Activities through 10-17-21

This is later than I meant, since I wasn’t at the shop Monday night….. Oops!

We had a good week, good workshops and an awesome potluck! This coming week, Herbs, Sewing and Project Day will all be at the normal times. Herbs is also going to include a Cheese Night, since we’ll be starting a fig rennet cheese. Project Day will be back to the normal schedule.

When will the rest of these open up in person? We’ll probably keep right on with the virtual ones side-by-side with the actual.

Herb Bunch – At Ancient Light, Thursdays, 7am-9pm
Sewing Time – At Ancient Light, Saturdays, 3-5pm
Project Day – At Ancient Light, Sundays, 1 to 5pm (also online!)
Cheese and Wine happens irregularly, usually announced with little notice on our Facebook group. This weeks it’s Thursday evening.
Next Virtual Potluck – 11/21, 12/19, 1/16
Winter Feast LVI, Norse Theme. Page here – https://housecapuchin.com/winter-feast/winter-feast-norse-feast-as-lvi-february-2022/ More pages coming!

Here is the direct Portfolio link which has all the past Project Day reports and various projects, original here: https://housecapuchin.wordpress.com/portfolio/ and new one here: https://housecapuchin2.wordpress.com/portfolio/ and number three is here: https://housecapuchin3.wordpress.com/portfolio/

A Memory – Mistress Arlys said, “A friend found this in his photos.” …and the words of the original poster…. Michael Aaron Rogers – Sorting through the treasure trove of SCA pictures, ran across this one of Their Excellencies Gerhard and Amanda Kendal. This was taken at a wet September Crown hosted by Aquaterra. Early in the 2000’s, I believe.” …and the herald with them is our friend Ciaran, another whom I miss dreadfully. Ciaran ClaunaFerta

…another of Ciarain, who sometimes got called, “Keyring of Clown Ferrets!” 🙂

1996 Kingdom Heraldic Symposium in Adiantum

Creation of the Crowns of An Tir – Kingdom of AnTir, SCA – Duke Torgul, creator of the Crowns of An Tir, discusses his process. From The Sister’s Interview.

There’s a whole new group of “heritage minutes” on https://www.youtube.com/c/KingdomofAnTirSCA/videos

Classes –

The Animated Bayeux Tapestry – Potion Pictures – The Animated Bayeux Tapestry was created as a student project while at Goldsmiths College. Just as the historic original embroidary does, the animation depicts the lead up to to the Norman Invasion of Britain in 1066. Starts about halfway through the original work at the appearence of Halley’s Comet and concludes at the Battle of Hastings. Marc Sylvan redid the soundtrack to include orignal music and sound effects.
Animation by David Newton
Music and sound design by Marc Sylvan

Medieval Beauty Treatments // The Contessa’s Quickies – The Creative Contessa – Explore some shocking authentic medieval beauty treatments that will sound familiar and horrify at the same time! Taken straight from a 12th century gynecology manual written by a female physician, Trotula of Salerno

How to Make Medieval Lucet Cord | How to Use the Lucet Fork – Lynne Fairchild – Lucet is a tool that makes a cord with a single string (a series of loops), which reportedly dates back to the Vikings. It was used regularly up into the 16th century. It makes a series of loop-like knots. It is a favorite to help keep your hands busy at SCA events. Want a simple project to keep your hands busy that you can put down anytime and come back to later? Then this is for you! I highly recommend using a rubber band and making a figure-8 over your thread when not working your lucet cord. The rubber band helps to keep the thread in place, so that you may put it anywhere (like a purse) without it being disturbed.

Cyril, Methodios, and the conversion of the Slavs, with Mirela Ivanova – Medievalists – A conversation with Mirela Ivanova on the creation of the Slavonic alphabet and the lives of its creators, the Byzantine missionaries Constantine-Cyril and Methodios. Despite the huge importance attributed to these men and their activities in modern scholarship, national narratives, and Slavic Orthodox identity, our knowledge about them rests largely on two texts whose interests are quite different from our own. What do we really know about them?
You can read the show notes at https://www.medievalists.net/2021/10/cyril-methodios-and-the-conversion-of-the-slavs-with-mirela-ivanova/

Were medieval peasants slaves? – Modern History TV – Jason Kingsley OBE, the Modern Knight, discusses social class and slavery in medieval England. Were peasants little more than slaves, and how could you win your freedom?

Early Week – Garden stuff is all, and a little embroidery. Tuesday night was Adiantum’s A&S on Paper Marbling

Cookery – Monday night we finally tried the lamb roll! Also baked up an eggplant dish and some veg.

Lamb roll (recipe below)

Ingredients were pretty simple: Pickled kale leaves, ground lamb, garlic cloves, salt

Garlic cloves are in the center of the roll

Foiled and ready to bake. It was supposed to be boiled, but Anja didn’t figure that it would hold together the was an actual piece of meat would

Eggplant

Garlic in the press

Handpies – On Wednesday a couples of sets of handpies got baked. One set were savory: cheese, lamb/pork/pinenuts/onion and spices. The other set was sweet, made from the stuffed french toast filling (spiced pears….) from our German Feast. We found it in the bottom of one of the freezers along with a cameline sauce….. Pie dough (also dug out of the freezer) was used for 1/2 the savories, and puff pastry for the other half and the sweets. No pix got made of the process.

Pear handpies (and some of the smoked salmon in a bag)

Other things – Roasted garlic got made Thursday morning for a roasted garlic butter. Saturday evening Loren made bread and Anja took a bunch of stuff home to prep. She got the greens boiled, peeled a whole pint of little shallots (for potted cheese) and some other set-up stuff, then loaded up the various foods from home to bring back to the shop.

A whole pint of peeled shallots (from the farmer’s market) Did the peeling Saturday night.

Sunday morning the egg porridge and the greens were set up to cook and the root veg to warm. Eventually, the nibbles tray got filled and the handpies plated. Oh, my it was all so good! More below.

Tasting History with Max Miller – Apple & Cheese pie 1553 –
Apple – A Global History by Erika Janik: https://amzn.to/3COmCui
Diary of Samuel Sewall: https://amzn.to/3AKDj9j
The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall by Eve LaPlante: https://amzn.to/3EUBUiU
Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html

2-7. De señora a señora, empanadas y no ollas – Fogones en la Historia – Receta del Siglo XVII de empanada de pollo ensapado. De Francisco Martinez Montiño. – 2-7. From lady to lady, empanadas and not pots – Stoves in History – Recipe from the 17th century of sautéed chicken pie. By Francisco Martinez Montiño.

Sewing – Anja is still working on her sampler patterns and pulled out and set up some bookmarks.

Some nice re-draws to give you an idea.

Viking costume Beyond the Myth – http://awanderingelf.weebly.com/blog-my-journey/category/viking-costume-beyond-the-myth

The Journal of Dress History – https://dresshistorians.org/journal/ – PDF Index of Articles – https://dresshistorians.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Index-of-Articles-October-2021.pdf

Herb Bunch – There was some harvesting during the early week since we’re just finishing up before the rains really hit. Still getting a handful of mixed berries about 3 times during the week. Moving the plants back and forth has started. We have a ton of garlic bulbs to plant, too.

Harvest

Beans

Incense – Thursday evening was on making incense. We did a blended one for Anja’s shop and then started on with a Makko base for sticks. It wasn’t firming up so we closed it up in an airtight container to sit for the week. After that we talked about the process for making “hand-dipped incense sticks”, which is really pretty dreadful.

Garden on Friday

The last of the tomatoes…. probably won’t ripen

Two more of Eleanor de Bolton’s garden pix, echoing Tacuinam Sanitatis

Project Day & Potluck – Got eaten by the potluck, at least the early part. Later in the day Anja and Loren put away food and Anja worked on this report.

Arlys says, “How To Make A Puffin: Start with a traditional Assisi pattern. Modify 3 sections of it to fit the space. SHAZAM!! POOF!!! PUFFIN!!!”

Egg porridge was set up, then the Wild Leaf Herb and Cheese, after that the root veg and the tripot was started with those three. Next was to slice the lamb roll and get it ready for warming. At that point the nibble tray got pulled out and put together.

Not long after that Ailantha and Helen Louise arrived. We worked on setting out food and talking about it. We ended up talking quite a bit about the feast, norse costume and how folks are arriving at answers to questions where there’s not a lot of evidence. They had to head back at about 4pm, but took the Coasties’ advice about the roads to head home. We had a lot of fun stuffing ourselves and trying each other’s foods. We all had various projects with us, but never really got them pulled out. 🙂

Egg porridge

We discovered that, when cold, it slices easily and can be slid into the toaster!

Greens and Cheese

Cottage cheese, whey (not pictured), boiled greens (in the jar) melted butter (in the crock)

Nibbles

Smoked gouda paste – (pic by Helen Louise)

Loren’s seed rolls – (pic by Helen Louise)

More main dish

Fig tarts, meat pies, bread – Pic by Ailantha

Buttered root veg (red and golden beets and carrots) – Pic by Ailantha

Potluck Menu

Nibbles

White bean pickle
Pickled Brussels Sprouts
Pickled Mushrooms
Bread
Seed rolls
Butter
Roasted garlic butter
Skyr
Pickled herring
Fig jam
Blueberry jam
Smoked gouda
Chevre
Smoked salmon

Main

Wild Leaf Herb and Cheese Pottage
Lamb roll
Buttered root veg
Egg porridge
Savory hand pies
pork pasties

Sweets

Comfits
Marzipan
fig tarts
Pear hand pies

Recipes

Kaupang, Pickled Kale Lamb from An Early Meal by Serra & Tunberg ©2013 ISBN 978-91-981056-0-5 pg.66 – https://housecapuchin.com/winter-feast/winter-feast-norse-feast-as-lvi-february-2022/foods-from-the-norse-viking-era/pickled-kale-lamb/

Ingredients

4L of brine (7% salt-water)
1 breast of lamb
Sauerkraut (preferably whole-leaf pickled kale)
1TBSP dill seeds
1 TBSP coriander seeds

Method

Debone meat, reserve bones
Place the meat in the brine for about 4 hours.
Take out the meat, dry it off and place the meat with the inside up on a flat surface.
[Anja’s note – I would use a meat mallet at this point to get the chunk evenly thick!)
Spread the herb seeds over the meat.
Cover the meat with the pickled kale leaves
Roll up and tie (using only food-safe string!)
Boil the meat roll together with the bones in fresh water for about 2 hours
OR just boil the meat and serve it with a lot of pickled kale.

Quick Pickled Kale – Anja’s recipe

Ingredients

3L of white goosefoot leaves – replaced with kohlrabi and mixed greens (about 1 pint cooked mixed greens
2 TBSP salted butter
7/8 cup crumbled fresh soft cheese (used 1 1/4 cottage cheese)
skimpy cup whey

Method

Boil leaves for 5 minutes.
Drain off the water.
Chop finely.
Melt butter in a pot. (put in a crockpot)
Add cooked leaves, cheese and whey.
Simmer briefly.
Give it a stir.
Serve.

Egg yolk porridge – Heidelberg Cod. Pal. Germ. 511 – (Assuming this is rather like a rice pudding but without the sugar.)

19 Egg yolks
½ cup Pecans
½ cup Raisins
1 cup Bread crumbs
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon butter (for coating)
2 TBPS butter (for topping)

Method

Separate eggs and put into a large bowl.
Stir until blended.
Add pecans and raisins. Stir
Add bread crumbs and salt. Stir.
Melt butter in 4 cup crock. Slosh so sides get coated.
Put mix into crock and smush down so the top is flat with no air pockets along the sides.
Top with butter.
Turn crock to high and cook for 3 hours until interior registers 165F+.
Serve warm.
When cooled the loaf can be sliced and put in the toaster to warm.

31 A dish of egg yolks

If you would make a good dish of egg yolks, add walnuts, raisins and a little white bread (semell) and pass it through a cloth together. Put it into a small pot, set it by the coals and stir it by itself. As soon as it thickens, take it off, and do not oversalt it.

Roasted Garlic Butter (since it was so good!)

16 cloves garlic (enough to cover the bottom of a 7×7 covered casserole)
Bacon fat (enough to cover the cloves… about a cup)
1/2 pound butter

Method

Set cloves in the casserole and plop the bacon fat on top.
Roast in a 350F over until starting to brown (about an hour, but check at 1/2 hour!)
When cloves are soft take out of oven and drain through colander. Reserve bacon fat for other frying! (don’t toss it, too yummy!)Put cloves into food processor and pulse until mostly mushed, then run until mushed.
Melt 1/2 the butter in the nuker and put the melted butter, plus the rest into the food processor on top of the garlic.
Pulse until the non-melted butter is chopped, then run on full speed until well-blended.
Serve a room temperature and keep in an air-tight container.

Miscellaneous pix

Mosaic detail, depicting a majestic lion, from a Roman urban villa (the House of Liber Pater) in Sabratha, present-day Libya. Roman Museum of Sabratha, Libya. https://www.flickr.com/…/in/album-72157618009756458/

Music –

𝔐𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔞 𝔐𝔢𝔡𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔞𝔩𝔢 – Ensemble: Murmur Mori – Video: live at the “Abbey of Morimondo” (XIIth cent.) 02.10.2021 – http://www.facebook.com/musicamedievale

The ensemble was born in 2015, from an idea by Mirko Volpe and Silvia Kuro, with the purpose of creating “new ancient music”.
Taking inspiration from jester poetry of a popular nature, the project plunges its roots in the Middle Ages, when music was played for recreation, but was also a means of social criticism and had the fundamental role of knowledge propagator.
Among the woods of the Italian Alps grows Murmur Mori’s folk music.
•
1 Tutto lo mondo si mantien per fiore – lyrics: Bonagiunta Orbicciani (XIIIth cent.) – music: Mirko Volpe
2 Fortune Plango Vulnera – lyrics: Codex Buranus (XII/XIIIth cent.) – music: Silvia Kuro, Mirko Volpe
3 A la stagion che’l mondo foglia e fiora
lyrics: Compiuta Donzella (XIIIth cent.) – music: Mirko Volpe
4 O Fortuna velut Luna – lyrics: Codex Buranus (XII/XIIIth cent.) – music: Mirko Volpe
5 La Giullaressa – lyrics: Anon. Poetess (XVIth cent.) – music: Silvia Kuro, Mirko Volpe
6 La canzone della Cicala – lyrics/music: Mirko Volpe
7 Danza Bacchica – music: Mirko Volpe
8 Norma contro Natura – lyrics/music: Mirko Volpe
Buy: https://murmurmori.com
Fondazione Abbatia Sancte Marie de Morimundo: https://www.abbaziamorimondo.it

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is download.png

Links

Rare “toadstone” of myth found in already priceless 13th century Reliquary of St. Maurus – https://english.radio.cz/rare-toadstone-myth-found-already-priceless-13th-century-reliquary-st-maurus-8731133
Sutton Hoo ship: To sail or not to sail – https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/cruising-life/sutton-hoo-ship-to-sail-or-not-to-sail-81731
Rare Artifacts Found in Two 6th Century Bavarian Graves in Germany – https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/bavarian-graves-0015940
Why Did the Wars of the Roses Start? – https://www.historyhit.com/why-did-the-wars-of-the-roses-start/
Hussite Wagon Forts – A Challenge To Heavy Cavalry In The Late Middle Ages | Late Medieval Warfare – https://czech-archaeology-news.estranky.cz/articles/czech-archaeology-news-2021/hussite-wagon-forts—a-challenge-to-heavy-cavalry-in-the-late-middle-ages—late-medieval-warfare.html
Warrior Women – https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/women-war
Take me to the Church – The medieval parish church was the meeting point of many different things, both sacred and secular. – https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/take-me-church

Video Links

The mystery of the hidden vault beneath King Doniert’s Stone – Hidden History – What was King Doniert’s subterranean vault used for – and why did the king drown? This video is part of my ‘History of Cornwall Seriesplaylist, watch the other videos in this series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl2UQeliZGi75KZVKy9g0RFuzBIPgPWRa