Transylvania

 I cooked a dinner at Golden Flight 2020 (an archery event) which had an Eastern European theme.  Happily my new Medieval Transylvanian recipe book had just arrived and I enjoyed working with the flavour combinations!  I later wrote up my dinner into an article for From the Tower.  

Portugal?!

 You will notice that my previous menus all have Elisabetta Foscari written on them!  During lockdown in 2020 I spent some time considering what I wanted out of the SCA.  I had been considering moving to a Portuguese persona for some time as a way of exploring my mundane heritage but was a bit afraid of taking the plunge!  I decided during lockdown that I should just do it!  And there was Joana!  Here is an article I wrote exploring the process of picking and registering my new name.  This also gave me the chance to explore a whole need culinary culture!  There is one 16th century Portuguese cookbook in existence and I chose to discuss this for the first Colegio de Iberia.  My notes for this are here.  Having done more research into this work since the class I don't feel my presentation is entirely correct but it was a good place to start.  You can view my class below!

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.

My first foray into cooking for other people!

 Back in 2012 I entered the Baronial A&S Championship with a food item which was an unusual step for me as previously I had not felt confident in cooking for other people!  The dish was Rampaunt Perre from Pleyn Delit. The whole experience was not nearly as terrifying as I expected and, while it took me another 5 years to get the guts to cook a whole feast, it was one of my first steps on my SCA food journey and I am rather nostalgic about it.  The documentation can be found here.

Plumesye

When I was editor of Cockatrice I was at times scrambing for some content to fill in gaps and started putting together some recipes for this.  One of these was for Plumesye which is a variant on the 14th century Cheriseye which I enjoy making but with more available fruit.  A copy of this article can be found here.

Second Baronial Anniversary Feast

 Having learnt much cooking my first feast at Baronial Anniversary I decided to give it a second go and put all that I had learnt in to practice at Baronial Anniversary ASLII (2018).  This feast however had a Middle Eastern theme.  I love eating Middle Eastern food mundanely and in the SCA so I was very happy to cook this!  I had a great deal of fun in doing so and feel it was a much better feast.  My cooking buddy Vigdis often refers fondly to this particular feast.  My menu can be found here and I also wrote an article with some of my redactions for From the Tower. I managed to get exactly 0 photos of this feast and event however!