Menu and Dishes For the Mad Hatters Tea Party March 15, in the Incipient shire of Avonmore

Event steward: Jonathan O'Rose, Co-Steward: Marlena Head Cook: Mergriet can Wijenhorst

The food you are about to eat today, was based upon items that would have been enjoyed at various feasts from the end of 14th century England and well into the very early Tudor period.

Menu First Course Compost (Mix of cooked and marinated vegetables and pears with a sweet, spicy, dressing)

Pome Dorrys served with Aquapatys (Battered pork meat balls, served with cooked and spiced garlic) (the yellow pomes will be spicier than the other colours)

Long Fritters (cheese-dough fritters)

Second Course Two Capons from One, served with a Pickle and Black Sauce (A pork and chicken stuffed chicken skin and a skinless battered chicken served with a savory onion sauce and a sauced liver Pâté)

Frytour of Pasternakes and Apples (A mixture of battered and fried parsnips and apples)

Risshews de Mary (Sweet and spicy, marrow filled, fried cakes of pastry)  Optional Dishes: **A Gluten Free version of Pome Dorrys will be available per requests. **A Gluten Free version of Frytour from the second course will be available per requests. **An option Gluten Free/Vegetarian dish of Spiced and Baked Turnips and Cheese will be available per requests.

First Course Dishes Compost (Forme of Cury, late 14th century) Prepare vegetables: -Peel and cut Parsley root and parsnips (or carrots), turnips and cabbage. -Add to boiling water and cook until half done (or more if pears are ripe and soft). -Peel and pare your pears and add to the boiling vegetables and boil until all are done. -Remove from heat, drain and let cool. Marinade: -Combine: Vinegar, spices and saffron -Add vegetable mixture and set in cool place for 24 hours Dressing: -Combine: Wine, honey, mustard, whole currants, powdered cinnamon, powder douce (sweet spices), whole aniseed and fennel seed. -Add to vegetable mixture and serve Pome Dorrys (“Libre cure cocorum”, first half of 15th century and Forme of Cury, late 14th century) Meatballs are made from ground pork, powder fort, beaten egg and are boiled in water. They are then skewered and roasted while basting them with batter made with egg, flour and something to colour them red, green or yellow. (green with parsley and yellow with saffron, for more yellow I suppose, for example). (*Gluten free version is done the alternative way with just coloured egg yolk.) Aquapatys (Forme of Cury, late 14th century) These are simply whole, peeled, garlic cloves, cooked in water and oil and dressed with saffron and powder fort (strong peppery spices). Long Fritters (Harlein MS. 4016) (***not GF) -Drain you cheese curds well (I like to press them a bit too), and mix with eggs (more yolk than white) and form into a large, flat, cake and fry it lightly. (forgot to mention flour in original doc.) -Cut the fried cheese cake into strips -Fry the cheese strips in a little fat until brown -Cast on sugar and serve

Second Course Dishes Two Capons from One (“Libre cure cocorum”, first half of 15th century, “Noble Boke Off Cookry”) Capon #1: -Remove the skin from the capon -Made stuffing for skin from: Pork and Hen flesh, finely chopped, good powder and yolks -Sew up the bird and bind to maintain shape -Parboil it, remove bindings, and Roast it until done. Capon #2: -Roast the chicken, basting it with grease -Make a batter from almond milk and starch and (Libre cure cocorum shows us to colour it with saffron, I may skip this and finish it with egg yolk as done in the “Noble Boke off Cookry”). -Baste the chicken as it roasts with the batter. Pickle (“Libre cure cocorum”, first half of 15th century) -Take chicken drippings from roasting, and mix with it: wine, mustard and shredded onions that were previously fried in grease. Black Sauce for Roasted Capons (“Ashmole MS. 1439”, 15th century, “Libre cure cocorum”, first half of 15th century”, “Forme of Cury”, late 14th century) -Roast the chicken livers well and grind them with anise, grains of paradise, ginger (fresh, peeled), cinnamon and a little bit of bread crust. To this add verjuice and chicken grease before serving. (**GF, no bread crust) Frytour of Pasternakes of Apples (“Forme of Cury”, late 14th century) -Peel and pare your Parsnips (or carrots) and Apples and parboil them -Make batter from: Flour, eggs, ale and colour with saffron and season with salt. -Dip the parsnips and apples in batter and fry them in oil (or grease) (we will be skipping the addition of almond milk for this feast) (**A GF option will be available for this, using rice starch and no ale) Risshews de Mary (Harlein MS. 4016) (**not GF) Cakes:-Combine: Flour, raw egg yolk, sugar, salt, powdered ginger and saffron -Form into flat cakes Filling:-Combine: Marrow, sugar, and powdered ginger

Lay the filling on the cakes and then fold the cakes over and slit them. Fry these in fresh grease and serve.

**Alternative GF dish will be offered, it is a strange dish all the way from Italy but one the cook and other well travelled people have enjoyed. This version from Martino, 15 th century, called Garnished Turnips. This is a pie of turnips layered with cheese, butter and spices (including sugar), fried or baked like a pie.

***After feast notes: This feast went off fairly well, however I found there was too much pork, though the flavours were different if it was eaten with the stewed garlic. I chose the Meat Balls because of the style of event where there was a desire for something different, which of course, the two chickens out of one did accomplish quite well. The Meat Balls were 3 different colours (red, green and yellow) as I found description for those colours only even though Pome Dorrys would suggest them to be all yellow. Prior to the feast I made a decision to have one of the batter colours to be gluten free, which came in handy during the event as it was also alcohol free and we had a request during the event for this. As per usual, we did have a large hic cup, the menu was developed with two ovens in mind and as we walked into the hall we found out one oven was out. Even worse is that the feast was to be earlier in the day (3-ish as part of the event theme) which was impossible at that point. As it was, we had to knock an item off the menu being the Risshews. This was not too much of a loss as I was donating extra marrow I had from my own stores. The majority of the left-over food I seen was pork after the kitchen staff got a chance to nibble… that and the black sauce which was the one “something different” I snuck in. Sometimes “something a bit different” goes over well and sometimes it’s just… well not so much, though more ingredient was purchased for it than I intended.