anj68 – Page 24 – Alice the Cook

October 5, 2010

A Season at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival Comes to a Close

At the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, I perform various cooking demonstrations with my assistants. In past years, we’ve created a lot of food that needed to fill empty bellies, but we didn’t have the means to do so. A couple of years ago, we developed a way of performing the cooking demonstrations and feeding the cast. Last year, we dubbed the concept as The Family Table.

There, cast members could get some hand crafted meals, water, and a place for the community to connect. We prepared a meat and vegan dish each day. On a couple of the list serves, that I belong to, I posted some facts about the family kitchen.

Each day of the 2010 run of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, The Family Table served between 85-125 people.
On Saturday, October 2, 2010, we broke a record by serving 122 cast members in 40 minutes (shortest time for service). We believe it was due to the cold weather. On Sunday, October 3, 2010, we prepared for the day and fed 185 cast members.
MRF provides a stipend for a food budget, but following it would allow us to feed the cast through 5th weekend. The cast’s tips and donations help us stretch the budget to feed the cast throughout the entire season.
Each week, Cub, Rainbow, Kowalski’s, Lunds, Sam’s Club, and Costco are all shopped to get the best prices
Every bowl is washed and bleached so that they remain food safe. At the end of the run, every bowl, cast iron pot, and wooden utensil is oiled and prepped for storage over the winter.
All of the equipment for The Family Kitchen weighs 1750 lbs and includes two tables, tent, fly, cast iron pots, travel stove, shelving, period kitchen, shelving, coolers, etc.
I kept a running tally through the season. We went through a lot of food (roughly):
Black Beans    14 lbs
Chickpeas        22 lbs
Lentils 8 lbs
Zucchini           100 lbs
Rice    100 lbs
Bread     65 lbs
pumpkins    23 lbs
leeks    30 lbs
onions    15 lbs
potatoes    117 lbs
carrots    130 lbs
chicken    140 lbs
beef    150 lbs
pork    72 lbs
meatballs    27 lbs
kielbasa    30 lbs
turkey    60 lbs
mushrooms    16 lbs

I hope that The Family Table can become a not-for-profit entity for next year. I am looking for a lawyer who specializes in filing for not-for-profit status in Minnesota and is willing to work pro-bono. If you have any referrals, please let me know.

September 24, 2010

Scotch Broth Recipe

Autumn is nearly upon us and the smell of dried leaves, bonfires, and the days grow colder as the nights grow longer. The harvest festivals of the past brings forth memories of feasts and eventually soups and stews that help keep the chill off of one’s bones.

Feasts of all kinds were found with the wealthy and peasant alike. Each feast was different from culture to station to family. Once the feasts were done, leftovers or remnants were often used for soups, stews, or other hearty dishes.

Throughout the British Isles, soups and stew became part of the culture. It was a time for families and communities to share and to help ward off the chill of the approaching winter. Scotch broth, a filing soup that originated in Scotland that utilized many of the common ingredients such as lamb and root vegetables, but also added cabbage or leeks and barley.

The proportions and ingredients vary according to the recipe or the availability of ingredients. In modern England, Scotland, and Wales, Scotch broth is often sold in cans. As with many slow-cooked dishes, Scotch broth tastes even better when re-heated.

The preparation methods varied based on the location. When there are limited resources, the recipe would require creative use of supplies while offering the best nutritional value.
Original recipes would use one pot to cook everything in it to conserve wood for cooking fires while providing enough for everyone to eat.

Later evolutions of this recipe, would call for a joint, mutton, or lamb covered with water in a pot and simmered until boiling. Barley would be added until done. Potatoes would be added with their skins on in a separate pot, so that the starch would not affect the taste. Root vegetables would be added near the end with shredded cabbage added on top prior to serving.

Families will often make small changes to the master recipe. Some would leave out the onions and replace them with two medium sized leeks, a vegetable that tastes like a very mild onion. I’ve seen celery replaced with parsnip, fennel, or even a turnip. If lamb is not available, use beef or a stewing chicken. If chicken is used, the dish is called ”Hen Broth.”

I invite to try the recipe on your own and once you have experienced it, make your own rendition of it for your family.

Scotch Broth
2 lbs. of stewing lamb with bones
6 cups of cold water
3 TB of barley, washed
2 onions, finely chopped
½ head of a small cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp of thyme
3 TB parsley, finely chopped
1/2 tsp of sea salt
black pepper to taste

Place the lamb in a large casserole or a dutch oven. Cover with cold water. Cover pan with lid and simmer for one hour. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for one more hour. Discard bay leaf. Remove lamb. Separate mean from bones. Discard the bones and shred the meat into small pieces. Return meat to pot and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Serves 6

July 29, 2010

Old Twist on Meatloaf (14th Century English recipe)

From the July issue of Renaissance Magazine

Over the years, my historical research with cooking, recipes, and food has taken me to different cultures and tasting their cuisines. Occasionally, I will encounter a new tidbit of information that will surprise me as well as culinary professional colleagues and amateur foodies alike.

The modern meatloaf usually consists of a combination of bread or cracker crumbs, eggs, and ketchup; some other ingredients may be added to each recipe making it unique for the geographic region or various family traditions. Meatloaf has been with us for a very long time, but under different names.

The oldest recorded ground meat recipe can be found in Apicius, an ancient Roman cooking text. This recipe consisted of finely chopped meat (or mince), combined with pepper, garum (a fermented fish sauce popular In Roman cooking), and pine nuts while its center contained white bread crumbs soaked in wine. This mince was wrapped in a sheep’s stomach or upper intestines and then baked in a large oven.

Other versions of meatloaf can be traced to German, Belgium, and Holland 5th century recipes. These central and northern Europeans regional forms of meatloaf usually consisted of minced or ground pork, hard boiled eggs, and bacon with bread soaked in milk or wine to help form the hand-shaped loaf and then baked. These later forms influenced recipes from other cultures including the Middle Eastern kofta and Italian meatballs. All meatloaf recipes came about for the same reason; by adding various fillers including bread, rice, or oatmeal to chopped, minced, or ground meat, anyone could stretch a small amount of meat to feed others. Today, meatloaf has become a mainstay in the comfort food menus in many homes. In this issue of Renaissance Magazine, I am sharing a meatloaf recipe from 14th century England.

Meatloaf
2 lbs. (4 cups) ground or minced beef
1 cup of oatmeal
1 / 3 cup of red wine
4 eggs
1 /4 tsp black pepper
1 / 4 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 / 8 tsp ground mace
1 / 8 tsp ground cloves

Combine ingredients in large bowl and shape into a loaf or place in deep casserole pan. Add a pinch of the mace and ground cloves and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Drain off fat and tip onto serving platter and slice up servings. Serves 4-6

Glazed Root Vegetables
4 cups of root vegetables, largely diced (carrots, rutabagas, turnips)
1/2 cup of brown sugar or honey
1/4 cup brandy
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp of ground clove
1 / 4 tsp ground ginger
Salt to taste

Cook vegetables in pot of water until tender. Drain water. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter over low heat and add the brown sugar or honey, cinnamon and cloves. Continue to stir, slowly adding the brandy to the sauce mixture. If honey is being used, the sauce will need to be reduced by one half. Turn up the heat to medium and add the root vegetables. Continue to cook over medium until sauce thickens. Serves 4.

Unlike the modern meatloaf recipes that have a saltier finish due to the use of ketchup, this recipe has a sweet/spicy finish due to the cloves, cinnamon, and mace. The oatmeal provides an even binder when combined with the red wine and eggs. I’ve also partnered this recipe with a side dish of Glazed Root Vegetables. Both dishes complement each other rather well and may be served with red wine.

July 15, 2010

Harira (Beef and Chick Pea Soup)

The cuisine of the Middle East is an exotic and colorful as the people themselves. It is indeed a traditional and deeply-rooted way of eating with recipes handed down from mother to daughter or daughter-in-law.

Some of the ingredients in these recipes date from civilizations that go back to earliest known history. The simple foods of the desert and oasis – lamb, milk turned into yogurt and dates – merge with what was available in the maze of food stalls or souks in the markets of towns and cities. Here, olives of brown, green, red, and black, rice, dried beans of all color and varieties, wheat, peppers, onions and garlic were added.

The results of this merging are creations that are as appealing to the eye as well as the palate. Beautiful vegetables are hollowed out and filled with seasoned combination of meat, rice, nuts, fruits, and spices. Generous hospitality is the most important phenomenon in the Near east and no one is ever turned away. Whether you stop for a visit in the morning or afternoon, a long-handled pot of fragrant coffee, platter of sweets, and a bowl of fruit would appear. This hospitality would also be found at dinner. Although the dishes were often easy to create, they were made with the utmost care. Once of my favorite dishes is Harira, a Moroccan soup. It’s a rich and delicately spiced soup-stew of beef, vegetables, and chick peas. It makes a meal in a bowl or is perfect with a light main dish.

1 lb beef cubes (1/2 inch)
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp crushed saffron or ground turmeric
1 tbsp butter
1 cup beef broth
1 cup minced tomatoes or 1 small can of tomato paste
2 cups of water
1/4 cup of barley
1 lb of chick peas (equal to one can (drained) or 1 lb soaked chick peas)
1 cup diced tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped parsley
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp fresh lemon zest

In a large pan, brown beef and cook carrots, celery and onion with seasonings in butter until tender. Add broth, tomato paste, water and barley. Cover and cook over low heat for an hour and 15 minutes. Add chick peas, tomatoes, parsley and lemon juice. Cook 15 minutes more or until done, stirring occassionally. Sprinkle a pinch of lemon vest over each bowl served. Make about 9 cups.

June 12, 2010

15th Century Oyster dish (translated and easy)

Oysters in Bruette (oysters in beer)

This particular dish has been a favorite of mine. When I found it, it was in old French. A friend of mine who specializes in European history, helped me translate the dish.

I was fortunate enough to test this in my kitchen and it is pretty good. I usually serve this with some French bread to sop the sauce.

1 1/4 c oysters
3/4 c liquid from oysters
3/4 c ale (I recommend a dark, heady ale)
2 slices bread, torn up small
1/8 t cinnamon
3 pinches of ground clove
3/16 t ginger
1/4 t sea salt
a few shakes of pepper
a pinch of saffron

Rinse and strain shelled oysters. In a pot add the ale and the bread. Place the pot over medium heat and add the seasonings and begin to simmer. Once the bread comes apart and begins to thicken the “broth,” add the oysters until done.

Serve