Food, Glorious Food!
Going about updating some tags on my LJ to include a ‘16th C Food’ section as I am starting to prep for another food workshop for early next year. I know, I know - it’s more than 6 months away: Why start prepping now?
Well there are a couple of reasons. 1) A few of the ‘drink’ selections I would like to make/share take at least a couple of months to ferment (*yippee* Honey Drinks!) 2) I have to test cook at least the more complicated sauces/tarts/etc. to see if they will be good choices for a ‘food newbie’ audience 3) I need to read/reread my source materials and redraft a handout/chapbook.
I have begun by going back to reading “Dining With William Shakespeare” by Madge Lorwin. Madge does an excellent job of mixing history and modern redactions in a format that is both engaging, easy to read and educational. I especially love her brief survey’s of historical wines and beer/ale, including period methods for ‘refreshing’ batches of each that had gone bad. This is a really lovely book and one that I recommend highly and since it is an older volume, you can probably pick it up pretty cheap.
I am already mentally listing the foods she has listed that I can prep in advance of the workshop and bring out as ‘taste samplers’ once I am there (pickled mushrooms and methgeline being high on the list).
Actually, I was thinking of trying to draft a bit of a ‘kitchen crew’ to work on specific areas of this workshop. Hubby has already said he would ‘sous chef’ for me prior to the event and help with set up. Anyone interested in being the ‘drink specialist’ and working up a few libations for folks to sample (i.e. small beer, mead, honeyed/spiced wines/ales, etc - most of these are actually commercially available if you don’t want to have to brew your own…)?
More as I continue to prep…