Modern subtleties: painting cookies

Subtlety, in the context of feasts during the Middle Ages, is some sort of food-related spectacle that makes the feast entertaining. It could be a very dressed up item of food (such as roasted peacock re-dressed in its feathers), or it could be an outlandish way of serving something (such as on horseback), or it could even be a piece of extravagant entertainment between courses (like re-enacting a naval battle).

Last night, in preparation for my local Society for Creative Anachronism group's 25th anniversary party, I helped decorate shortbread cookies that were pressed into the shape of our shire's device (visible in the top left corner at the website http://www.scolairi.org/Scolairi1.html).

The method for this subtlety was fun and novel for me: glittery food paints. What we used was something called "luster dust," a shimmery dust that can be mixed with liquid or frosting or fondant or something to make it sparkly. We mixed it with rum to suspend the dust in liquid so it could be painted onto the cookies with small paintbrushes. The result is gorgeous and, if the label on the dust is accurate, nontoxic.

Telling folks about the cookies is okay before the event, but no pictures please, says the feast steward, who wants the appearance of the cookies to be a surprise at the feast on Saturday. They look too pretty to eat and making them was fun, even after the number of cookies reached the multiple dozens.

Checking a website that sells the dusts, the ingredients listed are Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide, Carmine, Mica, the amounts of which will vary according to the color of the dust. All of these things appear in cosmetics and are considered nontoxic (especially in the small amounts that would be ingested with one of these cookies), but none of them are food. Part of the allure of using these minerals is that they don't actually dissolve in food or liquid, so the shimmer will last without fading. Since I don't fancy the idea of licking my eyeshadow (same ingredients in there), I'd be more likely to look but not eat.

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Historical baking in an outdoor oven

I was thrilled to have the chance to bake in a wood-fired, outdoor clay oven this weekend at the Society for Creative Anachronism event "For Hands" in Wood River, IL.

The leader of the hands-on experiment in building and using the oven is known in the SCA as Master Philippe de Leon. He said that he had used a design that had been used successfully at the Pennsic War http://www.pennsicwar.org/penn39/directory.html but that he found out through trial-and-error and further discussion with the Pennsic oven builders that the ovens are meant to be temporary structures. For that reason, Philippe thinks he'll use a different design for the next oven to be built right next to the current one at Wood River's Camp Dubois, a recreation of the winter quarters of 1803-04 used by the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Pictures of preparing the oven for baking and baking the first loaves of the day:

Philippe tells about the building process while tending the fire in the oven

Oven firing -- when the fire is really going, tongues of fire start licking around the top of the oven and out the top of the doorway

Repairs made to the clay skin of the oven. The basic construction was clay applied both over the base "igloo" of bricks and over a wooden plank supporting the igloo. The pedestal was masonry using local limestone from the Wood River area.

Raking the coals out of the oven

Sweeping out the oven before inserting loaves of bread (in baskets in foreground)

Uh-oh. The floor of the oven has a hole, which proves to be part of some problems later in the day with keeping stable high temperatures in the oven.

Simon Hondy slashing loaf on the peel before baking

First loaves of the day in the oven, before and after

Simon removes the first loaf of the day

Foibles and all, the oven was great fun to play in and watch, and I'm glad the baker known as Simon Hondy in the SCA invited me to bring a recipe and make something myself to bake in the oven for the evening's feast at the event.

My recipe is not provably a pre-1600 recipe. I know the ingredients themselves would have been known, but I don't have a definite date on when these shaped buns were first seen in Italy. I got a happy feeling from watching the dough rise outside on a sunny day.

Panini all'Olio

3 cups white bread flour (I used all-purpose this time because it's what I had on-hand)
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup homemade wild yeast starter (obtained from Simon)
1 cup lukewarm water
cornmeal

Mix together dry ingredients. Add starter, oil and wet the dough with as much of the one cup of water as is needed to make shaggy dough. Pull dough together and knead about 10 minutes on a floured surface. Grease large bowl with additional olive oil and turn the dough inside the bowl to cover it with oil. Cover with a cloth and allow to rise until doubled. Punch dough down and break into 12 to 16 equal-sized pieces. Preheat oven (modern ovens to 400 Degrees Fahrenheit). Form into shapes as desired and cover with flour.  Place buns on a cornmeal-dusted peel or baking pan, cover with a cloth and rise about half an hour. Bake about 15 minutes in baking pan (or on clay oven floor) or until buns make a hollow noise when their bottoms are tapped. Dust off the excess flour before serving.

Shape options:
1) artichokes: form dough into a small ball and let it do the second rise. Then snip horizontal cuts in rings around the bun with scissors to approximate artichoke leaf tips.
2) pretzels: before second rise, make dough "snakes" and twist into pretzel shapes.
3) fingers: before second rise, make flat ovals of dough and roll up like crescent rolls.
4) twists: before second rise, make dough "snakes" and twist them, then join the two ends together
5) spirals: before second rise, make dough "snakes" and form into a spiral shape.

Some photos of my own baking in my persona of Heregyth Ketilsdottir:

 Mixing dough

 Kneading dough

Buns on the baking peel waiting to go into the oven

 The closed oven during baking

Finished buns, ready for feast!

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Chinese-style eggplant

After eating this, my husband declared that I had successfully replicated his favorite eggplant dish from his favorite Chinese restaurant in Madison, WI, which, sadly, closed a few years back. At least we can remember Yan's fondly when we eat this dish.

General note on stir-fried dishes: once cooking is underway, there is no time between steps to prep things, so make sure that all vegetables are chopped, all ingredients are collected and sitting next to the stove, all condiment containers are opened and have spoons in them already. Letting the pan go unattended while you look for a spoon to scoop sauce out of the bottom of a jar means overcooked stir-fry.

Chinese-style eggplant
serves 2 to 3

2 large Asian eggplants (the long, skinny purple ones), sliced thickly on bias
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 to 3 Tbsp oyster sauce
fresh grated ginger, soy sauce and sugar or honey to taste

Heat sesame oil in a large pan or wok on high heat. Cook garlic slices briefly, then add in eggplant slices and stir-fry until some browning occurs. Add a little soy sauce and water to the pan to finish cooking the eggplant with boiling water and steam. Add oyster sauce, fresh ginger and honey or sugar and stew the eggplants a few minutes until tender. If the liquid in the pan is getting sticky instead of making a smooth sauce, add more water. Serve over cooked brown rice (my preference with this dish) or white rice.

If a meaty dish is desired, this dish could be started by cooking very thinly sliced beef in the sesame oil until browned and then adding the rest of the ingredients in order. If you already have leftover cooked beef bits, add them in near the end of cooking to heat through.

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