Medieval Eats
This page is dedicated to one part of my fascination with historic foods, this being medieval feasts in the S.C.A. (Society for Creative Anachronism). It is my hope to share some of my experiences with other cooks through some, hopefully, helpful articles.
My involvement with SCA cooking basically came from an already set interest in historic food and cooking but a limited knowledge of Medieval and Renaissance cooking and dining. Early on, much of what I knew came from a seriously small selection of transcribed recipes, some modern adaptations, and things I had picked up from how it was done in the SCA. This may be very well how many new cooks started in the game, and the first 5 or 6 years were probably the most difficult. In that short time, I have come to learn many differences between SCA and period and I am still learning how to better bring something more period to the table.
Some things I hope to cover here: (rest coming sometime after I get back from vacation)
- The fallacy of spices being used to cover rotted meat (I wrote a paper on this almost a decade ago, so it is a bit outdated but what’s there still holds true)
- The inns and outs of medieval pastry. Covering raised pies, flat pies, fried pies and even pasta.
- My A&S 50 project. For A&S 50 I have begun work on cooking 50 meals with pictures, recipes and how I made them. The full list will have links to individual entries in the “tested recipes” pages. And yes! There are pictures!
- So, you want to cook a medieval or renaissance feast in the SCA
- Working towards a more period feast (the basics)
- Working towards a more period feast (the other things...)