom stormed the gates one hot afternoon, in their surcoats and shields, but helmless and without swords, laughing, to be driven back by water balloons.
We developed a reputation for fine feasts. A newsletter article in Three Walls describing the virtues of the various branches in Pentamere ended by saying that Stormvale was like a family. During the late 80s and 90s we had by actual count more awards made than the entire Barony of Andelcrag. In the late 90s, we staged many equestrian events at a much-envied site.
We birthed our own successor group, but unlike Westvale, we survived the experience, though not without tears, lofty rhetoric, furious lawyering, sundered friendships, and dogged determination. Much of that latter quality.
For myself, I will always remember the glamorous feasts, the stupendous charges in the woods at Pennsic (overrun by Haus von Halstern our first time out but complimented anyway, stopping the Barony of Windmaster's Hill the next year and dueling their armored baroness, an old friend, on the left flank), the pleasures of seeing friends rewarded for their efforts, the delights of court, workshop and practice hall. The great pleasure of being told one day that I looked in my armor as though I had stepped forth from a museum display, and the shock of realizing that heads turned everywhere whenever I wore that particular gear. Baron Thorvald presiding genially over our first event, at which Count Merowald came to visit. Oaths by torchlight in the Pennsylvania night in 1989. A baronial award which I value above all other honors. Cocktails in the kitchen before late 1990s revels with my partner in arts, Eschiva. Being entrusted with the secret that my wife would be given the Pelican a month ahead of time so I could arrange an heraldic cloak and banner for her, and then blithely getting her to help me make the banner, all unaware of the circumstances under which it would first be unrolled, in court. Cooking a feast for the king and queen in a hall that had no stove or ovens, and providing their favorite dishes. My second partner in the kitchen A'isha, who honored Stormvale by coming up from Kentucky in four successive Octobers to cook our feast; if I never cook another feast, plating that last one at her side will be sufficient.
I will always remember Stormvale being called up to receive its charter in 1987, and the gasps of genuine surprise at how many of us there were, and how gloriously we were clad, and the privilege of leading our throng of folk up the aisle. Perhaps we will someday have yet a more showy moment in court. But if not, that one will do nicely.
In a quarter-century, there have been some difficult moments, though I am proud to report than when things have been at their lowest, that is when Stormvale has risen to the occasion, determined to rise and recover. I still remember being the only man on the Pennsic field in a Stormvale tabard one dreadful year, taking it off in disgust, then weeks later being given a photo of myself taken surreptitiously in that gear by a friend from Northwoods who understood and never failed to support us. (And I know exactly what I was thinking when the photo was taken.) And then I remembered why I had worn it to begin with, and never again forgot.
At the five year mark, in 1987, we had a Founders Day local event, or revel, to commemorate the group. At the ten year mark, in 1992, Founders Day featured the gift of a heraldic tapestry to the shire. At the 20 year mark, in 2002, we had a full-scale event to celebrate the anniversary of the branch.
It has been a good 25 years. If it ended this October, with no more to come, I would not be sorry. But I don't think it will end, or that we have even seen the best yet.
I propose that we hold a substantial local function to celebrate a quarter century of Stormvale in late October 2007. Tomorrow at the business meeting I will see if some of my compatriots from long ago who are still around would like to form a committee to host this year's extravaganza. I have some ideas for commemorating the occasion in a suitable fashion.
January Revel
January 21 Stormvale Revel: What to cook, what to cook? Been a while since I made dessert. I am thinking about pears in wine sauce, or possibly peaches in wine sauce. Then mull the leftover wine, that should go over well on what promises to be a cold day.
Ides of March
On March 24 of this year, the Canton of Iron Oak will hold Ides of March in Morrice, Michigan. They have held this event several times before.
Stormvale had been tentatively planning a heraldry workshop for that day. I hope that we change the date. Plenty of other dates with no nearby events, in my opinion.
Iron Oak and Stormvale, as I'm sure is no mystery to locals in either group, have a somewhat awkward history. Iron Oak was formed in 1995 by former members of Stormvale, and the location of the branch was for some time not settled; let's put it that way and leave out the details. But now Iron Oak is the Shiawassee County branch, a part of the Barony of the Northwoods, and therefore a close neighbor. We would hope that Iron Oak members would naturally attend Stormvale events; therefore it is natural for Stormvale members to attend Iron Oak events.
I often have myself; once I found myself an impromptu marshal-in-charge at an Iron Oak event, and I was pleased (though a little surprised, and not the only one) to be of service. My best day in the lists came at a bear-pit tourney in Iron Oak one time; I suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, began tearing through my opponents, a pretty competent assemblage including one knight and a knight-to-be, at a ferocious rate, holding the field for a long time, and finally getting defeated by an opponent who dented my helm and then apologized for hitting me so hard, as he had not realized I was going to suddenly tire and let the blow through. I was greatly pleased by that, headache and all.
Iron Oak events, in my experience, are small, friendly and exuberant - rather like Stormvale events as I recall them from the late 1980s. And perhaps that should be no surprise. I hope there will be a good turnout from Stormvale this year. Certainly I will go.
Update: This post was corrected to reflect the actual title of the event.
Stormvale had been tentatively planning a heraldry workshop for that day. I hope that we change the date. Plenty of other dates with no nearby events, in my opinion.
Iron Oak and Stormvale, as I'm sure is no mystery to locals in either group, have a somewhat awkward history. Iron Oak was formed in 1995 by former members of Stormvale, and the location of the branch was for some time not settled; let's put it that way and leave out the details. But now Iron Oak is the Shiawassee County branch, a part of the Barony of the Northwoods, and therefore a close neighbor. We would hope that Iron Oak members would naturally attend Stormvale events; therefore it is natural for Stormvale members to attend Iron Oak events.
I often have myself; once I found myself an impromptu marshal-in-charge at an Iron Oak event, and I was pleased (though a little surprised, and not the only one) to be of service. My best day in the lists came at a bear-pit tourney in Iron Oak one time; I suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, began tearing through my opponents, a pretty competent assemblage including one knight and a knight-to-be, at a ferocious rate, holding the field for a long time, and finally getting defeated by an opponent who dented my helm and then apologized for hitting me so hard, as he had not realized I was going to suddenly tire and let the blow through. I was greatly pleased by that, headache and all.
Iron Oak events, in my experience, are small, friendly and exuberant - rather like Stormvale events as I recall them from the late 1980s. And perhaps that should be no surprise. I hope there will be a good turnout from Stormvale this year. Certainly I will go.
Update: This post was corrected to reflect the actual title of the event.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Artisan's Guild Begun
The Stormvale Artisan's Guild had its first meeting/workshop on Tuesday January 16th, as noted below. It went very well, with seven members attending (including one young man for his first ever SCA function of any kind, I believe). Lady Terryl showed us how to gild glass, there was a little boffer practice for the younger folk, and we sketched out the details for the charter. We had candied chestnuts and mead to celebrate the new guild! May it grow and prosper.
In coming weeks: feast gear class, class on making wooden boxes (for feast gear, for example!), Japanese bookbinding, and when I get my act together, occidental bookbinding, probably in the spring.
Terryl's workshop and space for fighting was warm, spacious and well-equipped, by the way, and it was very generous of her to provide it for our use. We immediately began an e-list for members of the guild, and I hope to have a more general web page up soon, as well.
In coming weeks: feast gear class, class on making wooden boxes (for feast gear, for example!), Japanese bookbinding, and when I get my act together, occidental bookbinding, probably in the spring.
Terryl's workshop and space for fighting was warm, spacious and well-equipped, by the way, and it was very generous of her to provide it for our use. We immediately began an e-list for members of the guild, and I hope to have a more general web page up soon, as well.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
No Feast at Val Day
Funny how things change. There is no feast at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre event. For many years the Val Day feast was the premeire culinary event of the kingdom calendar. But feasts are a lot of work, as I well know, and they appear to have gone slightly out of fashion at the average event. Perhaps this is not a new phenomenon, as I can recall when I joined the Society (ahem) some time ago, that the eminent members of the time (and many of the early luminaries of the kingdom were still around to rub elbows with on a regular basis) rarely chose to dine at the average feast, preferring to go out for dinner with friends at nearby restaurants. My first feast I got to sit with Duke Finnvarr de Taahe, who was cheerful and friendly, but I realized afterwards that this feast was a special event, cooked by the Middle's leading culinary artist, Duchess Caellyn FitzHugh. (And it was good. Rather spoiled one for the average effort, I guess.) Often feasts have not seemed so glamorously attended as that one, although there are always exceptions. I remember how honored we felt when Baron Thorvald inn Grimmi and a crowd of Northwoods luminaries graced our head table at Stormvale's first feast in 1986. It was quietly pointed out to us that His Excellency "never" ate at feasts anymore, but that he quite liked ours. Possibly he was merely being polite, but then, that's what Barons do.
Artisan's Guild
Stormvale members are inaugurating a Guild for the first time in many years. At one time we had an Armorer's Guild, a Troubador's Guild, a Sewing Guild (which was active for many years to one degree or another) and a Illuminator's Guild.
On Tuesday, January 16, we will have the first meeting of the Artisan's Guild at Lady Terryl MacAodhagain's home. The guild will encourage and embrace all of the arts and sciences, and biweekly meetings are intended to be more organized and focussed on getting work done than we sometimes are able to accomplish.
A note of clarification: because we are having more classes (the first one is on glass beads) does not mean that everyone is not free to come and work on whatever they wish to do. There is space for armored and rapier combat, as well.
The current rules for guilds are in the Middle Kingdom Arts and Sciences Handbook, in chapter 10. We'll be going, I believe, for the local guild option, to report to the shire minister of arts and sciences.
On Tuesday, January 16, we will have the first meeting of the Artisan's Guild at Lady Terryl MacAodhagain's home. The guild will encourage and embrace all of the arts and sciences, and biweekly meetings are intended to be more organized and focussed on getting work done than we sometimes are able to accomplish.
A note of clarification: because we are having more classes (the first one is on glass beads) does not mean that everyone is not free to come and work on whatever they wish to do. There is space for armored and rapier combat, as well.
The current rules for guilds are in the Middle Kingdom Arts and Sciences Handbook, in chapter 10. We'll be going, I believe, for the local guild option, to report to the shire minister of arts and sciences.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Fighting Videos
Kith the Silent has a bare-bones page with links to many fighting video clips from Crown tourneys, instructional sessions, etc.
Feast Manual
The Middle Kingdom A&S site has a link to a very nice article addressing the first time head cook, or chef as the author prefers and we lately have in Stormvale. See also the list of such articles at the Middle Kingdom Cooks Collegium site.
Introductory Video
Follow this link to an introductory video about the SCA. Filmed in Atlantia by Gregor von Leipzig, it is a short, cheerful and informative. Unfortunately marred by having a crying baby in the background every time someone is introduced outdoors, but perhaps useful.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Geirmundr's Question
My friend Geirmundr wonders whether there is a convenient source with a description of what a 14th century soldier of good rank, say a captain of a mercenary company or someone similar, would have as possessions while on campaign. He wishes to assemble such items, or reasonable facsimiles thereof, more systematically. When we first discussed this, I suggested that I was not sure there was such a source. 14th century studies are regrettably few, and the serious stuff in print tends to start with the Wars of the Roses. However, I suggested that we could in fact assemble a reasonable list of sources that would allow us to piece together a list, especially if we make some cautious assumptions about 15th century gear that would have been around in the 14th century.
Candidly, this is a topic I would have had a readier set of answers for ten or fifteen years ago, as I am a little separated from the topic now. At some point when I have time and access to a research library, perhaps later this month, I know where to look for more material.
Of course, his project interests me, as well, but at any rate, here are my initial thoughts on some potential sources, keeping in mind that clothing and armor are easy and not really what he is looking for.
Caselli, Giovanni. History of Everyday Things: The Middle Ages. This is a beautiful hardcover children's book. It has many handsome and accurate drawings of surviving or pictured medieval artifacts. Like many recent children's books, this is really quite good. Doesn't quite nail our topic, but pages 38-39 might be of particular interest. Lots of diagrams of carpenters and architects tools, that sort of thing.
Clare, John D, ed. Living History: Fourteenth-Century Towns. A children's picture book, staged with recreationists or at least a recreationist's sensibility. Some nifty scenes and props, but not quite up to the Eyewitness Books standards.
Coss, Peter and Maurice Keen, eds. Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England. Dress and Social Status in England before the Sumptuary Laws by Frederique Lachaud at p. 105 looks interesting, and there is some good stuff in Chivalry, Pageantry and Merchant Culture in Medieval London by Caroline Berron at p. 219.
Crossley-Holland, Nicole. Living and Dining in Medieval Paris: The Household of a Fourteenth Century Knight. This is obviously of great interest. When I read it years ago, I was focused entirely on food and recipes, with which this volume is massively concerned, but it is worth a look, despite the fact that it is about a peaceful household rather than a camp.
Embleton, Gerry. Medieval Military Costume Recreated in Colour Photographs. Useful, especially for camp scenes posed by European recreationists. All the good stuff is in the 15th century, I'm afraid. Embleton's other book is more useful for that.
Embleton, Gerry and John Howe. The Medieval Soldier. This is much better, with many more scenes of camp life. Unfortunately, it is out of print and not to be had for less than a small fortune. Inter Library Loan is recommended for this one. I wish I'd bought a copy years ago.
Hinton, David A. Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval Britain. Not as interesting as it sounds, I'm afraid, but worth a look, and it has a very extensively bibliography, which I will have a look at before the aforementioned library trip.
Langley, Andrew. Medieval Life. This is an Eyewitness book essentially geared for young people. As such, much better for our purposes, because it actually shows pictures of clothing and everyday items usually overlooked by more scholarly sources. And based on my observation, the Eyewitness series has a pretty high standard of scholarship, certainly high enough for recreating medieval objects for use in the SCA. Excellent and helpful stuff throughout, though not much specifically focused on the medieval nobleman or soldier in camp. Definitely helpful, though. The version I've linked to might be a revision - I've seen it but haven't actually checked to see whether there are changes.
Singman, Jeffrey L. and Will McLean. Daily Life in Chaucer's England. This is a book published about a decade ago by some Canadian recreationists, so it is very much the sort of thing one might find useful in the SCA. Not precisely on the money, but lots of details very close to what Geirmundr is seeking. The authors discuss coinage, food, clothing and accessories, all the usual topics. Of particular interest might be Chapter 5 on the Living Environment.
Wolfegg, Christoph Graf zu Waldburg. Venus and Mars: The World of the Medieval Housebook. A beautiful pictorial description of a 15th century volume full of drawing of medieval people and objects. Gorgeous to look at, this would bear very close examination, which I lack time for at present. Definitely interesting scenes of groups of people dining al fresco.
More, probably much more, later.
Candidly, this is a topic I would have had a readier set of answers for ten or fifteen years ago, as I am a little separated from the topic now. At some point when I have time and access to a research library, perhaps later this month, I know where to look for more material.
Of course, his project interests me, as well, but at any rate, here are my initial thoughts on some potential sources, keeping in mind that clothing and armor are easy and not really what he is looking for.
Caselli, Giovanni. History of Everyday Things: The Middle Ages. This is a beautiful hardcover children's book. It has many handsome and accurate drawings of surviving or pictured medieval artifacts. Like many recent children's books, this is really quite good. Doesn't quite nail our topic, but pages 38-39 might be of particular interest. Lots of diagrams of carpenters and architects tools, that sort of thing.
Clare, John D, ed. Living History: Fourteenth-Century Towns. A children's picture book, staged with recreationists or at least a recreationist's sensibility. Some nifty scenes and props, but not quite up to the Eyewitness Books standards.
Coss, Peter and Maurice Keen, eds. Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England. Dress and Social Status in England before the Sumptuary Laws by Frederique Lachaud at p. 105 looks interesting, and there is some good stuff in Chivalry, Pageantry and Merchant Culture in Medieval London by Caroline Berron at p. 219.
Crossley-Holland, Nicole. Living and Dining in Medieval Paris: The Household of a Fourteenth Century Knight. This is obviously of great interest. When I read it years ago, I was focused entirely on food and recipes, with which this volume is massively concerned, but it is worth a look, despite the fact that it is about a peaceful household rather than a camp.
Embleton, Gerry. Medieval Military Costume Recreated in Colour Photographs. Useful, especially for camp scenes posed by European recreationists. All the good stuff is in the 15th century, I'm afraid. Embleton's other book is more useful for that.
Embleton, Gerry and John Howe. The Medieval Soldier. This is much better, with many more scenes of camp life. Unfortunately, it is out of print and not to be had for less than a small fortune. Inter Library Loan is recommended for this one. I wish I'd bought a copy years ago.
Hinton, David A. Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval Britain. Not as interesting as it sounds, I'm afraid, but worth a look, and it has a very extensively bibliography, which I will have a look at before the aforementioned library trip.
Langley, Andrew. Medieval Life. This is an Eyewitness book essentially geared for young people. As such, much better for our purposes, because it actually shows pictures of clothing and everyday items usually overlooked by more scholarly sources. And based on my observation, the Eyewitness series has a pretty high standard of scholarship, certainly high enough for recreating medieval objects for use in the SCA. Excellent and helpful stuff throughout, though not much specifically focused on the medieval nobleman or soldier in camp. Definitely helpful, though. The version I've linked to might be a revision - I've seen it but haven't actually checked to see whether there are changes.
Singman, Jeffrey L. and Will McLean. Daily Life in Chaucer's England. This is a book published about a decade ago by some Canadian recreationists, so it is very much the sort of thing one might find useful in the SCA. Not precisely on the money, but lots of details very close to what Geirmundr is seeking. The authors discuss coinage, food, clothing and accessories, all the usual topics. Of particular interest might be Chapter 5 on the Living Environment.
Wolfegg, Christoph Graf zu Waldburg. Venus and Mars: The World of the Medieval Housebook. A beautiful pictorial description of a 15th century volume full of drawing of medieval people and objects. Gorgeous to look at, this would bear very close examination, which I lack time for at present. Definitely interesting scenes of groups of people dining al fresco.
More, probably much more, later.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
More Comments on Awards
Anonymous comments on my previous post, noting that Maya of Talonvale also was inducted into the Order of the Willow at Crown. Hoobah to her, too!
He also suggests that it may be necessary to just wing nominations during a reign in which we may be unlikely to see a local event, and that after all some Stormvale members don't often go to events. This I have a perhaps unwelcome answer for, which may date me to the prehistoric age.
It has always been the assumption, even back when the Middle was a much larger kingdom, that if you wanted someone to get an award, you nominated them based on the assumption that they would appear at certain events. Of course this was always hit or miss. But if you were trying to nominate someone who didn't really attend events but was entirely active locally, you either waited for the golden opportunity at Pennsic or a very close-by event, or you didn't nominate them.
And if the reigning monarchs hold their courts in the Midlands (Illinois) for the most part, and you have court business to conduct, or you want to kindly ask them to do something for you, like give an award to someone you recommend, then going to the Midlands is the option. One can't just shrug off the realities of the size of the kingdom. Besides, the next king and queen will be from Pentamere, so we're only six months away from more convenience in this regard.
Our options for this reign, conventionally:
1. Wait for the royalty to add Pentamere events to their schedule. They likely will.
2. Organize some trips to Midlands events if you really want someone to get an award.
3. Wait for the next reign.
4. Don't make the nomination at all.
The royalty in recent reigns has been very generous about giving awards to Stormvale members who don't show up for court. That's good of them, but it really isn't the best practice to keep making nominations with that assumption in mind. Again, it may make me a dinosaur, but in the old days we didn't make nominations this way. Active members of the SCA should show up in court every now and again. It's strange if they don't. That's our problem, not a systemic problem.
He also suggests that it may be necessary to just wing nominations during a reign in which we may be unlikely to see a local event, and that after all some Stormvale members don't often go to events. This I have a perhaps unwelcome answer for, which may date me to the prehistoric age.
It has always been the assumption, even back when the Middle was a much larger kingdom, that if you wanted someone to get an award, you nominated them based on the assumption that they would appear at certain events. Of course this was always hit or miss. But if you were trying to nominate someone who didn't really attend events but was entirely active locally, you either waited for the golden opportunity at Pennsic or a very close-by event, or you didn't nominate them.
And if the reigning monarchs hold their courts in the Midlands (Illinois) for the most part, and you have court business to conduct, or you want to kindly ask them to do something for you, like give an award to someone you recommend, then going to the Midlands is the option. One can't just shrug off the realities of the size of the kingdom. Besides, the next king and queen will be from Pentamere, so we're only six months away from more convenience in this regard.
Our options for this reign, conventionally:
1. Wait for the royalty to add Pentamere events to their schedule. They likely will.
2. Organize some trips to Midlands events if you really want someone to get an award.
3. Wait for the next reign.
4. Don't make the nomination at all.
The royalty in recent reigns has been very generous about giving awards to Stormvale members who don't show up for court. That's good of them, but it really isn't the best practice to keep making nominations with that assumption in mind. Again, it may make me a dinosaur, but in the old days we didn't make nominations this way. Active members of the SCA should show up in court every now and again. It's strange if they don't. That's our problem, not a systemic problem.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Stormvale Awards
Several awards have been made to Stormvale members in recent weeks:
Vikings Come Home, Donnershafen:
A'isha al-Zarqa, Order of the Willow
Crown Tourney:
Andrew Fowler, Award of the Acorn
Eron Crowfford, Order of the Willow (this is a mistake, she is already a member)
Maryska of Stormvale, Award of the Purple Fret
Lady Femke, the Regional Signet, was kind enough to pick up the scrolls at Crown. None of our awardees were present at either event. This might be a good time to remind those making award nominations that it is not the best practice to make award nominations for specific events unless you're reasonably sure there's a good chance that the nominee will be there to be recognized. Right now, Stormvale members go to Pentamere events and Pennsic for the most part.
Vikings Come Home, Donnershafen:
A'isha al-Zarqa, Order of the Willow
Crown Tourney:
Andrew Fowler, Award of the Acorn
Eron Crowfford, Order of the Willow (this is a mistake, she is already a member)
Maryska of Stormvale, Award of the Purple Fret
Lady Femke, the Regional Signet, was kind enough to pick up the scrolls at Crown. None of our awardees were present at either event. This might be a good time to remind those making award nominations that it is not the best practice to make award nominations for specific events unless you're reasonably sure there's a good chance that the nominee will be there to be recognized. Right now, Stormvale members go to Pentamere events and Pennsic for the most part.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
The MidRealm's New Prince and Princess
The new prince is an old prince. His Grace Dag Thorgrimsson has won the Crown Tourney for the fifth time, a record in the Middle Kingdom. Anything over two reigns is quite unusual. Dag won the tournament for the honor of Lady Anne Marie de Garmeaulx. He defeated Captain Sascha St. Martin, who fought for Lady Lauren of Arabia.
Dag reigned twice with Ilsa von Westfal, and twice with Elayna Lilley. This will be Anne Marie's first time on the throne.
His Grace (His Highness, now) has always been popular in Stormvale. He won his second Crown in Stormvale in 1992, and was kind in various ways to us some years ago. He came to one of our very tiny events the weekend after winning his first Crown tourney, despite having much more glamorous offers, and even marshalled our tournament. We will certainly never forget that.
Dag is also notable for his great dignity and sense of kingliness. I have often seen him being unusually gracious and generous with his time when reigning, as well. He sets a good example in that regard. So, from my perspective, this is news to gladden the heart.
Dag reigned twice with Ilsa von Westfal, and twice with Elayna Lilley. This will be Anne Marie's first time on the throne.
His Grace (His Highness, now) has always been popular in Stormvale. He won his second Crown in Stormvale in 1992, and was kind in various ways to us some years ago. He came to one of our very tiny events the weekend after winning his first Crown tourney, despite having much more glamorous offers, and even marshalled our tournament. We will certainly never forget that.
Dag is also notable for his great dignity and sense of kingliness. I have often seen him being unusually gracious and generous with his time when reigning, as well. He sets a good example in that regard. So, from my perspective, this is news to gladden the heart.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Feast After Action Report
There are times when I don't really feel like I have time for the SCA, and when I become impatient with tasks I've agreed to perform and can't readily get out of. Sometimes it feels like an imposition on time I need to spend on work, other hobbies or watching the Tigers win the pennant.
But as much as I rather dreaded having to devote half of Friday and all of Saturday to the Harvest of Souls VI feast and Sunday to recovering, I will admit that it was fun. Working with Lady A'isha al-Zarqa on a feast is always delightful, and getting the report that she received a Willow at the recent Donnershafen event after the feast was very nice and good timing.
We had the easiest time in the kitchen I can remember, no doubt because while A'isha and I make a good team, adding Lord Diego Brasa de Zaragoza (former caterer) and Her Ladyship Clarissa Wykeham (a past head cook for Stormvale) to the crew made a 14 dish feast remarkably easy. We had a pleasant and relaxing time in the kitchen, despite the hard work at times, and it was especially nice to know that any one of the four of us could adopt any task or dish, or switch off without fuss. And as always we could rely on His Lordship Skalla-Geirmundr Ulfsson to do various hard and thankless tasks, like processing all the onions and washing 90% of the dishes, and Mistress Melisande of Woodcrest, who ran errands. And as he often does, Lord Gerard von Lowenstein ramrodded the servers and made it so the cooks had to do little or nothing with the actual service of the feast. And we appreciated all the other folks who lent a hand, especially on clean up after the feast.
It may be a first, but when we were ready to go with the feast on time (the first two courses were plated and ready to go by then), the feast hall was not fully cleared, and there was a delay while we just kept getting farther ahead. That was quite agreeable.
The Virtues and Sins theme worked out fine, I thought, although it was a rather expensive proposition when we were comping so many tickets and couldn't count on selling out, which we didn't. But the expense wasn't so very far over our usual, everything considered, and it is nice to pull out the stops every now and then.
A few comments on the dishes, with credit to the cooks involved:
Diego was responsible for roasting and slicing the beef for Sauce Aliper, for the Pies of Paris, with a little assistance from A'isha and Clarissa, for the Risotto (he had made the chicken stock for that during the week), and for assisting with the Pippin Pudding prep. He also helped reconstitute some of the Herb Soup when it looked like we might run out. And all this while teaching a class on chain mail and even sitting down for a few minutes of the feast. The beef was fantastic (A'isha and I both snuck pieces before it left the kitchen), the pies looked gorgeous and were highly praised, and while I didn't try the risotto, it smelled divine. I should add that Diego, a former kitchen professional, knew how to operate both the convection oven, which was very handy, and the industrial-grade garbage disposal, which was a great help during clean up. We would have ignored both pieces of equipment otherwise.
Clarissa was responsible for the Pippin Puddings, and invented a clever new way to arrange them for cooking which we will certainly adopt ever after. They were in the seventh and last course, which meant there was some danger they would be refused (and I allowed Clarissa to assume an earlier, smaller number of apples for just that reason - she cooked 70 instead of the 91 planned servings), but in fact very few of them came back. Melisande and I ate some of the leftover custard, and thought it superb. Clarissa also prepped the carrots for another dish, gilded most of the chicken and generally helped with many other tasks.
A'isha, as I have mentioned before, is my favorite partner in the kitchen. Aside from a few moments of discussion at the outset, we really didn't need to plan much or discuss division of labor. We both just floated around keeping things caught up. She was responsible for the Tarts on Ember Day, which were especially glorious and buttery, the Soul Cakes, which she cooked ahead of time, the relish trays and the Herb Soup. She also did some of the more tiresome tasks, like prepping the egg yolks, of which we needed an absurd amount, and had the clever idea of using the fennel greens for garnishing the fish. I should add that both the tarts and the herbs for the soup were quite prep-intense, and A'isha probably helped with all of the dishes, and especially with getting them plated and out the door. I think she and Diego washed and sliced the radishes, too, but I was busy with something else at the time, so I'm not sure about that part.
I roasted the Gilded Chicken, cooked the Apecian Carrots, parboiled and steamed the Broccoli and Fennel, and did the Sauce Cameline for the fish. A'isha and I did most of the plating and arranging as the dishes were going out, with much help from Diego and Clarissa. And Geirmundr also helped with the eggs, butter, and prepped the Compound Salat.
I heard no complaints about any dishes (other than from Geirmundr, who thought I was adding too much odd stuff to the salad!), and I would account this a very successful feast just on that account. We all thought the gilded chicken was something of a revelation. And I thought the tarts and pies had never looked quite so good, and both got many compliments. And the Pippin Puddings came off beautifully.
Once everything was out, and we had been graciously applauded by the diners, the cooks drank champagne in the kitchen (later shared with lunch taverner Lady Eron Crowfford and Geirmundr), and enjoyed some of our cooking. To my surprise, Volkmar, a colleague from work, brought us two beautiful bottles, complete with heraldry, of kiwi lime mead! We promptly opened one and enjoyed it. Most delicious. Limes improve everything, in my view.
At roughly this time we were finding out that A'isha had received a Willow and that the Tigers had won the pennant, and the evening wound down. There was some discussion of doing it again next year, and unless someone else wants a turn or the event stewards have had enough of me, I expect we'll have to. A'isha flatters me with the suggestion that she won't if I don't, and that's pretty convincing!
One last set of comments: the promised Bourbelier de Sanglier dish (pork loin) had to be dropped for roast beef in sauce aliper at the last minute, when it developed that no one had pork loin on sale. There usually is a sale somewhere, but the beef was the planned backup, and there was a sale on some truly beautiful beef roasts. Also, while we usually provide cheese, fruit and sometimes nuts for the relish tray, I opted for less expensive components, partly because I doubted anyone would complain with 13 other dishes. And finally, I don't know if anyone noticed, but I completely forgot the Worcestershire sauce for the Apecian Carrots. I don't think anyone could seriously object to carrots slathered in butter, brown sugar and port, though.
I'd be glad of hearing more comments regarding this feast or suggestions for the next one.
But as much as I rather dreaded having to devote half of Friday and all of Saturday to the Harvest of Souls VI feast and Sunday to recovering, I will admit that it was fun. Working with Lady A'isha al-Zarqa on a feast is always delightful, and getting the report that she received a Willow at the recent Donnershafen event after the feast was very nice and good timing.
We had the easiest time in the kitchen I can remember, no doubt because while A'isha and I make a good team, adding Lord Diego Brasa de Zaragoza (former caterer) and Her Ladyship Clarissa Wykeham (a past head cook for Stormvale) to the crew made a 14 dish feast remarkably easy. We had a pleasant and relaxing time in the kitchen, despite the hard work at times, and it was especially nice to know that any one of the four of us could adopt any task or dish, or switch off without fuss. And as always we could rely on His Lordship Skalla-Geirmundr Ulfsson to do various hard and thankless tasks, like processing all the onions and washing 90% of the dishes, and Mistress Melisande of Woodcrest, who ran errands. And as he often does, Lord Gerard von Lowenstein ramrodded the servers and made it so the cooks had to do little or nothing with the actual service of the feast. And we appreciated all the other folks who lent a hand, especially on clean up after the feast.
It may be a first, but when we were ready to go with the feast on time (the first two courses were plated and ready to go by then), the feast hall was not fully cleared, and there was a delay while we just kept getting farther ahead. That was quite agreeable.
The Virtues and Sins theme worked out fine, I thought, although it was a rather expensive proposition when we were comping so many tickets and couldn't count on selling out, which we didn't. But the expense wasn't so very far over our usual, everything considered, and it is nice to pull out the stops every now and then.
A few comments on the dishes, with credit to the cooks involved:
Diego was responsible for roasting and slicing the beef for Sauce Aliper, for the Pies of Paris, with a little assistance from A'isha and Clarissa, for the Risotto (he had made the chicken stock for that during the week), and for assisting with the Pippin Pudding prep. He also helped reconstitute some of the Herb Soup when it looked like we might run out. And all this while teaching a class on chain mail and even sitting down for a few minutes of the feast. The beef was fantastic (A'isha and I both snuck pieces before it left the kitchen), the pies looked gorgeous and were highly praised, and while I didn't try the risotto, it smelled divine. I should add that Diego, a former kitchen professional, knew how to operate both the convection oven, which was very handy, and the industrial-grade garbage disposal, which was a great help during clean up. We would have ignored both pieces of equipment otherwise.
Clarissa was responsible for the Pippin Puddings, and invented a clever new way to arrange them for cooking which we will certainly adopt ever after. They were in the seventh and last course, which meant there was some danger they would be refused (and I allowed Clarissa to assume an earlier, smaller number of apples for just that reason - she cooked 70 instead of the 91 planned servings), but in fact very few of them came back. Melisande and I ate some of the leftover custard, and thought it superb. Clarissa also prepped the carrots for another dish, gilded most of the chicken and generally helped with many other tasks.
A'isha, as I have mentioned before, is my favorite partner in the kitchen. Aside from a few moments of discussion at the outset, we really didn't need to plan much or discuss division of labor. We both just floated around keeping things caught up. She was responsible for the Tarts on Ember Day, which were especially glorious and buttery, the Soul Cakes, which she cooked ahead of time, the relish trays and the Herb Soup. She also did some of the more tiresome tasks, like prepping the egg yolks, of which we needed an absurd amount, and had the clever idea of using the fennel greens for garnishing the fish. I should add that both the tarts and the herbs for the soup were quite prep-intense, and A'isha probably helped with all of the dishes, and especially with getting them plated and out the door. I think she and Diego washed and sliced the radishes, too, but I was busy with something else at the time, so I'm not sure about that part.
I roasted the Gilded Chicken, cooked the Apecian Carrots, parboiled and steamed the Broccoli and Fennel, and did the Sauce Cameline for the fish. A'isha and I did most of the plating and arranging as the dishes were going out, with much help from Diego and Clarissa. And Geirmundr also helped with the eggs, butter, and prepped the Compound Salat.
I heard no complaints about any dishes (other than from Geirmundr, who thought I was adding too much odd stuff to the salad!), and I would account this a very successful feast just on that account. We all thought the gilded chicken was something of a revelation. And I thought the tarts and pies had never looked quite so good, and both got many compliments. And the Pippin Puddings came off beautifully.
Once everything was out, and we had been graciously applauded by the diners, the cooks drank champagne in the kitchen (later shared with lunch taverner Lady Eron Crowfford and Geirmundr), and enjoyed some of our cooking. To my surprise, Volkmar, a colleague from work, brought us two beautiful bottles, complete with heraldry, of kiwi lime mead! We promptly opened one and enjoyed it. Most delicious. Limes improve everything, in my view.
At roughly this time we were finding out that A'isha had received a Willow and that the Tigers had won the pennant, and the evening wound down. There was some discussion of doing it again next year, and unless someone else wants a turn or the event stewards have had enough of me, I expect we'll have to. A'isha flatters me with the suggestion that she won't if I don't, and that's pretty convincing!
One last set of comments: the promised Bourbelier de Sanglier dish (pork loin) had to be dropped for roast beef in sauce aliper at the last minute, when it developed that no one had pork loin on sale. There usually is a sale somewhere, but the beef was the planned backup, and there was a sale on some truly beautiful beef roasts. Also, while we usually provide cheese, fruit and sometimes nuts for the relish tray, I opted for less expensive components, partly because I doubted anyone would complain with 13 other dishes. And finally, I don't know if anyone noticed, but I completely forgot the Worcestershire sauce for the Apecian Carrots. I don't think anyone could seriously object to carrots slathered in butter, brown sugar and port, though.
I'd be glad of hearing more comments regarding this feast or suggestions for the next one.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Feast Update
A couple of likely changes. I was in fact rather dissatisfied with the Gilded Chicken. I feel pretty sure that I don't really want to cook about 16 chickens this way. I might still convert this to a more conventional roast chicken dish, with frozen pieces from Gordon's or the like. We're looking at a 6 person per table arrangement rather than our usual 8, which means in effect more dishes and slightly smaller portions per table. A roast chicken per table? Uh, need a bigger kitchen and staff for that, maybe.
Also, the Cold Spiced Beef dish must go, alas. I simply cannot devote the time to this in the next couple of weeks, and I would already be behind schedule on preparing it. So I'm going to give thought to massaging the menu and will post the results here during the next few days. No major changes, just some careful adjustments within the theme. I was concerned that might happen with the beef dish. Oh well, maybe next time.
Also, the Cold Spiced Beef dish must go, alas. I simply cannot devote the time to this in the next couple of weeks, and I would already be behind schedule on preparing it. So I'm going to give thought to massaging the menu and will post the results here during the next few days. No major changes, just some careful adjustments within the theme. I was concerned that might happen with the beef dish. Oh well, maybe next time.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Chike Endored
Gilded Chicken, that is. This caused some amusing comment on the Stormvale mailing list when the menu got posted without descriptions of the recipes. Was I really going to gold leaf a chicken? What will that crazy Balian do next?
No gold leaf is involved. This is actually a simple roast chicken dish, and the gilding is a mixture of egg yolk and saffron brushed on during the latter part of roasting to give it a golden color. This recipe is from Pleyn Delit, perhaps my favorite medieval cookbook. It is very likely that if price issues cause me to punt and prefer chicken legs and breasts and thighs instead, this will work just as well, but the roast chickens will look better, of course.
Update: Tonight I cooked this dish for the first time, with a nice 5-lb. roaster that is probably a little bigger than ideal. It seems to work well, although I had a misstep - I couldn't find a brush at the last minute, so coverage of the "gilding" wasn't very even. But it looked pretty good. I may try it on individual pieces to see how that looks, too. That would be less impressive but likely more cost effective, as I noted above.
No gold leaf is involved. This is actually a simple roast chicken dish, and the gilding is a mixture of egg yolk and saffron brushed on during the latter part of roasting to give it a golden color. This recipe is from Pleyn Delit, perhaps my favorite medieval cookbook. It is very likely that if price issues cause me to punt and prefer chicken legs and breasts and thighs instead, this will work just as well, but the roast chickens will look better, of course.
Update: Tonight I cooked this dish for the first time, with a nice 5-lb. roaster that is probably a little bigger than ideal. It seems to work well, although I had a misstep - I couldn't find a brush at the last minute, so coverage of the "gilding" wasn't very even. But it looked pretty good. I may try it on individual pieces to see how that looks, too. That would be less impressive but likely more cost effective, as I noted above.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Risotto
This is a dish from Martino, a 15th century writer who was the first to provide more detailed recipes with quantities. My version is from Great Cooks and Their Recipes by Anne Willan. This is a fun book with a lot of early recipes and redactions. I've used several to good effect.
It's pretty much like modern risotto except that egg yolk is used as the thickening agent rather than cheese. There is a problem to work out with the dish. It calls for the use of egg yolks to be added after the rice is cooked. Presumably the heat from the finished dish cooks the egg... but I'm not sure I have the nerve to do this for a feast. I'm not a worrier about undercooked eggs, but I'm cooking for a lot of people here, and one must not screw around. (I'll try it for myself - perhaps I'll have more confidence in the procedure after I see it in action.)
So, there are a couple of options. First, a pasteurized substitute might work, I'll have to try it. Second, I could cheat and use cheese. And third, I could punt and substitute another rice dish. I had an urge to use one of my favorites, Lemonwhyt, from Fabulous Feasts, but I use it all the time, and it seemed like a good idea to try something different.
I recommend both books. For critics of Fabulous Feasts, see my earlier post on Madeleine Pelner Cosman.
It's pretty much like modern risotto except that egg yolk is used as the thickening agent rather than cheese. There is a problem to work out with the dish. It calls for the use of egg yolks to be added after the rice is cooked. Presumably the heat from the finished dish cooks the egg... but I'm not sure I have the nerve to do this for a feast. I'm not a worrier about undercooked eggs, but I'm cooking for a lot of people here, and one must not screw around. (I'll try it for myself - perhaps I'll have more confidence in the procedure after I see it in action.)
So, there are a couple of options. First, a pasteurized substitute might work, I'll have to try it. Second, I could cheat and use cheese. And third, I could punt and substitute another rice dish. I had an urge to use one of my favorites, Lemonwhyt, from Fabulous Feasts, but I use it all the time, and it seemed like a good idea to try something different.
I recommend both books. For critics of Fabulous Feasts, see my earlier post on Madeleine Pelner Cosman.
Pippin Puddings
Many readers may not recognize some of the dishes going into the Harvest of Souls VI feast, so I thought I would discuss some of them.
Pippin puddings are baked apples, cored and filled with a custard. The top of the apple is kept and put back on as a cover, with a cinnamon stick through the center. It is a delicious, if somewhat labor-intensive dish. We used them once for a feast of a similar size, so we know it can be done.
The recipe used is from In Service to Our Middles, the Middle Kingdom cookbook, published so many years ago that even I (ancient relic that I am) was never able to obtain a copy, and had to borrow one to photocopy. No source is given, but I'm fairly sure it is perhaps an early modern recipe, if not quite medieval, and it might be older.
We alter one point in the recipe - it calls for the entire apple to be peeled. This has never seemed necessary to me, and I have almost always prepared the dish with the skins on the apples. Saves a lot of work and seems to make no real difference. The custard calls for cream, white wine, egg yolks, sugar and ginger. It is very tasty, and quite striking in appearance.
For this feast, Her Ladyship Clarissa Wykeham has volunteered to prepare and cook the dish. If I didn't have an experienced cook to do it, I would probably have chosen something else, as this is likely to take one person a fair portion of the day, and more to the point, will have to be finished with a careful sense of timing, as cored apples can't just sit around forever waiting to be filled with custard.
In Service to Our Middles; The MidRealm Book of Foods and Feasts was edited by Duchess Caellyn Fitzhugh and published in East Lansing (Northwoods). It looks to me like a late publication from the period when Northwoods was very much the kingdom's social and arts center, in the late 70s. My photocopy has no date, but I was given the impression it had gone out of print shortly before I joined in 1982.
Pippin puddings are baked apples, cored and filled with a custard. The top of the apple is kept and put back on as a cover, with a cinnamon stick through the center. It is a delicious, if somewhat labor-intensive dish. We used them once for a feast of a similar size, so we know it can be done.
The recipe used is from In Service to Our Middles, the Middle Kingdom cookbook, published so many years ago that even I (ancient relic that I am) was never able to obtain a copy, and had to borrow one to photocopy. No source is given, but I'm fairly sure it is perhaps an early modern recipe, if not quite medieval, and it might be older.
We alter one point in the recipe - it calls for the entire apple to be peeled. This has never seemed necessary to me, and I have almost always prepared the dish with the skins on the apples. Saves a lot of work and seems to make no real difference. The custard calls for cream, white wine, egg yolks, sugar and ginger. It is very tasty, and quite striking in appearance.
For this feast, Her Ladyship Clarissa Wykeham has volunteered to prepare and cook the dish. If I didn't have an experienced cook to do it, I would probably have chosen something else, as this is likely to take one person a fair portion of the day, and more to the point, will have to be finished with a careful sense of timing, as cored apples can't just sit around forever waiting to be filled with custard.
In Service to Our Middles; The MidRealm Book of Foods and Feasts was edited by Duchess Caellyn Fitzhugh and published in East Lansing (Northwoods). It looks to me like a late publication from the period when Northwoods was very much the kingdom's social and arts center, in the late 70s. My photocopy has no date, but I was given the impression it had gone out of print shortly before I joined in 1982.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Updated Feast Menu for HoS VI
Well, after posting the final menu last night, I had a brainstorm, and then another. First I decided that the menu wasn't quite married up with the theme well enough and reworked it into 7 courses, 2 dishes a course, one sin per course. Then I decided it would be even better to make it seven courses, with one virtue and one sin per course. I floated it on the Stormvale discussion list last night, it got a favorable reception, and here it is:
Feast of the Seven Virtues and Sins
First Course
Diligent Bread, preferably with water
Slothful Cold Spiced Beef, which took a long time to make
Second Course
Abstinent Compound Salad, full of leafy virtue
Gluttonous Tart on Ember Day, rich and cheesy
Third Course
Lustful Apecian Carrots, for fertile diners
Chaste Fish with Sauce, food for thought
Fourth Course
Wrathful Bourbelier de Sanglier, charged with spice
Patient Broccoli with Fennel, calm and placid
Fifth Course
Prideful Pies of Paris, dinner for nobility
Humble Herb Soup, a peasant’s meal
Sixth Course - Greed
Greedy Gilded Chicken, gleaming with gold
Liberal Risotto, share it with friends!
Seventh Course - Envy
Envious Pippin Puddings, Eve’s tempting fruit
Kind Soul Cakes, to see our diners off
Feast of the Seven Virtues and Sins
First Course
Diligent Bread, preferably with water
Slothful Cold Spiced Beef, which took a long time to make
Second Course
Abstinent Compound Salad, full of leafy virtue
Gluttonous Tart on Ember Day, rich and cheesy
Third Course
Lustful Apecian Carrots, for fertile diners
Chaste Fish with Sauce, food for thought
Fourth Course
Wrathful Bourbelier de Sanglier, charged with spice
Patient Broccoli with Fennel, calm and placid
Fifth Course
Prideful Pies of Paris, dinner for nobility
Humble Herb Soup, a peasant’s meal
Sixth Course - Greed
Greedy Gilded Chicken, gleaming with gold
Liberal Risotto, share it with friends!
Seventh Course - Envy
Envious Pippin Puddings, Eve’s tempting fruit
Kind Soul Cakes, to see our diners off
Monday, September 18, 2006
Harvest of Souls VI Feast
Feast of the Seven Sins
A Culinary Collection of Dishes to Tease All Your Appetites
First Course
Bread with herbed and honeyed butter
Platina’s Herb Salad
Tart on Ember Day (Gluttony)
Pies of Paris (Pride)
Second Course
Cold Spiced Beef (Sloth)
Apecian Carrots (Lust)
Herb Soup
Risotto
Third Course
Loin of Pork in Boar’s Tail Sauce (Wrath)
Gilded Chicken (Greed)
Broccoli with Fennel
Fourth Course
Pippin Puddings (Envy)
Soul Cakes
A Culinary Collection of Dishes to Tease All Your Appetites
First Course
Bread with herbed and honeyed butter
Platina’s Herb Salad
Tart on Ember Day (Gluttony)
Pies of Paris (Pride)
Second Course
Cold Spiced Beef (Sloth)
Apecian Carrots (Lust)
Herb Soup
Risotto
Third Course
Loin of Pork in Boar’s Tail Sauce (Wrath)
Gilded Chicken (Greed)
Broccoli with Fennel
Fourth Course
Pippin Puddings (Envy)
Soul Cakes
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Founders Day 18
This Sunday will be Founders Day, the annual local event in Stormvale at which we hold competitions to select champions for arts and sciences, rapier combat, archery and armored combat. I'm planning to cook some sort of fairly elaborate dish, haven't decided what yet. Also haven't decided whether to try to defend my title as Stormvale Champion for armored combat. Time to spiff up my armor and practice has been extremely scant.
Also, the feast menu for Harvest of Souls VI should be ready to present at the meeting that night.
Also, the feast menu for Harvest of Souls VI should be ready to present at the meeting that night.
Manuscript Images
Malkyn sent me this interesting link to an archive of medieval medical manuscript images.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Stormvale at Middlewiki
Any Stormvalers who haven't checked out the Middlewiki project at Midrealm.org should have a look around it.
Stormvale is one of the few branches with a complete entry, and is one of the most visited pages. Give it a try here.
Stormvale is one of the few branches with a complete entry, and is one of the most visited pages. Give it a try here.
Greed and Gluttony
These seem difficult. Gluttony could be crudely represented by serving too much of something rich, but that's wasteful. (I know, it's appropriate, but I dislike waste.) I'd rather do something more subtle. A dish that would offend the politically correct would perhaps be ideal, but there are limits to what can be done practically. Perhaps something wasteful in the sense that most of it has to be discarded to get at what's good. Artichokes might be good, but it would be difficult to get people to eat them - actually, that might be clever.
Greed is even more difficult, it seems to me. I mentioned in an earlier post shorting each table one serving, that's subtle, but it also needs to be a representative item, I think. This requires some thought. I was also considering something that appeared to be expensive, or actually is expensive or perhaps gilded with something that appears to be gold or silver. Caviar would be perfect, but I'm not sure how medieval, and the cost would be prohibitive. Perhaps a faux caviar of some kind. Hmm.
Greed is even more difficult, it seems to me. I mentioned in an earlier post shorting each table one serving, that's subtle, but it also needs to be a representative item, I think. This requires some thought. I was also considering something that appeared to be expensive, or actually is expensive or perhaps gilded with something that appears to be gold or silver. Caviar would be perfect, but I'm not sure how medieval, and the cost would be prohibitive. Perhaps a faux caviar of some kind. Hmm.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Lust and Envy
Lust could be covered by the dish I used for the last couple of aphrodisiac feasts, Meatballs in Oyster Sauce. But I am reluctant to recycle too many dishes, and if we use Cold Spiced Beef, we have the beef dish. I'm thinking of going with a seafood dish for lust. I'm not going to do a serious oyster dish, that's just asking for most of it to come back, so we're talking fish of some sort, I would think. Perhaps fish with a suitably spicy preparation.
For envy, I'm thinking of the use of an apple, on the theory that Satan gave Eve the forbidden fruit, usually represented by an apple, because of envy about the tree of knowledge. But both of the apple dishes I've used before are very time consuming to prepare in quantity: Golden Apples of Meat from "Fabulous Feasts" or Pippin Puddings from "In Service to Our Middles". The first is another meat dish, perfected by Lady Eschiva of Jebala back in the 1990s using pie crust and enormously time-consuming (she got an AoA the night of the feast she prepared 90 of them for). The second is a dessert that is shockingly time-consuming and labor-intensive. The apples have to be cored and filled with custard before cooking. I've done it before for relatively large feasts, but it will suck up a lot of labor during the day of the event.
For envy, I'm thinking of the use of an apple, on the theory that Satan gave Eve the forbidden fruit, usually represented by an apple, because of envy about the tree of knowledge. But both of the apple dishes I've used before are very time consuming to prepare in quantity: Golden Apples of Meat from "Fabulous Feasts" or Pippin Puddings from "In Service to Our Middles". The first is another meat dish, perfected by Lady Eschiva of Jebala back in the 1990s using pie crust and enormously time-consuming (she got an AoA the night of the feast she prepared 90 of them for). The second is a dessert that is shockingly time-consuming and labor-intensive. The apples have to be cored and filled with custard before cooking. I've done it before for relatively large feasts, but it will suck up a lot of labor during the day of the event.
Sloth and Wrath
For sloth, I'm considering a dish from "The Canton of Three Hills St. Valentine's Day Cookbook", Cold Spiced Beef. Beef is a meat considered to have some aphrodisiacal properties, and this dish takes weeks to prepare and uses juniper berries, nutmeg and cinnamon.
For wrath, a Stormvale favorite from "Pleyn Delit", Loin of Pork in Boar's Tail sauce. It has wine, cloves and we'll pretend it's wild boar, very aphrodisiacal stuff.
That gives us two meat dishes, and both are proven crowd pleasers.
For wrath, a Stormvale favorite from "Pleyn Delit", Loin of Pork in Boar's Tail sauce. It has wine, cloves and we'll pretend it's wild boar, very aphrodisiacal stuff.
That gives us two meat dishes, and both are proven crowd pleasers.
Evil Thought on Greed
For the greed dish, how about a delicious item, a proven winner, which deliberately shorts each table by one serving?
Heh.
Heh.
Feast Thoughts
Lady A'isha and I are cooking the feast for the Harvest of Souls on October 14, and I am being importuned to announce the menu. Well, well. Announce the menu. I suppose I should do that.
The theme of the event, it appears, is the Seven Deadly Sins. Further, I was asked to reprise something I've done for two previous HoS feasts, an aphrodisiac theme. So let's see here. The Seven Deadly Sins are:
Lust
Gluttony
Greed or Avarice
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride
Typical foodstuffs that the medievals would have thought arousing:
Fruits: pomegranates, figs, quince, peaches, perhaps apples.
Vegetables: onions, peas, carrots, asparagus, truffles.
Herbs: myrtle, marjoram, vervain, rosemary, mint.
Spices: nutmeg, saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, juniper.
Seafood: (almost all seafood is good!) oysters, lobster, scallops, anchovies.
Meat: steak, rabbit, lamb, boar.
Fowl: birds of all kinds.
Nuts: hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts, almonds.
And, of course, honey.
What kind of dishes will we have to have for a feast? Some delicacies for the table to begin and a subtlety to end. A salad, a soup, a chicken dish, a meat dish, some sort of seafood dish, some veggy dishes (I like to be in the 30% - 50% range for dishes vegetarians will eat).
How many dishes? Seven sins suggests seven dishes, but this is a little low for a feast. Double it? Whew. 14 dishes is a bit much. Maybe if we count some low prep dishes.
These are my initial thoughts, more shortly.
The theme of the event, it appears, is the Seven Deadly Sins. Further, I was asked to reprise something I've done for two previous HoS feasts, an aphrodisiac theme. So let's see here. The Seven Deadly Sins are:
Lust
Gluttony
Greed or Avarice
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride
Typical foodstuffs that the medievals would have thought arousing:
Fruits: pomegranates, figs, quince, peaches, perhaps apples.
Vegetables: onions, peas, carrots, asparagus, truffles.
Herbs: myrtle, marjoram, vervain, rosemary, mint.
Spices: nutmeg, saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, juniper.
Seafood: (almost all seafood is good!) oysters, lobster, scallops, anchovies.
Meat: steak, rabbit, lamb, boar.
Fowl: birds of all kinds.
Nuts: hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts, almonds.
And, of course, honey.
What kind of dishes will we have to have for a feast? Some delicacies for the table to begin and a subtlety to end. A salad, a soup, a chicken dish, a meat dish, some sort of seafood dish, some veggy dishes (I like to be in the 30% - 50% range for dishes vegetarians will eat).
How many dishes? Seven sins suggests seven dishes, but this is a little low for a feast. Double it? Whew. 14 dishes is a bit much. Maybe if we count some low prep dishes.
These are my initial thoughts, more shortly.
Friday, September 08, 2006
What to call Someone from Stormvale
I am slated to teach a college class on Michigan history this fall. As I prepare for the class, I'm reading, among many interesting things, about whether Michigan residents are properly called Michiganians or Michiganders. It's Michiganians, of course - Michigander doesn't make any sense and was originally an insult directed at Michigan politician Lewis Cass by Abraham Lincoln.
Which reminded me of the occasionally vexed question of whether to call a Stormvale member a Stormvalian or a Stormvaler. People often assume it must be Stormvalian, but it has always been Stormvaler since the early days of the branch. Why? Well, there is a degree of arbitrariness about the matter, all the more so, perhaps, because I'm probably the originator of the rule, but Stormvaler just sounded better when we first discussed this many years ago.
One might logically assume that if Michiganian, then Stormvalian, but then how does one explain New Yorker? New Yorkian just sounds goofy. Stormvalian always did, to me. So there you are.
Which reminded me of the occasionally vexed question of whether to call a Stormvale member a Stormvalian or a Stormvaler. People often assume it must be Stormvalian, but it has always been Stormvaler since the early days of the branch. Why? Well, there is a degree of arbitrariness about the matter, all the more so, perhaps, because I'm probably the originator of the rule, but Stormvaler just sounded better when we first discussed this many years ago.
One might logically assume that if Michiganian, then Stormvalian, but then how does one explain New Yorker? New Yorkian just sounds goofy. Stormvalian always did, to me. So there you are.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
He's Not Dead Yet!
I haven't blogged for a long, long time. I'm a bad blogger.
This just a note to say (to my tiny, tiny and no doubt sadly dwindled) audience that I haven't abandoned Clarion Hall. Frankly, I have been busy with work and other things and just haven't had much to say about the SCA lately. There were various things I no doubt could have said over the past few months, but I got out of the habit.
I'll try to have something to say again soon, so please check back some time. In the meantime, I hope past posts and photos are of some faint interest.
This just a note to say (to my tiny, tiny and no doubt sadly dwindled) audience that I haven't abandoned Clarion Hall. Frankly, I have been busy with work and other things and just haven't had much to say about the SCA lately. There were various things I no doubt could have said over the past few months, but I got out of the habit.
I'll try to have something to say again soon, so please check back some time. In the meantime, I hope past posts and photos are of some faint interest.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Much Longed For Flask
For much of my time in the SCA, I've been especially interested in medieval plate, or table settings. Few pieces of genuinely period design can be obtained, and most people settle for pieces that look old-fashioned or not modern (which is indeed better than nothing). In my quest for authenticity, I am locally famous for using a covered cup that is actually a modern silverplate compote but which strongly resembles covered cups of the period.
I have long desired a pilgrim's flask, which looks like a canteen with an oval foot. They are often featured in paintings of the 14th and 15th centuries, in particular. The pattern is a very old one - much used in the classical Mediterranean, and one sees ceramic and pottery versions down to today. I have seen models used by recreation groups in Europe, but have never been able to discover where they got them. Making one is a bit beyond my meager metal-working skills.
Having searched for years on eBay, I became aware that an old Dutch pewter company, Daalderop Royal Holland, had produced a pilgrim's flask in pewter at some time in the 20th century. The first one I saw was missing the cap, so I didn't bid, but I recently obtained the object of my desire, for a rather substantial price. I haven't used it at a revel or event yet, but I plan to soon.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Flint Institute of Arts
This afternoon, Melisande and I visited the Flint Institute of Arts, which was recently remodeled. We had been planning to see "To Be, Or Not To Be: Four Hundred Years of Vanitas Painting", an exhibit which ends on April 2. There is almost no medieval content in the exhibit, unfortunately, although some of the painters were born during the Renaissance. Vanitas painting was developed during the 17th Century.
A vanitas painting is a still life (usually) whose imagery suggests imminent decay and mortality. There is often a watch, or fruit about to spoil. In one memorable painting, a mouse is hiding amid the remains of breakfast, unaware of a cat about to pounce. Many of the paintings in the exhibit are very beautiful, some slightly disturbing.
There was a striking difference between the older paintings, before the turn of the 20th century, and the more recent ones. Even for the more representational paintings, the modern paintings were usually crude, blatant or garish. The older paintings were subtle, and usually more skillfully done, although there was amazing skill in some of the more recent paintings, too. The only piece of three-dimensional modern art was spectacularly childish. Melisande looked at it for a moment and then hurried away to the next piece, covering her mouth and trying not to laugh out loud.
I should add that about three of the more modern paintings were quite exceptional, including two I'd love to have prints for - but they were noticeably of the older style, too.
There is a hardcover book on the exhibition for $25, which we bought (that's a very reasonable price for a catalogue of its kind - they usually top $35 and are usually bound in cardstock.) The text is very well-written, and I noticed that the commentary beside the artwork itself had been written with an unusual degree of skill and wit.
An aside about the FIA. I often grow short-tempered with those who denigrate Flint, which admittedly has its problems. Flint can hardly be compared to Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids on this score, but those who think the city is desolate should go down to the cultural center area between the expressway and Mott Community College. The FIA is a state of the art building with a fine museum shop selling things I had not seen in similar shops elsewhere, and a Starbucks coffee shop. Art by local and state artists was on sale, or could be rented for modest fees (the fees are remitted for eventual purchasers). That seemed like a terrific idea to me - rent art for the office or home, change it whenever you like. The prices were reasonable, and there were also prints. I saw a print of downtown Flint that I think I will buy, frame and put outside my office at Baker after our current remodeling settles down.
There is an element of the FIA that is of more interest to the SCA. The Institute has a fine collection of Renaissance (and slightly later) furniture and tapestry, among other things, in the Bray Gallery. We didn't seek it out today, as we had other places to go. I saw it years ago and was quite impressed.
A vanitas painting is a still life (usually) whose imagery suggests imminent decay and mortality. There is often a watch, or fruit about to spoil. In one memorable painting, a mouse is hiding amid the remains of breakfast, unaware of a cat about to pounce. Many of the paintings in the exhibit are very beautiful, some slightly disturbing.
There was a striking difference between the older paintings, before the turn of the 20th century, and the more recent ones. Even for the more representational paintings, the modern paintings were usually crude, blatant or garish. The older paintings were subtle, and usually more skillfully done, although there was amazing skill in some of the more recent paintings, too. The only piece of three-dimensional modern art was spectacularly childish. Melisande looked at it for a moment and then hurried away to the next piece, covering her mouth and trying not to laugh out loud.
I should add that about three of the more modern paintings were quite exceptional, including two I'd love to have prints for - but they were noticeably of the older style, too.
There is a hardcover book on the exhibition for $25, which we bought (that's a very reasonable price for a catalogue of its kind - they usually top $35 and are usually bound in cardstock.) The text is very well-written, and I noticed that the commentary beside the artwork itself had been written with an unusual degree of skill and wit.
An aside about the FIA. I often grow short-tempered with those who denigrate Flint, which admittedly has its problems. Flint can hardly be compared to Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids on this score, but those who think the city is desolate should go down to the cultural center area between the expressway and Mott Community College. The FIA is a state of the art building with a fine museum shop selling things I had not seen in similar shops elsewhere, and a Starbucks coffee shop. Art by local and state artists was on sale, or could be rented for modest fees (the fees are remitted for eventual purchasers). That seemed like a terrific idea to me - rent art for the office or home, change it whenever you like. The prices were reasonable, and there were also prints. I saw a print of downtown Flint that I think I will buy, frame and put outside my office at Baker after our current remodeling settles down.
There is an element of the FIA that is of more interest to the SCA. The Institute has a fine collection of Renaissance (and slightly later) furniture and tapestry, among other things, in the Bray Gallery. We didn't seek it out today, as we had other places to go. I saw it years ago and was quite impressed.
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