Forgotten Feasts

A Feast A Day: Howdy! We're new here. Can you show us around?

This date marks the anniversary when Europeans officially made first known contact with the native Americans in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1534. After they moved in New Brunswick was never the same. Leif Erikson fans need never fear, we'll get along to celebrating him too.

Here's a New Brunswick style potluck to say "Welcome to the neighborhood":

Fiddlehead Ragoût

Down East Lobster Stew

Chicken Fricot

Pot a Lieve

Cedar Plank Salmon

Tourtiere

Apple Acadian

A Feast a Day: Ludi Apollinares!

There's an unforgotten feast today, the Running of the Bulls at the Feast of San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain. It's famed in song and story (most notably via Hemingway) and I think it's even covered on ESPN 8, The Ocho. Paella washed down with a whole lot of sangria should do the trick if you want to join in the fun.

And now for the forgotten feast! Apparently the Romans were having a pretty tough time of it in 212 BCE, so after consulting the Sibyline Books, they decided to hold games in honor of Apollo, the Ludi Apollinares. Eventually the celebration would last 8 days, culminating with a sacrifice on the 13th but if you want to cram it into one day, here is a menu for your feasting pleasure. All the recipes have been translated from Latin to German and then to English here:

Mustacei (Must Rolls)
Gustum De Praecoquis (Poached Apricots in Wine)
Sarda Ita Fit (Tuna Salad)
IN OVIS APALIS (Boiled Eggs)
PEPONES ET MELONES (Watermelon and Honeydew)
SCILLAS (Jumbo Shrimp Ceviche)
FABACIAE VIRIDES ET BAIANAE (Green and Baian Beans)
PULLUS FUSILIS (Chicken With Stuffing)
VITELLINA FRICTA (Fried Veal)
ALITER BAEDINAM SIVE AGNINAM EXCALDATAM (Steamed Lamb)
TIROPATINAM (Honey Soufflé)
ALITER DULCIA (Sweet Custard with Nuts)

* When the recipe called for Liquamen, we used Thai fish sauce. Worked pretty well!
I'll repost the recipes here as soon as we've made them again with real cooking times...

Must Rolls

The idea of grape must scares a lot of people but it's basically crushed grapes in grape juice. Thanks to the explosion in gourmet stores and farmer's markets, you can get champagne, muscat and even cabernet grapes from July to at least September or order them online.

To make must you will need:

1. A bowl of cleaned grapes
2. Your hands

Crush the grapes, take the seeds out (not the skins) and there you have it. If you're interested in making the must a little more intense, simmer over low heat in a saucepan until it's reduced, viscous but not maple syrup consistency (usually about 10 minutes for a pound of grapes).

There another thing I'd like to clear up before starting the recipe. That's that Romans baked all kinds of breads (white, black, leavened, flat, etc.) out of everything from white pastry flour to whole wheat flour. The better off you were class-wise, the more refined your flour could be. So to replicate the recipe there's no need to go crazy with whole wheat or spelt. King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour is really all you need.

Lastly, this recipe is eggless and contains no leavening. Eat them relatively shortly after you make them. The rolls will be hockey pucks after a couple of days.

Ingredients:

4 cups white pastry flour
1-1/3 cups unfiltered grape must (grape skins included)
2 tablespoons aniseed
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1/2 cup leaf lard in chunks
1/2 cup firm farmer's style cheese (or Testun Barricato if you can get it) minced

Preheat a 350º oven. Combine Seeds and flour, pour grape must over it and then leaf lard and the minced cheese. Work the lard in with your fingers (as if you were making Pita Bread) until dough forms. Bake 30 minutes or until golden.

Gustum De Praecoquis (Poached Apricots)

12 Apricots
1/2 cup medium to full bodied Italian white wine
1/2 cup Passum (a raisin-y tasting dessert wine like Toro Albala Don PX Pedro Ximenez Dessert Wine with honey to taste is a really easy fix for this and the taste is spot on)
1/2 cup Fresh Mint
1 tablespoon Liquamen (Thai Fish Sauce is pretty much the same deal. Very strong stuff, use with caution)
2 tablespoons White Wine Vinegar (You definitely need this. Champagne Vinegar is OK here too)
2 tablespoons Honey
Cracked Black Pepper

Combine Wine, Passum (or what passes for Passum) and Honey in large saucepan and bring to boil. Muddle Mint with Liquamen (Fish Sauce) and White Wine Vinegar. Take wine mixture off heat and add Mint mixture. Add Apricots and simmer 2 minutes. Remove Apricots and reduce liquid to syrup(15-20 minutes). Cool to room temp. Slice and pit apricots and combine with cooled wine mixture. Top with cracked pepper and chill until serving.

Sarda Ita Fit (Tuna Salad)

1 lb. Cooked Ahi Tuna Filet (Pan fried, roasted or grilled)
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
1/2 teaspoon young celery leaves chopped
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme chopped
1/2 teaspoon fresh oregano chopped
1/2 teaspoon rue
2 cups dates
1 tablespoon honey
4 hard boiled eggs in quarters.
1/4 cup white wine
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 cup Defritum (Take your grape must as above and reduce by 2/3. Alternately, you can reduce fig wine by 2/3 to syrup).
3 tablespoons green olive oil

Flake Tuna and mix ingredients together. The recipe doesn't call for dicing the eggs and dates before mixing the ingredients together but I found it helpful.

A Feast A Day: Happy Tynwald Day!

July 5th

If you're Manx (and you're at home on the Isle of Man) then you may be celebrating the continuation of the oldest parliament in the world with the ceremonial meeting on Tynwald Hill. The governing body (Tynwald) of this former Viking outpost has been going since 979 AD.

Here's some "olde" school fare to get in the Manx mood:

Serve with Herb Beer and Elderberry Wine

Cowree (from a recipe filched from the fairies)

Herring Broth

Fried Limpets

Pickled Samphire

Prinjeig

Binjean

Broish Vianney with Mountain Ash Jelly

A Feast A Day! Crab People!

1054 - A supernova is observed by the Chinese, the Arabs and possibly Amerindians near the star ζ Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.

It's not a feast per se but a date that's often forgotten. And, being that this is blue crab season, what better time to celebrate the celestial body's aquatic counterpart?

Blue Crab Cakes with Herb Salad

Blue Crab Bisque

New Jersey Blue Crab Boil!

Steamed Egg Custard with Blue Crab and Flowering Chives

5 Star Chocolate Cake

A Feast A Day! The Herefordshire Feast, Cider Me!

The last date I can find for this feast being celebrated is July 3, 1683. On that date, clergyman and sur-master (school master? teacher's aide?) under Dean Collet at St. Paul's, Father A. Fox delivered and ultimately published a sermon that was such a buzz-kill that I cannot find an instance of the feast being celebrated again.

This is not to insinuate that Hereford does not get it's festival on––There are plenty, almost all having to do with, at least peripherally, Hereford's historic apple cider making industry. However, most cider related festivals tend to be of the Fall Harvest/Winter Renewal variety rather than a mid-summer event.

So this was likely some manner of mid-summer feast put on by the Mercer's guild at St. Paul's. St. Paul's incidentally is in London, nowhere near Hereford but neither am I; so we'll collectively invoke "the spirit" of 17th century Hereford via some hungry well-dressed Londoners sitting around waiting for their friend to finish his long-winded, meandering sermon so they can go eat already.

Here is a list of traditional Hereford recipes:

To drink: CIDER!

Leek and Potato Pie made with Little Hereford Cheese

Herefordshire Fidget Pie

Herefordshire Love in Disguise

Hereford Beef Olives

Herefordshire Pudding

Pears poached in Perry (Pear Cider)

Herefordshire Cider Cake