Bunratty Folk Park, Ireland part one

I'm going to start this off with one very simple request: if you ever get a change to go to Ireland, go to Bunratty.  Seriously, despite a problem with some mis-information by the interpretors, it is completely fabulous.   The biggest issue with Bunratty is they have no clue of what a gem they really have.   The castle and the grounds cover everything from the 15th up to the early 20th Century.  It's 500 years of history in one little park where you can peak back in time.   The castle, the homes, and many of the artifacts are all extant.

The problem is that the interpretors have zero idea of what they are talking about.  I think Bunratty got hit hard during the recession of '08 and is just starting to bounce back.  I recall the medieval banquet I went to uh....many, many years ago and it was very different from what it is now.  Not that it's bad now - it's definitely better than the Medieval Times in the U.S. but only just.

Some issues - the costuming.  Okay, granted, that's the first thing I would notice.  The castle was built in the mid 15th Century.  The garments the actors and actresses wore were want-to-be-16th Century.  I get that you need garments that can be used by other actors and can be cleaned easily but there are plenty of garments from that range that fit the bill that don't involve zippers up the back.   ...Or panne velvet. 

Really, I think hoppelande gowns or even just really basic sideless surcotes (which were worn for festive occasions up into the 16th Century) over a-tunics would be perfect for the actressess.  The sideless will fit pretty much any size and the a-tunics are very easy to make.  Making them out of linen and wool - to show off what would have been worn in Ireland anyway- would also look stunning.  For the men, a short hoppelande or a liene with hosen would look nice.

The second problem was the entire dinner.  Don't get me wrong - it was delicious- but BBQ ribs with tomato sauce (they gave me mine without the sauce) and potato soup are pretty distinctly post period for the castle.  It's clear they wanted to give a 15th/16th vibe.  The potato was introduced from the New World in the 16th C - but you don't see many recipes for it until the later half.  Even then, it's more baked potato stuff.  The tomato isn't commonly eaten until the late 18th/early 19th C.

Also, the actors and actresses claimed that any cutlery other than a knife wasn't a thing which is blatantly false.  I'm not sure why that is even still a common myth.  We had to eat our soup without a spoon.  This goes directly against the Irish archeology finds in southern Ireland that include...wooden spoons. Now, this entire event could have been an excellent learning experience and still allowed the castle to get away without having spoons. Really, in the middle ages, people were expected to bring their own cutlery - to include spoons. Since we, as 21st guests, don't regularly keep our flatware on our persons, the "host" of the evening could declare that they don't have enough spoons for more than the household. Therefore, the guests will need to sop up their soup with the bread - which is what we pretty much did without anyone telling us too. Still, teaching about sopping up the soup and going into that part of history would be much more accurate and truthful than just saying spoons weren't a thing despite direct evidence against that.

As for forks, they aren't a thing until pretty late in the 16th c so it's doubtful they'd be a thing in Ireland for the time that the medieval banquet is trying to re-create. Still, providing a spoon and a knife and explaining about the archeology of Ireland would be beautiful.

Medieval Banquet Hall

A couple of days later, I went back to the folk park to get some better pictures of the castle (since I was an idiot and forgot my camera in my bag back in the B&B) as well as check out the rest of the park.  My memories of the park many years ago are a bit fuzzy but I do recall the 19th C village and the people dressed up talking about various aspects of pre and post famine Ireland. 

Bunratty Castle

I wanted to get photos of some of the tapestries in the castle and other antiques because, what Bunratty does have, is absolutely fabulous artifacts from the 15th ~18th Centuries.   When I went into the main hall, a gentleman was dressed up in far better 16th Century garb than I saw at the banquet.  However, what I heard him say made me cringe and I had to walk away. 

According to him, the Irish didn't have glass for windows until the 17th Century.   /facepalm   The way he said it, it made it sound like glass hadn't been invented yet.   I later had to explain to a few people that - no, glass is ancient.  Even the Romans had it.   I also eventually piped up a bit and did point out they had shutters on the archer windows.  It's not like our medieval ancestor let all the heat from the fireplace go out an open window in the middle of winter.  We have manuscripts from England, Germany, and Italy showing glass windows as early as the 14th Century.   

Now, you wouldn't want to glass over an archer's window because it would just get in the way.  Having shutters that come inside the window and covering the window with those fabulous heavy velvets or tapestries also kept the cold outside.   Despite what the gentleman said about it being very cold and how spoiled we are with our heating and a/c - it's just not that bad in the middle ages.  Anyone who has been camping in the winter knows a good fire will keep you pretty darn warm.  Add that having four walls and roof?  Well, I know I've been in power outages for as long as a week in winter.  A good fireplace, good curtains, and warm clothing will keep you plenty warm.   

The Great Hall

Another myth the gentleman spoke about that made me cringe was that, apparently, according to him, there were no vegetables or fruit in Ireland before Sir Walter Raleigh brought back the potato.  ....  I'm not joking.  That's what he said.

I guess carrots, turnips, onions, and apples which were common in England never made it across with all the nobles going back and forth? Of course, that's not the least bit true. The truth is that apples have been a part of Ireland for at least 3,000 years. In fact, crabapples, hazelnuts, and waterlily seeds were part of the mesolithic diet. So, they had fruit. Various types of cabbage were a thing since the Roman era (I mean, come on! Irish and boiled cabbage is almost more Irish that potatoes!!) with the Savoy cabbage being introduced in the late 16th century. The biggest part of the medieval Irish diet, however (which both this gentleman and the actors at the banquet overlooked) was cheese. Dairy was a huge part of the medieval Irish diet. Add that with some fish, bread, and apples...and I think they ate rather healthily in times when there wasn't a famine.

They certainly weren't just hunting elk and eating that - unlike what the gentleman said. Seriously, he said they only ate meat....which uh. No. Just no. Meat was actually pretty rare except for the rich. He mentioned that the Irish deer were smaller so there wasn't much meat. Really, he made out the medieval Irish to be small, starving, people who were constantly cold and died at 20. Yet, somehow, there are Irish today....

Yeap, he did the whole life expectancy thing. While life expectancy was lower before, well, antibiotics, it didn't mean you dropped dead at 30. Nor did it mean that a bunch of people were dying at 30. Rather, a LOT of people died before they got to be five years old and a lot of people died when they were in their mid to late 60s. You get an average life expectancy of 30 from that. Yes, more women died in childbirth than they do today - but the rate (thank you Dublinia for getting right!) was 15% of women died in childbirth. Not exactly the 50/50 chance that many people make it out to be.

Another aspect that the gentleman said that rubbed be the wrong way was that women were second class citizens in Ireland and were expected to just sit around and have ten children, with a couple of male heirs maybe making it to adulthood. Well...no. I mean, just look at Grace O'Malley who is still considered one of the greatest pirate Queens in history. She had control over her own lands, ships, and got such a reputation as a pirate, that Queen Elizabeth of England demanded an audience with her. Also, Grace had three kids - not ten.

Okay, so pretty much everything he said was a myth. The Irish weren't always cold, starving, and dying - although there were famines. Women weren't just baby factories - they had more rights than their English counterparts. And the Irish had veggies and fruit. I mean...seriously! Cabbage! /sigh

Anyway, on to the beauty that is Bunratty castle itself.

The pantry is right off the main hall.  Amazingly, they actually have this pretty accurate for the late 15th/early 16th C.   It's basically slightly poorer version of what King Henry VIII would have had.  Also, those look like water fowl hanging up to be prepared - not small starving deer.   /headdesk

Late 15th Century/early 16th C tapestry on one of the walls in the great hall.  Luckily, my camera got an excellent shot of them.

Late 16th Century tapestry.  This one was the best preserved of the lot.  

A lovely gothic window.  The windows appear to be a mix of glass from various time periods put together with some modern methods.  Really, most of the glass was quite lovely up close but was all recreations of other pieces.

This bed.  Let me tell you how much I love this bedroom.  The bedspread is a bit blurry but is is, in fact, early 17th Century Jacobean embroidery.  Real.  Not a recreation.   And the canopy?

Oh the canopy....

I got as close as I dared to get a good close up of the polychrome embroidery on the purple silk.   Yes, it is a real late 16th/early 17th Century embroidery piece - most likely Italian.   A similar style of embroidery is at the Hermitage and seen in in this embroidery pattern book form 1608.  

Another fabulous bedroom with 16th and 17th C artifacts

The upper hall

A 16th Century Gentleman

15th Century original floor tiles

This photo is hard to see but I wanted to show how hard it was to see the next beauty.  It's in the corner, to the right.  See the cross?  Okay, the next beauty is inside the glass case...

See that embroidery?  I know it's difficult - there was no way to get close to it as the room was roped off.  However, the embroidery style?  This green velvet chasuble has early 15th Century Embroidery all over it.   *dies*   Did I mention that the Bunratty Folk park have no clue what they really have?   This is evidence of that...  This poor chasuble is back in a corner where no one can see it properly and yet early 15th Century embroidery?!?

It was like that through out the entire castle.   In my next post on the Folk Park, I'll actually get to the folk park.  :-)   One item I do remember of the original banquet I went to ...err..a while ago, I'd like them to bring the snuff boxes back.  They had them many years ago and I remember trying it.  Let's just say, I didn't have sinus issues for weeks afterwards!   :-)

Historical Food Fortnightly: Sweets for the Sweet

The Challenge:4. Sweets for the Sweet (February 12 - February 25) It’s sugar, and maybe spice, and definitely everything nice. Test out a historic recipe for sweets, sweetmeats and candies - but don’t let them spoil your appetite!


The Recipe: (where did you find it, link to it if possible) Take one hundred cocoa beans, two chillies, a handful of anise seed and two of vanilla (two pulverized Alexandria roses can be substituted), two drams of cinnamon, one dozen almonds and the same amount of hazelnuts, half a pound of white sugar and enough annatto to give some color. And there you have the king of chocolates from What's Cooking America?  You can read some of the book it is from here.

The Date/Year and Region: 1631, Spain

How Did You Make It: (a brief synopsis of the process of creation) I obviously didn't use the amounts the original author indicated. Half a pound of sugar is a bit much. Also, I don't like hazelnuts.

• 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
• 1 heaping tablespoon of sugar
• 1 cup of vanilla flavored almond milk
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• a pinch of anise

I mixed this together and I had hot chocolate!

Time to Complete: A couple of minutes
Total Cost: I had everything on hand

How Successful Was It?: (How did it taste? How did it look? Did it turn out like you thought it would?) The chili powder really changed the taste. However, the rest of it isn't too terribly different from how I make modern hot chocolate so....I loved it!   It's spicy because of the chili powder I used but it's really quite good if you like a rich chocolate taste.

How Accurate Is It?: (fess up to your modifications and make-dos here) I used store bought almond milk and store bought  ground ingredients. I also used the microwave. ;-)  I used almond milk rather than almond flour because, once you add water to the almond flour, the only real difference is that the almond flour would make the drink slightly more thick.   Since the kind of almond milk I buy already had vanilla in it, it makes sense to use that rather than crushing up a bunch of almonds and using vanilla extract (or the vanilla beans I have on hand that are not cheap!).

Historically Food Fortnightly 1: Meat and Potatoes

The Challenge:  1. Meat-and-Potatoes (January 1 - January 14) They’re a staple for the tables in the most rustic cottages as well as the fanciest banquet tables - and it’s also an idiom meaning a staple or the most basic parts of something. Make a historic “meat-and-potatoes” recipe - however you interpret it.

The Recipe: (where did you find it, link to it if possible)
The link to the recipe  To boyle a Capon. TAke strong broth of Marrow-bones, or any other strong broth, put the Marrow into a Pipkin with Salt: boyle your Capon in the Pipkin, and scumme it cleane, before you be ready to take it off, put in your Salt. Take a pinte of white-Wine in a Pipkin, for one Capon, if you haue more, you must haue more Wine: halfe a pound of Sugar a quarter of a pound of Dates sliced, Potatoes boyled, and blauncht, large Mace, Nutmeg sliced: if you want Potatoes take Endiffe, and for want of both, boyle Skirrets & blaunch them: boile all together, with a quarter of a pint of Uergis, and the yolkes of Egges, straine it and stirre it about, and put it to the Capon with the strong broth.

My translation: To boyle a capon.  Take strong broth of marrow bones, or any strong broth, and put the marrow bones in a stew pan with salt.  Boil your capon in the stew pan, and scim it clean.  Put your salt in before it's almost done.  

Take a pint of white cooking wine and put it in a stew pan - enough for one capon.  If you have more than one capon, you must have more wine!  Half a pound of sugar, a quarter pound of dates, sliced, boiled and whitened potatoes, large mace and nutmeg sliced.  If don't have potatoes take endif (no clue what that is)  endive and if you don't have either, take skirrets, whiten and boil them in a quarter pint of verjuice and with egg yolks that have been strained.  Stir it and then add this to the chicken and the broth in the other stew pot.  (Edited because this makes way more sense)


The Date/Year and Region:  England, 1615

How Did You Make It: (a brief synopsis of the process of creation)

First, I have no idea what is meant by "endiffe" so I ignored everything after the nutmeg part - it seemed to be another way to cook the potatoes for the stew.   Edit:  I found out that the author probably meant endive for endiffe.  Endive is an herb.

 Second, I don't have access to capons (eunuch roosters) so I used modern chicken breast.  Honestly, I doubt there is much of a difference due to how much chicken has changed in the 20th and 21st centuries due to our farming techniques.   The entire reason they neutered the roosters back then was to make them more plump.
I used redskin potatoes because a) I like them and b) despite this being a sweet recipe, you can't make sweet potatoes white, which is what the recipe called for so...

1 box of chicken marrow bone broth - my grocery store actually sells this
1 chicken breast, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon of sea salt
1 pint of white cooking wine
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of chopped up dates
2 large redskin potatoes, chopped
a pinch of mace slices
1 teaspoon nutmeg, grounded up since I didn't have the sliced kind


I boiled the chicken in the broth in one pot and boiled the potatoes with pretty much everything else (minus the salt) in another.  That's really it.  Once the potatoes were boiled, I mixed the two together.


Time to Complete: Half hour
Total Cost:  Maybe $15?  The cooking wine was $4.29, the chicken breast was $2.99, the potatoes were about $1.29 for a lb, the dates were $2.99 for the entire bag which I didn't use all off, and the chicken broth was $3 ish, I think.   Everything else I had on hand.   

How Successful Was It?: (How did it taste? How did it look? Did it turn out like you thought it would?)

It was so much better than I thought it would be based on the ingredients that not only will I make it again, I finished this bowl.  I seriously chomped down on every bite.   It's sweet (of course) but it's absolutely delicious.  It's roughly about 400 calories per a bowl - not bad since I'm on a diet.

I knew it would be sweet but I thought it might be too sweet and the chicken broth wouldn't blend well with the super sweet wine and sugar mix I boiled the potatoes in.  Instead, it actually blended perfectly and the broth cut down the sweetness of the sugar and wine to a point that it's more "fruit" sweet than super sweet.  The pinch of mace and the teaspoon of nutmeg added just the right amount of spice.  I thought I might add cinnamon or ginger to it but I really now think that would ruin the balance of the dish.

How Accurate Is It?: (fess up to your modifications and make-dos here)   Chicken rather than capon is really the big one. The potatoes were a bit of a guessing game but I doubt they are very different from what was available in the early 17th century. Of course, I used a nice modern electric stove top as well.  Overall, I'm very pleased with this one.

Historical Food Fortnightly: Orange!

The Challenge: 25. Orange You Glad May 3 - May 14
It can be orange-flavored, orange-colored, or just plain oranges - but the challenge is “orange”!


The Recipe: (where did you find it, link to it if possible) To Make Apple Pufs To make Apple pufs. TAke a Pomewater or any other Apple that is not hard, or harsh in taste: mince it small with a dozen or twenty Razins of the Sunne: wet the Apples in two Egges, beat them all together with the backe of a Knife, or a Spoone. Season them with Nutmeg, Rosewater, Sugar, and Ginger: drop them into a Frying-pan with a Spoone, frye them like Egges, wring on the iuyce of an Orenge, or Lemmon, and serue them in.


The Date/Year and Region: 1615 England


How Did You Make It: (a brief synopsis of the process of creation) I still have some frozen apples so I took those out and heated them slightly in water to re-hyrdate them (they've been in the freezer over six months. Any water they had in them has been freeze dried out of them pretty much at this point). I also had raisins, eggs, sugar, rosewater, nutmeg, and ginger. I bought an orange and juiced. Although, honestly, our oranges are way sweeter than theirs would have been.

I used about 4 cut and peeled apples, three handfuls of raisins, two eggs, 40 twists of the nutmeg grinder, about a teaspoon and a half of ginger, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of rosewater. I admit, I used the oh so historical blender rather than a spoon to mix everything together. However, this ended up being VERY watery so I put it into a sieve and that reduced the volume by about half. However, it also made it easier to scoop up and cook like eggs. Not that I'm great at that either - there is a reason I always end up with scrabbled eggs. Then, once the now scrambled apple puffs (which is the reason there aren't any pictures.  It looked like burnt cat food) were done, I poured a bit of the orange juice over them.


Time to Complete: Maybe a half hour?


Total Cost: The oranges were $2.99 a pound (organic). Everything else I already had.


How Successful Was It?: (How did it taste? How did it look? Did it turn out like you thought it would?) Honestly, it was pretty good. I mean, it's apples, oranges, and raisins with extra sugar - it's not like it could taste that bad. I need to work on the amounts of spices and water but it is something I'll try again so...not bad. I think it would be a good early modern vegan "meat (less) ball" for pastas. This with the white sauce (it had oranges in it too) I was looking at over pasta? Might not be a bad choice next year for Lent.

How Accurate Is It?: (fess up to your modifications and make-dos here) So, I only used two eggs because out eggs now are much bigger than what they would have had in the early 17th century. The oranges are also sweeter. The apples are of a late 18th century variety - that being said, they would have recognized everything I used easily. Except the blender. I even used olive oil to fry the puffs in so yeah, the blender. And the stove.

Historical Food Fortnightly: Revolution

The Challenge:  17. Revolutionary Food January 11 - January 24

The theme is revolution, and it’s all about ch-ch-ch-changes. Food can be inspired by revolution, can showcase a revolutionary technique, or come from a revolutionary time. Give us your best documented interpretation of revolution.

The Recipe: (where did you find it, link to it if possible)
Boiled Potato

The Date/Year and Region:
1604/ France - However, similar recipes appear in late 16th C England as well

How Did You Make It: (a brief synopsis of the process of creation)
I boiled a potato.  :-)   Okay, so the entire story is that I was originally going to make a different potato recipe from the late 16th/early 17th c, but thanks to a very bad bartender who used corn syrup lemon flavoring in my lemon drop martini the other night, I'm sick.  So, I stuck to simple and boiled a potato, peeled it, stuck a slab of vegan "butter" on it, and some pepper.

Time to Complete:
40 minutes because the stupid pot of water would not boil!

Total Cost:
umm...Less than $1?  It was one very large potato from a sack of potatoes.

How Successful Was It?: (How did it taste? How did it look? Did it turn out like you thought it would?)  It was a potato.  It was yummy.

How Accurate Is It?: (fess up to your modifications and make-dos here)
Okay, so, they didn't differentiate between sweet potatoes and white potatoes until the mid 18th C.  So, there were a couple of recipes that clearly called for sweet potatoes (because nutmeg with a white potato would be wrong) and many other, like this one, that went either way.  By the mid 16th C, the Spanish had brought both the sweet potato and the white potato back to the Old World.  I went with a redskin potato because it's what I had on hand that I knew wouldn't upset my tummy further.

As to why the potato is so revolutionary...



Basically, could anyone in the Western world imagine not eating a potato during the course of a week? Between the common side of fries, mashed potatoes, or just some sort of potato salad, potato is a staple crop in the Western world. I've even seen Asian restaurants with fries on the menu. Potatoes are everywhere.

Given that the potato has become part of the Western diet - let's not forget the great Potato Famine in Ireland- a few centuries ago, it's hard to imagine a time without it. Or, a time when they were figuring out how the heck to eat it. The 16th C/early 17th C was a time were the potato was a curiosity and something not part of the normal menu. (Can you imagine having fish without the chips?) The introduction of the potato to the European diet revolutionized foodways and what we eat.

HFF: The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread August 24 - September 6

I'm going to admit this was a near total fail.  The picture above is the second attempt at marzipan.  I will say it tastes absolutely delicious and I'm probably going to crush it up to use it as a topping on apple pie but it looks like...well.  Yeah.

So...

The Challenge:

The Best thing Since Sliced Bread

The Recipe: There were several recipes.  15th Century Italian Marzipan, 1604 French Marzipan, 16th Century German Recipe, 16th Century English recipe on how to decorate Marzipan, 1520 Spanish Marzipan

The Date/Year and Region: 

The recipe I went with is later 16th/early 17th Century.  Marzipan was popular all over Europe.

How Did You Make It: 

I used a lot of almond meal, some homemade rose water, and powdered sugar. Really, that was about it. (more below)

Time to Complete:  20 mintues

Total Cost:  The almond meal was the same stuff I used in the last challenge so maybe $11?  The rosewater I made myself using rose oil I had on hand.  (more below)

How Successful Was It?: ...:-D  In terms of taste, it was great!  In terms of appearance, it looked sort of like cooked vomit and really there was no other way to describe it.  

How Accurate Is It?:  Pretty accurate except that it kept coming out looking like...that.  I know there must be something I'm missing and I think it's the amount of almond oil required based on the 16th Century recipe instructions.

The entire story:

So, I thought making marzipan with medieval gingerbread would be a great idea for an SCA event last weekend.   The medieval gingerbread (aka, medieval fireballs) came out great and everyone loved them.  The marzipan?  Wasn't fit for human consumption - although when my Mom came over, we both pecked at the bubbled over remains.  It was delicious.  

So the recipe:

This is an excerpt from Ouverture de Cuisine
(France, 1604 - Daniel Myers, trans.)
The original source can be found at MedievalCookery.com

To make Marzipan. Take almonds appointed as above, & flatten the paste as for making a tart, then form the marzipan as fancy as you want, then take sifted sugar & mix with rose water, & beat it together that it is like a thick batter, cast there a little on the marzipan, & flatten with a well held knife until the marzipan is all covered, then put it into the oven on paper: when you see that it boils thereon & that it does like ice, tear apart from the oven, when it doesn't boil, & sprinkle on nutmeg: if you want it golden, make it so.

My redaction:
2 cups almond flour
enough rose water to make a dough
1/2 cup powdered sugar (the kind I use does not have corn in it but tapioca starch)

another cup or so of powdered sugar
enough rose water to just make the powdered sugar turn into an icing.

The first time, I went all out and made little leaves and used my cake decorating kit to stamp out shapes - it looks fabulous going into the oven.  However, I had the oven way too high (350F) and it bubbled and burnt.   This second attempt was at 245F and it still bubbled but not burnt this time!

I think the reason the marzipan is bubbling is because there isn't enough almond oil in the dough.  Rather than pounding almonds into dust, I cheated and used the almond flour I had left over.  I'm going to try it again with ground almonds (blenders are awesome!) and see if it works better later on.

However, why I chose marzipan for this challenge to begin with involved a lot of research.  In the 15th century and early 16th century recipes, marzipan is not a decoration but a food for sick people.  By the end of the 16th into the early 17th century, it's clearly a decoration. So the attitude and even the way it was made changed greatly over the course of really less than 100 years.

In the 15th Century Italian recipe, for example, it calls for "capon" - or rooster/chicken for us modern folk.

Marzipan Dish. For ten servings of Marzipan Dish get one pound of marzipan and grind it up thoroughly and put with it a capon wing that has been ground up as much as possible; get crustless bread in the amount of an egg and soak it in lean broth; then get a little verjuice, a little rosewater, a little capon broth, and distemper everything together, and cook it gently on the coals with a little ginger; let it come to a boil or a little more, then dish it up with sugar and cinnamon on top.

Basically, it's a biscuit or cracker with sugar, almonds, and chicken broth.  However, by the 1570's, you have an English recipe explaining how to make marzipan gold:

This is an excerpt from The Treasurie of commodious Conceits
(England, 1573 - J. Holloway, transcr.)
The original source can be found at MedievalCookery.com

To gylde a Marchpane or any other kinds of Tarte. Cap. x. TAke and cut your leafe of Golde as it lyeth vpon the booke, into square peces like dise: & wt a Contes taylles ende moiste a litle, take the mold vp by the one corner, lay it on the place beyng first made moiste: & with another tayle of a Conte dry, presse the Golde downe close:

And if ye wil haue the forme of an Hert or the name of IESVS, or any other thing, whatsoeuer, cut ye same through a peece of Paper, & lay the Paper vpon your Marchpayne, or Tarte: then make the void place of the Paper (throw which, ye Marchpayne appeereth) moist with Rosewater, laye on your Golde, presse it downe, take of your Paper, & there remayneth behinde in Golde the Print cut in the said Paper.

The whole capon thing gets taken out. In modern marzipan, eggs are still used but they weren't in the 16th Century recipes. The 15th C ones still have an egg which shows another change in how it was prepared.

So, although my own creation was pretty much a failure, I'm sort of glad I went with this anyway.

Historical Food Fortnightly #1: Literary Foods

Let's face it; if you ask anyone to name any 16th century or early 17th century author, it will be Shakespeare...despite the fact that technically, he's not an author; he's a playwright.  So I decided to stick to my 16th Century guns and just randomly look up mentions of food in Shakespeare.   I knew he had some but most of it was generic like "meat" and "bread" or very specific ingredients like "strawberries" or "garlic" - very little was to call out a specific baking creation. 

However, I did find the clown in A Winter's Tale (Act IV, Scene III) does mention something that can be baked:

Let me see; what am
I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound
of sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will
this sister of mine do with rice? But my father
hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it
on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for
the shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good
ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but
one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to
horn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden
pies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note;
nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I
may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of
raisins o' the sun.

 Warden pies sounds good!   Wardens (aka, pears) are easy to find at any local super market and I actually have everything else I need in my kitchen (even way too much saffron!).  So let's find a good 16th C recipe for Wardens:

How to bake Wardens.

Core your wardens and pare them, and perboyle them and laye them in your paste, and put in every warden where you take out the Core a Clove or twain, put to them Sugar, Ginger, Sinamon, more sinamon then ginger, make your crust very fine and somewhat thick, and bake them leisurely.  A Booke of Cookery 1584/1591

That will do it!  I've been making pie crusts for a couple of years using a variation on what they did in the middle ages/Renaissance.  In 1545, A Propere New Book of Cookrye states this about making "coffins":

Make paste of fine floure, egges, butter and faire water, therof make Coffins - How to bake Sparrowes or other small birds.
 then take fine flowre, yolkes of Egs, and butter, a little quantitye of rosewater and sugar, then make little coffins-How to make Chuets

And in 1575, we have this recipe for an apple pie with crust:

To make pies of greene Apples.
Take your Apples and pare them
cleane, and core them as ye wil a quince
then make your coffin after this man-
ner, take a litle fayre water, and halfe
a fishe of butter, and a litle Saffron,
and set all this upon a chafindyshe, tyll
it bee hote, than temper your flower
with this sayd licour, and the white of
two egges, & also make your coffin and
season your Apples with Cinamon,
Ginger and Sugar inough. Then put
them into your coffin, and bake them.

So the main parts of a 16th century English pie crust are...the same as today.  :-)  Flour, eggs, butter, and water to form the paste.  Saffron to color it yellow.  Sugar to make the crust taste sweet.

Although I can use most  of the ingredients, I can't have butter - at all.  Luckily, I'm not the first person in history to have a dairy allergy and they did use olive oil all the time in place of butter in the 16th century.  Easy!  

Crust recipe:

• 2 cups of  flour
• 1 pinch of saffron
• 1/2 cup of water or so - added more as the dough was too dry
• 2 generous tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 egg whites
• 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar

Mix all the ingredients together and then kneed the dough for a couple of minutes. Split the dough in half so you'll have a top and bottom crust. Roll out the bottom crust and throw that into a pan to bake for 10 minutes at about 375F.

Warden Pie:

• 5 pears
• sugar
• cinnamon
• ginger
• 5 whole cloves

I didn't measure this part. I peeled and cored each of the pears - boiling them for 10-ish minutes once they were cored. I then stuck a clove in each one, put in about a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 a teaspoon of ginger, and enough sugar to almost fill each pear. I then dumped them in the pie crust. Once all five were in, I rolled out the top curst and draped that over the pears. I also poked each pear with a fork once the over was on (so the pie could breathe). I baked the pie for 45 min at 350F.

I'm going to take it to a party and see how it tastes.  It smells delicious. 

EDIT: It tasted great.  The filling in the pears ridiculously good.  I'll definitely have to make this again. The crust could use a bit of work.  I think it needs more sugar and less kneading.  However, it was perfectly edible.  Everyone that tried it seemed to like it. 

A Visit to the Met

 

I know many of us who study late 16th/early 17th Century clothing have seen this painting. It's from the 1630's. The old women is a Gypsy fortune teller as are the two ladies to the left of the painting. The couple in the middle are your typical German couple from the time. What I haven't noticed before is the amazing detail in the Gypsies' garments!


The blanket worn over the other clothing is a jacquard weave. You can really tell in this close up. Also notice the knife the old lady carries for protection. Where the heck is it hanging from?!? The younger Gypsy ladies clothing is even more interesting.


I wanted to get a close up the necklines with this photo. Take a look a the loose weave kerchief/partlet around the lady in the back's neck. These ladies are also wearing the thick blanket (jacquard/tapestry) as we see typical of Gypsies at this time period.


In this close up, you can see the lady closest to us' cap. Also, the lady further away has a very unusual hairstyle. I love the front braids just twirled up like that!


The scarletwork and goldwork on her chemise suggests that these Gypsies were anything but poor. I just really adored the details in this painting. It's a bit out of the typical SCA period but we also know that the Gypsy/Roma fashion didn't change quite as quickly as Western European fashion at the time. You can see several similar examples of Gypsy fashion well within the pre -17th century constraints.

Historical Fortnightly Challenge #16: Separates

Better pictures in the morning, I swear.  I just wanted to get this posted before the deadline
The Challenge: Seperates
Fabric: Linen
Pattern:  Based upon extant high necked smocks a la Janet Arnold
Year:  16th Century and early 17th Century, really. The embroidery is from 1526 but was a common pattern throughout the 16th Century.
Notions: silk thread, linen thread
How historically accurate is it? I doubt it could be more H/A without time traveling back, really. I suppose it could use a bit more embroidery but the point was to show that an embroidered, accurate smock was possible in 2 weeks.
Hours to complete: 30 very long hours
First worn: Probably tomorrow. :-)
Total cost: I think I got the linen on sale for $5 a yard and the silk was $5...and the linen thread was $7 so about $32 unless you want to count the beeswax used on the linen thread then it's $35.

Research!

The idea was a two fold one - to prove that a hand stitched, hand embroidered smock was possible in a pretty tight window (15 days) and also to get a high neck smock to use during cooler events. Most of my chemises/smocks/shifts are all open around the neckline. This helps in the summer when it can get HOT at outdoor events but it's just not practical during the cooler events. I didn't want a partlet since they weren't always worn and they don't work with some of the gowns that have embroidered necklines (even if it's the linen ones, then you have to tie them beneath the arms and it's just more fuss. A high neck smock just made more sense).

High neck smocks appear all over Europe and they stay in Europe for over a century. There is this one from 1540 that I really loved and this one from a hundred years later. So, a high neck smock would go with a lot of different outfits from a lot of different eras.

I've sewn a chemise before by hand and knew how quickly that can go but I haven't really completed an embroidery project like this before. That was interesting. My five year old nephew declared the collar his when he saw it. I had to be disciplined to work on the embroidery a bit every day. It's far from perfect - the lines look like my five year old nephew helped with the sewing- but it does look neat. I used violet thread similar to the collar in this extant Italian chemise simply because I wanted something that would have high contrast against the white linen but also would look good with a variety of colors.

More inspiration photos and pictures later - I'm beat from sewing all day to get this finished!

EDIT: I added a couple more pictures.  One of the actual finished smock up on the dress dummy and the other of one of the neck gussets (you can see my finger in that photo for size).  Edging the neck gussets was an interesting experience since they are so terribly small and triangular.  Everything else on the smock is a rectangle or square, making edging very easy.   Luckily, I had enough foresight to edge the neck gussets first.  :-)  

For the body of the smock, I used the selvage on both the hem and the shoulders - using the selvage is both period and practical.  I couldn't sew the body together at the shoulders by edging it since the rest of the top of the smock makes up the gathered neckline - it would get messy quickly and there would be raw edges sticking out somewhere near a neck gusset.   So, using the selvage, the fabric was still thin enough to gather at the neckline but wouldn't unravel at the shoulders without being rolled either.  

Portrait inspiration:

 

Lovely Early 17th Century Minature Recently on Ebay

From the seller:

A pair of early 17th century miniature portraits of a noble couple. Oil on tin, size 9,7 cm x 6,5 cm / 9,5 x 6,5 cm (3 3/4 x 2 1/2 in.)

From Me:

This didn't fit on my other blog but I thought it was important given how old the paintings are.

There is a lot of interesting tidbits with these paintings. Miniatures were the wallet sized pictures before the age of photography. There are a lot and all you need to do is a quick search to see ton. Painting on metal wasn't uncommon either - despite how weird it might look to us.

A few other late 16th/early 17th paintings that are oil on metal:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O137343/the-virgin-mary-reliquary-unknown/

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Aachen_Hans_von-Joking_Couple

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Allori_Alessandro-Portrait_of_a_Woman

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Albani_Francesco-Holy_Family_with_Angels

http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Elsheimer_Adam-Judith_Beheading_Holofernes

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82306/portrait-of-an-unknown-girl-portrait-miniature-unknown/

Based upon his ruff and her shawl/fall, my guess is late 1620's/early 1630's. The ruff he is wearing would be out of style but make sense with his suit of armor (think military uniform), whereas his bride would be wearing the latest fashion.

Altogether, a very lovely example from the Baroque time period.