Sources online

I just found this lovely place. Books, books and books, free downloads or reading in the internet. Love it! I searched for cookery, and found these. Original texts in PDF. Thank you internet!

The best one of them all: Two fifteenth-century cookery-books, Harleian ms. 279 (ab.1430) & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450) with extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553 & Douce ms. 55

I'm in love.

I actually already have a book that contains Harleian recipes, but I'm not sure if they are all there and in original form. I'm disagreeing with one interpretation the author has made of a recipe, so I have to try it both ways and try to dig a little deeper. That shall be my first A&S50 challenge entry.

Arts&Sciences 50 Challenge

I decided to participate in A&S50 challenge. I will try a depth challenge, since I'm not yet up to doing a breadth challenge. Perhaps later though...

So. I'm going to try 50 new (to me, that is) original recipes and document them. I will present them here in my blog in the order I make them.

Pictures

I like Racaire's museum pictures in Flickr, and would like to do the same for my museum pictures. To put them in the internet, that is. So I created an account for that ("ladypetronilla"). The upload limit of 100MB is totally too small! I'll have to upgrade soon.

What you can find on a flea market?

Lovely things, these flea markets. Some of the nice things I have found on them are a bag full of linen sewing thread and a huge book, The Museums in Germany. The book changed owner for a good price of 0,50€. Inside it was a treasure! A colour photograf of an embroidered pouch I've been looking for for a little while. I have a picture of the same pouch in another book, but this time it was a photo of the other side of it! I've made a replica of the other side, and now I can do the same of the other, and combine them to a complete pouch! Wehee! Joy!

The Book:

Here's the picture inside the book (scanned with a good resolution for details):

Here's the picture I already had:

Here's my version of it:

The first one took about 240 hours of work, so I'm not counting of this being ready soon. I hope I have some of the same fabric still left somewhere, not to mention the same threads and gold!

Note to self: Garum

The books I have on this subject, what they use for Garum/Liquamen

De re coquinaria - Roomalainen keittokirja ("Roman cookbook") translated by Tuulikki Elo, Heikki Laakkonen and Eero Valjakka, The Finnish Literature Society, ISBN 951-746-360-X

-> Nuok mam sauce, Vietnamese.

Herkullista Historiaa ("Delicious History"), Andreo Larsen, Liisa Savunen and Risto Valjus, Villa Lanten ystävät ry, ISBN 951-0-28256-1

-> Nam Pla sauce, Thailandish.

-> Nuok nam sauce, Vietnamese.

At the University

Last weekend I was at the Drachenwald Kingdom University in Two Seas, Northern Germany. It was a marvelous event. There was so many interesting classes that I could not take part in all, since there was not enough time for that. I did end up in the kitchen, but only on Friday. (I managed to get a bad blister on my hand then, and decided not to make it any worse. Note to self: Do not, ever, leave your own knives at home, even when you do not plan to work in the kitchen!)

Classes I participated:

- Drafting a sleeve pattern, by Katherina Mornewegh

A very useful class on how to make a tight sleeve to a tight dress and still be able to move your arms while wearing it.

- Klosterstich, by Racaire

A class about a practical and thread saving embroidery technique. It is also faster to do than my usual style, so I might adopt this one for bigger projects in the future.

- The Square Aramaic Script of the Hebrews, by Lady Lyonet de Covenham

An interesting class on Hebrew calligraphy. I have never done calligraphy, so this really was an experience for me. The letters were surprisingly easy to write with a quill and ink, and they turned out quite pretty. Since I already knew the letters, I managed to write my own (SCA) name on a parchment while the others practiced the easier ones.

- Cooking over an open fire, by Thomas Flamanc of Kelsale

I love open fire cooking! This class was about the very basics, but I managed to get my hands dirty, ruin the spice coating on the meat and get useful tips on how to build all the equipment you need to cook over an open fire.

- Apicius revealed Roman cookery, by Duke Alaric

Another one I dearly like, Roman cookery! And Duke Alaric is such an expert. Before the class I had a very interesting discussion with him about the finer points of Garum. The best part of this class was when he compared Roman cookery to fine single malt whisky, you get all those different tastes one after another by just taking one bite of a dish. Wonderful!

The classes I did not have time to participate, but would have liked to: Making fire with flint and steel, Introductory calligraphy, Introduction to middle&late period Persian Clothing, Make your own silk banner, Burgundian woven Necklace, Embroidery Guild meeting and all three classes on dancing, though I got to dance in the evening after the feast.

The court was as a court is. The King was handsome and wise and the Queen beautiful and graceful. I think I have never seen a royal couple more royal than this one. The Pelican elevation was not very subtle in it's religious connotations, which didn't bother me overmuch, but I would not like to see it performed like this every time.

Then there was of cource the feast. I had mentioned in my reservation, that I do not eat pork, but that information did not reach the cook and all meat dishes had some pork in them (no wonder when one knows the quality of beef one can find in this country!). So I said that he should not stress about it, I'll eat what I can, no prob! During the feast I was very positively surprised when I got my own beef dish! The cook had got extra beef from somewhere and made me a meat dish of my own! I am so very grateful! Master Giano Ballestiere will be from now on my hero.

After the feast there was a lot of talking, dancing and general merry making. No sauna though. *snif*

During the weekend I met some people that I already knew and made many lovely new friends. I enjoyed the event very much indeed!

The Panic Garb

The SCA event I wrote about is taking place this weekend. I managed to get that garb done and I'm now sewing hastely some veil pieces and a small cap.

Here's the garb. You can see a lot of small wedges on the hem and on the sides as well, to make it wide enough for me to wear. The lining on the sleeves looks pretty good.

I added some of the small badges I had made for another garb (see a previous entry about those) to this one to make it look less grey. They are easy to move to another garb if needed. Handy!

I wrote about the lining having problems. The problem was, that I did no think about the pattern in the fabric when I counted how much of it is needed for the sleeves. So I almost ended up with sleeves having patterns in different directions. I had to cut the fabric differently and add some seams in the middle, so that the pieces where the pattern is upside down are hidden inside the sleeves. Here is one of them turned inside out. Yes, there is a pattern on the fabric, French lilies. Unfortunately it does not show very well in the pictures.

It is good enough to wear, though I would have wanted to have something more elaborate.