An Evening in Granada Feast

This feast was cooking for an 16th century Iberian event was held in August 2023 in Southron Gaard, Kingdom of Lochac.  The concept of the event was a feast in Granada to celebrate the wedding of Carlos of Spain and Isabella of Portugal in 1526 and which meant I could cook all the Iberian food my heart desired. I decided that I wanted to do a full write up of the event as I had done many of the redactions for the recipes used myself.  You can find this document here.  I enjoyed the write up almost as much as cooking the feast in this case as it was good to outline some of the social conflict that existed around food at this time.  I also turned my write up into a class which I will present at an upcoming event (Canterbury Faire 2024).  As part of my write up process I cooked some of the dishes for dinner for my household so I could get some photos of them.  I struggle to do this when in full feast cooking mode.  These photos are below.

Course One: Figs, cheese and bread

Course Two: Moorish Chicken, Eggplant, leeks, salad and mushrooms

Course Three: Quinces, custard tarts and angel food.

Yule at Raincliff Feast

 One of my favourite feasts that I have cooked in the last two years was the Yule feast at the Raincliff event in A.S. LVII.  My friend Vigdis and I worked on this feast together and our concept was Yule through the ages.  The only photo I managed to get from this feast was of the beautiful peacock soteltie that my friends Meisterin Christian and Baronesa Isabel Maria made for an earlier event which we made good use of for this one!  You can find my menu and working notes for the feast here.  I also wrote an article on this feast for our Baronial newsletter From the Tower. I split it into two parts as it was long.  You can read both here - Part One and Part Two

Baked Mallard

I first made this recipe for Coronation LIV and then again for 25th Anniversary of Southron Gaard.  This is one of those dishes I think longingly about at odd moments!  The combination of duck, leek and verjuice is so delicious.  You can find the period recipe plus my redation and notes here. 

Calontir Challenge

To help me further explore my Portuguese persona I entered some challenges both in my home Barony and further abroad.  One of these was the Calontir Challenge.  One section of this challenge was to do something from the same time and place as your outfit.  I decided that this obvioualy meant food so I cooked a Portuguese and Spanish meal for a Spanish friend of mine.  I used some of the recipes from the collection of Portuguese recipes I covered in my Colegio class and added some 16th century Spanish ones from Nola.  You can read my documentation of that here.

Portuguese chicken with Spanish onions and eggplant

                                                                 Portuguese Custard Tarts

Coronation Feast

 The Coronation Feast itself was at the Waipara Adventure Centre.  The menu was also 16th century Tudor and you will note I kept some dishes from Chaneys but also wanted to try a few different things.  I think the stand out for me was the Duck Pie and I have made that several times since.  The Tarte Oute of Lente is another favourite!  I will finally formally write up some of my recipes from that feast at a later date.  I still have a good scar on my arm from the ovens at that event but the food was well received especially the Duck! More positively Baroness Agnes and I were awarded our Rowans!

Tired and slightly crazed Rowan buddies!  

  

Chaney's Manor

 Baroness Agnes and I then had the crazy idea of putting a bid in for Lochac Midwinter Coronation ASLVI (2019).  I am not sure our respective partners were as thrilled about the idea as we were but they soon came round!  We decided we wanted to do a test run of the site we were contemplating and feast ideas so we put together an event called Chaney's Manor.  The premise of this was an evening at a Tudor Manor as we had a beautiful wood panelled hall. The menu fot this can be found here.  The food went down well and we worked out that the site, no matter how pretty was not suitable for a larger event.  The menu was similar, some good ideas but also some that would not work as well for a larger number.  Although sotelties are not my thing I did make a gilded gingerbread tower for this event.  It is sitting in a field of green cream with marchpane and borage flowers.