Busy in the Kitchen

Oops - this should have been posted April 2016!


Since I have been back from Hampton, I have been busy. In the fall (2015), I was busy talking to everyone about my experience there and some of the epiphanies I had.

I was especially excited to talk with John Moran about my experience as he had a similar one. That discussion lead to us collaborating on a Tudor Feast for Ealdormere's Kingdom Arts and Science Competition. We wanted to try and recreate a full feast with all the right servers and pomp and ceremony.

We wanted to create the atmosphere of a Tudor Dining hall with ceremony of hand washing, seating by rank, entering the hall by rank, etc. THL Christabel worked hard as Master of the Hall to ensure this was followed. Not to forget to mention ALL of the volunteers who served the dishes. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish in an SCA setting. :p

Unfortunately for me, there are no pictures of either of us in the kitchen or of the actual feast that I can find. We were excited to do this for our King Quilliam III and Queen Domhnail II as Their reign was a Tudor Reign. (Very exciting!)

Grand Salad - All about Height! - Photo by David Gotlieb

The menu was as follows (and all items were of bite size, due to the amount of food we were producing):

• Chicken in German Sauce
• Grand Salad
• Sausage in a Wine sauce
• Spiced Pickles
• Custard Tart 
• Plain-Roast Beef with Black grape sauce and Mustard sauce
• Fruit Jellies
• Stewed Shrimp in Cream Sauce
• Sorge, Chicken on Eggs
• Cucumber and Onion Salad
• Boiled Rice Pudding
• Sop of Onions
• Cheese Tart
• Sop of Egg
• Bacon Tart
• Sop of Lumpy Cheese
• Sop of Turnip
• Fylettys en Galentyne, Roast Pork
• Furmenty of Mushrooms & Barley
• Sop of Spiced Pea

The dishes going to the head table were all done in Subtleties. John made some amazing pieces along with our friend Lady Lerthan. 

Octopus Subtlety for the Shrimp in Cream Sauce  - Photo by David Gotlieb

In the Octopus above the shrimp and sauce were placed in the glass dish (and tuned upside down) and when served it was removed and she shrimp rolled out.

It was a very long day with many bumps and things to do better next time, but I enjoyed myself.

~E

Subtleties and Bacon Tarts - Photos by David Gotlieb

My last day at Hampton...sadness... Alternate Title: day 11

I am greeting you with sadness, this will be my last post for this trip. :(

Today was my final day at Hampton with the amazing team working there. Jeff was off on his own today, so I made the last trek on my own. It was a beautiful day and they had the Prudential Ride London today, so if I was coming in by car, I would probably have cursed. LOL but I was on the train again. It is a really nice ride.

When I arrived the street was blocked and a lot of cyclists were coming around the corner there. It was really exciting to watch.

Cyclists for the Prudential Ride London @ Hampton.

Walking to the palace I was struck with how wonderful it really is, and that this would be my last time for a while. I was sad. So I took a selfie! LOL

I think the Palace was smiling. ;)

I was excited to see everyone again. I popped into registration and waited to be picked up. This morning it was Barry who came and got me. We chatted about yesterday and what I wanted to today, I explained I would like to maybe do a couple of the audio tours and of course do some more stuff in the kitchen.  We said good morning to everyone and Barry walked with me to get my audio guide. I love talking with him, so much knowledge and great tidbits. I wish I could be there longer to get ALL the information from them. OK, it's and excuse to want to sponge all the information.

So I decided to do the Henry VIII apartment tour. They had the actors in, and I would always seem to get stuck when they would be doing a scene. I video taped some of the music bits for Marie again. :) (I hope they are of use for you, Marie).

The great hall - amazing tapestries

I have more pictures on my real camera, so you will have to wait for those. I will create a nice picture gallery when I get home. I went to see the Chapel again (sorry no pictures allowed). Once I finished the tour, I headed back to the kitchens, excited to start my day.

As I entered, Marc told me there were SCAdians from Canada at the table, so of course we introduced ourselves and chatted. They were curious about how I came to be cooking here. It was fun to meet fellow Canadians AND Scadians!

Once they moved on, Marc was working on the Pudding of an ox again, so this time I helped mix the items together, so I almost did the whole recipe. What I didn't do was prepare the blood, chop the bacon fat, measure out the oatmeal or spices. It was really fun AND I got to taste it from yesterday. They had sliced it and fried it in bacon fat...Yum, it was quite tasty, and with an egg it would have been even better. I like it when I am surprised on the taste of something.

It is so easy to get distracted by the people coming through. Everyone was saying really if they finished a recipe it was great, but the main purpose was to engage the visitors and let the food facilitate the interaction. It was a lot of fun explaining what I was doing.

When there was a bit of a lull, Richard had me work with Robin on a recipe called Ryschewys close and fryez. Which is basically a paste pouch with minced dried fruit and spices, fried. Really delicious. So the first thing we needed to make was the paste (or pasta). I opted to have saffron in it, so it would be a really nice yellow colour. The first thing we needed to do was to grind the saffron, the once it was ground we added water to it, which was a lovely yellow colour. So we put flour in a bowl, add sea salt to it (it helps with the gluten in the dough), mixed it with my hands, then I made a small well in the flour and added the saffron water to it. We mixed it until it started to form a dough. We then had to kneed it until it no longer stretched or bounced back. This is so we can get it as thin as possible. For me with no muscles and little hands was really hard to do. Robin would take over and get it going really well. He said that it should take about 20 min to get the right feel to it.

The dough waiting to be rolled. Under a damp cloth

While that was resting, we had to get the filling together, so robin had my cut some dates, figs and raisins. Putting it into the big mortar, add a little bit of red wine to give it a bit of liquid, I needed to make a paste with it. This was also really hard, as I have no muscles or muscle memory. Poor Robin had to take over to help wimpy me. :p

Fruit paste coming along.

Once it was the right consistency, it was time to decide on the spices. Now I was really nervous here as I have never tried some of these spices. Robin was very patient with me and explained what they had, how it tasted (and gave me tastings) and how it smelled. One I had never seen was cubeb. Robin crushed it and had me smell it. It had a floral note to it and a little bit of heat when you tasted it. Really a nice spice. You don't need much either. So, I decided on this mixture: cubeb, long pepper, black pepper, cannelle buds (Cassia buds). I ground them up, Robin suggested I give it a sniff and see if it smelled ok. So I did and I said it was missing something....maybe cinnamon. So he shaved some and put it in the mortar for me to grind. When I smelt it again, I announced it was perfect. He said, if it smelt good it would taste good. :) Into the fruit it went. I have to say I was really nervous that it would taste awful. I felt so out of my league.

spiced have been added

We then rolled out the paste, it needed to be paper thin, so that when fried it would crisp nicely. I loved the rolling pin I was using. It wasn't as long as a French pin and it was a lot thicker, about 3" diameter and about 1.5' long. Really awesome pin. Then I needed to cut out circles in the paste to form the packets. we used the very technical top of a mug. :) I cut out about a dozen circles, then Robin showed me how to stuff them, and try not to rip the dough. also we needed to get all the air out too.

Frying them up

We couldn't have a full fryer on site, so we made due. This was really cool as you can control the heat of the oil on the fire really well, and just take it off when it was too hot. While it was cooling you could add another one in.

The final product:

waiting to be eaten. 

These were so delicious! delicate, crunchy and gooey. Really nice. Thanks Robin for all the time on this one. :)

I realized that it was soon time to head back to London, as I had to meet Jeff at the Globe for Measure for Measure. We were going to be groundlings, I was very excited.

I made my way around, saying my goodbyes to Richard, Jorge, Marc, Robin and Barry. They were so nice and amazing to work with. I can see why these guys have been together for so long, they are the well oiled machine. I hope I didn't disrupt too much, but I am very grateful for all the time they spent me Jeff and I.

I wasn't able to get a picture with everyone, but here is one of Richard, me and Jorge - taken by Barry. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Richard, Erin and Jorge (Barry behind the camera)
Missing was Marc and Robin.

I left Hampton Court Palace with a lot of new ideas and concepts. It was amazing watching these guys cook and interact with the visitors. I would love to work with them again. They are very inspiring!

Now to stand for 2.5 hrs watching Shakespeare...can it get any better? Jeff was waiting in line for us, so I could be close to the stage. The only problem with being short. This show was amazing and being a groundling...I felt I could be a little more rowdy. Lots of sexual innuendos (that's how I like my Shakespeare) and lots of laughs too. Really amazing and I would be a groundling again any time.

Well time to pack!

Night!

~Erin

I have made the pilgrimage to Hampton! Alternate Title: Day 10

EDIT: I made an error in one of the historian's name, it was not Oliver but Robin. My apologies.

I have made it! Greetings Tudor fanatics!

Soooo....this day was long and coming and I don't know if this post will do it justice. I will try, but man there was so much info.

The day started out beautiful, Jeff was coming with me, so he made sure we had a good breakfast before we headed out. To be honest, I was not hungry. I was just too nervous to eat, but I made sure I stuffed my face. lol

Jeff decided he was going to video tape our ride to Hampton. When he is done with it, I will post it. It should be awesome.  We decided to walk to Canada Water tube station since it was so nice, then hoped on the Jubilee line to Waterloo station. From Waterloo station we took the train to Hampton, which is about a half hour ride. I can't say how amazing it was outside...and of course I am going to be in a kitchen all day. In fact, I think this weekends weather will be the best since we have been in London. Figures!

Main gates - 500th anniversary of Hampton Court Palace

Starting the walk up the drive!

Amazing Palace

Our instructions were to go to the reception office and Richard Fitch was going to meet us there. So at the reception desk, we had to get special name tags to wear.

Very official!

An excited Erin...or really nervous, hard to tell

Richard came and got us and brought us through to the main building and had us do the audio guide till they were ready to help us get started. I was so nervous, my stomach was doing flips. We had done this before, but there was some new stuff added since we were there last. Since they are celebrating the 500th anniversary, there are special activities happening till the end of august. We made our way to the main court to see the Henry VIII come in with his courtiers.

Singing and dancing Tudors

I am not sure how accurate this singing and dancing Tudors are, but it was fun to watch and listen to. Marie, maybe we can find something like this for the choir. Jeff has some video! 

I think this is Henry...they really didn't say! lol

It was a fun thing to watch, but I think anyone who has to do protocol work for Royalty would be kinda offended. lol

Heading back to the kitchens, we watched Robin (My mistake yesterday - it was not Oliver - I apologize for that.) & Zak working the roasting meat. The great thing is that anyone can have a go at it. In fact, they encourage it. Richard had us start with Jorge who was playing the kitchen clerk. His specialty is period handwriting and manners. we watched him chat with all the visitors and get them to sign the visitor book they were creating. He even created a nice Tudor letter for our visit and sealed it with his personal seal.

Our personal letter from Jorge

His amazing handwriting

Jeff had a go at creating a ledger list.

Jeff's ledger

Jorge was telling us all about the paper and that it was important to have this linen paper as they had examples that are well over 2000 years old. Modern paper is just not the same, it is too acidic and won't keep like historical parchment. We talked about inks and how cheap it was to make, and sealing wax. I really want to learn how to write like this. :) He then had us help him set up a Tudor table to talk about table manners. He explained how strict they were in Tudor time and how the table was set and the dishes used. This is very interesting!

A Tudor table setting

The table linen is better quality than the linen smocks I own. Sigh, my standards need to go up I think.

Once we were done with learning with Jorge, Richard had us come back to the kitchen area and work on some recipes. First up was Pudding of an Ox (or blood/black pudding) with Marc. Now I missed the messy part of making it, but I was there to stuff them. :)

Getting instruction on using the horn to stuff the pudding.

getting ready to stuff

poking in the stuffing

pushing the stuffing down, making sure no air is in there.

Pleased with my sausage. :)

The second dish I was working on was Sorge (sp?)

This dish was really easy and Jeff and I completed it together. First was the chicken Richard had been boiling for some time. Then we needed to get some hard-boiled eggs going.

Richard checking the chicken

getting the spices ready

So the recipe calls for eggs whites and egg yolks, chicken, vinegar (vine, ale or cider) sage, galangal, ginger and cloves. A very simple recipe. Jeff placing the very heavy bronze pot on the fire with the eggs inside.

Jeff putting on the water for the eggs

Eggs are on

 Jeff and I worked together to get the spices ready. The ginger and galangal were dry so we had to shave it before placing it in the brass mortar and pestle. We started with the ginger, then ground it fine in the brass M&P. Once it was a nice consistency, we dumped it into the very large marble mortar with a wooden pestle. We did 2 cloves next, it was recommended to chop the clove a bit before using the mortar. The last one was the galangal, we also shaved this before putting it in the M&P as it was very fibrous and like a dried mushroom (which it is not). Once all the spices were done, they were placed in the large mortar and pestle and the fresh sage was added. the technique to get the fresh sage to mix was really interesting. Richard showed me the proper technique and it had a unique sound, when done right. I need one of these!

The herb and spice mixture

When the eggs were done, we needed to peel them (damn eggs are just like that lunch we did), then we needed to separate the yolks and whites. the yolks were then added to the large mortar and mixed together with the spices. Once it was well mixed, we added malt vinegar to the mixture to get a wet consistency (like a deviled egg). It was quite a bit of vinegar, but the flavour was really nice. Then I shredded the whites into the mortar as Jeff stirred it with a spoon. I then placed the mixture into the bottom of the bowl. Richard recommended that I smooth out the top before placing the shredded chicken on top.

The egg mixture going into the bowl

Below is the final dish, this recipe is served cold and boy was it delicious!

chicken on top - the final dish

This ends day 1 of my Tudor adventure. All I can say is that this is all I have ever wanted to do, I am in heaven!

~Erin

Tudor Monastery Farm...Here I come! Alternate Title: Day 6

Greeting from Londres,

Today was a great day! We woke up to the sun shining, even though it was a little cold. we were happy to see the sun. We had to be out of the house early enough to catch our 9:37 train to Chichester. I planned for us to visit Weald & Downland Open Air Museum. This is where they filmed portions of the Tudor Monastery Farm (TMF)! If you are interested in Tudor history it is a must and it is my favourite show.

It was going to be a bit of a gong show to get there. You see we had to catch the Portsmouth to Chichester train. When we arrived in Chichester, we had to catch the #60 bus going to Midhusrt. We then had to hop off at the Groom's yard in Singleton, and walk 1 km to Weald & Downland. It could have gone so horribly wrong, but thankfully I had planned it like crazy! I was so excited to go there. Mel and Dave raved about it!

Another bonus, is that if you came on the stagecoach, you got 20% off your entrance fee! YAY! So off we go for a lot of walking. If you plan on visiting, just remember that their map makes everything look really far away, it isn't...lol. I forgot how close everything is on a map here.

The Market place

I was so excited to see the view above, they used this in TMF! I was giddy like a school girl meeting One Direction! See....?

IT's SO FLUFFY!!! (not really but...lol)

Well Ok maybe not, but I was super excited. so we travelled around the site, amazed at the thatched roofs and how thick they were. So all of the homes and buildings here were taken from other locations around England. They basically dismantle them to save them. Some come into their hands in very poor condition, but the historians try and work out how this building may have looked. We travelled up to the Brewer's cottage, which was really interesting since there was an interpreter actually making ale. Now this ale would not have been carbonated, he was in the process of heating the copper bowl over a fire. In a special "stove".

The Brewer adding faggots to the fire and getting it going.

His worktable, with the barley and hops.

He stated the problem with this set up was that they didn't add the proper holes in the brick so that the heat could go around the copper bowl, as it was it would only heat from the bottom. He encouraged us to come back a little later to see the cooking process.

We then moved to the other buildings and found the cheese room! Woo hoo!

The cheese room

The porous tile floor

window screens

We then moved along to the Tudor kitchen where they were in fact doing some cooking of bread, fritters and making butter. The room has no chimney, so it was very smokey. All I wanted to do was get dressed and go and play with them. :( That right there is my ideal job. 

Making butter with a small amount of cream. Right in a bowl with her fingers.

The open hearth

The bread oven

A different angle

My dream job! She's putting on bread.

It was really interesting to try what they were making, the flat bread was cooked most likely at the end of the day since they didn't want to heat up the bread oven. It was cooked on the metal griddle in the fire. The pot next to it contained oil, that is what they fried the fritters in. The mixture for the fritters was flour, beer, spinach and onions that had been fried sweet. it was then mixed together and formed into balls (but not as neat, more of a dumpling shape) and put into the oil till cooked. It was delicious. They flat bread with the home-made butter was great too. Definitely whole wheat. This was one of my favourite parts!

After the kitchen, I wanted to check out the house they used in TMF, and it was right next door.

The front of the home (actually build in 1405)

A really nice side angle of the home.

 This is the main hall of the building. The windows have large shutters to open and close depending on the weather. The back wall has a painted wall hanging and a table set for a meal. It is a very large room.

The main hall

What is interesting here, is that the fire is in the centre of the room, it was only used for heat, not cooking. The clay pot in this picture was to keep the embers hot overnight, so that they could start the fire in the morning. All the cooking of food was done in a separate cooking house, to try and eliminate the possibility of a fire burning down the house.

One of the upstairs bedrooms (panorama)

There were 2 bedrooms in this home, each with their own staircase. Most likely the masters room and the children's rooms.

After visiting all the Tudor buildings, we decided to head back to see what the brewer was up to. When we arrived he had put in the barley and hops into the copper bowl over the fire. It was just starting to smell the yeasty smell of cooking barley sugars (like the smell you get near a Molson plant in Montreal).

Hops (small bag) and Barley (large bag)

When we saw them in cheesecloth bags, we were surprised. I didn't even think about how they would do this, but the copper bowl could not be removed, so for cleaning it made more sense to keep all the ingredients in linen. Here you can also see the ratio needed for making ale. It had a wonderful smell. 

Weald & Downland have the most amazing views, the homes that are beside the museum are just spectacular. It would be so easy to pretend to be in Tudor or Medieval times in a place like this. Oh yes and the pigs were enormous!

The view

piggies!

We made our way back to the shop, to see if there was anything I wanted. They had lots of fine pottery, but nothing I couldn't get back home from our pottery throwers. BUT...there was a book, a very expensive book that I had to have. It only came out in December last year...so brand new! I have already read 3 chapters. It is amazing. He worked at Hampton Court and he also has a medieval version of this book. I am in heaven, but it is a huge book!

After paying for my purchases, we walked the km back to the bus stop and made our way back to Chichester. Next time we are in England we will go there, it has a beautiful Cathedral we didn't have time to go into, as well as a beautiful main street. we got back to the bus station, and then made our way to the train station. We were arriving at Victoria Station. That was a crazy place at 6pm on a Monday. There were so many police armed with automatic weapons and hand guns...never seen it before. There were dog sniffers and regular police...crazy! The amount of people was intense too. We were glad to make it back to Rob's place for dinner.

So today we are off to Westminster and a museum and possibly SOHO.

~Erin