A few months ago, in my quest to find more campfire-capable recipes for my repertoire, I flipped through one of my favorite medieval cookery books, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. I don’t even have the words right now to tell you how much I love this book. In fact, it probably deserves its own post, so let’s leave it for now, and get back to the recipe.

“Sops” make a frequent appearance in medieval cookbooks. The word comes from sopp, the Old English word for “bread soaked in liquid”, and that’s pretty much what it continued to be for many hundreds of years. It’s a cognate of “soup”, and is likely where we got the term “supper”, as well as the phrase “sopping wet”. A “milksop” was a weakling, someone who could only take bread soaked in a little milk. The same goes for the synonym, “milquetoast”.

Ok. Etymology lesson over. FOOD.

While the concept of sops is a simple one, the execution can be anything but. Most sops recipes tended to have a base of either almond milk, wine, or a meaty broth, depending on the Lenten season. Scappi has a lot of recipes for sops, some savory and some sweet. He calls for dried legumes, mushrooms, fruits, capon meat, cheese, and (disturbingly specific) trout entrails.

I’ve spared you the latter, and gone instead for both a savory and a sweet version.

For the savory version, I used leftover roast chicken, scraps of cheddar, and meaty broth from the same bird. One thing I love about the sops is how adaptable they are. If I’d had any, mushrooms would have been a delicious addition to the savory sops. The fruity and sweet version has a wine base, and is not dissimilar in concept to the recipe for Arya’s Tarts in the cookbook. Stewed fruits provide the substance, while honey and spices jazz it up.

Where in Westeros?

This dish would be as widespread in that world as it was in our own.

On The Wall and in parts of the North, it would be a way to salvage stale bread and cobble together a small meal out of whatever they had. Further south, in more prosperous regions, the different elements would likely include finer breads and more varied and expensive ingredients, such as quail, fresh fruit, and so on.

In either case, it’s a very easy party food with an authentic feel, and great as a serve-as-they-come dish for when you are expecting multiple rounds of guests.

Sweet & Savory Sops Recipes

Cook’s Note: As Sops are more of a concept than a hard reality, these recipes are just a starting point. Absolutely experiment and be sure to share your final favorites!

Ingredients for Sweet Sops :

• 1 1/2 cups red wine
• 1/2 cup honey
• pinch each cinnamon, ginger, and pepper
• 1/2 cup dried diced fruit, such as figs, prunes, dates, currants, etc.
• 2 slices toasted bread

Combine all ingredients in a shallow saucepan, and cook over medium-low heat until the consistency has thickened, and the fruit has soaked up some of the liquid. Serve over toast.

Ingredients for Savory Sops:

• 1 Tbs. salted butter
• 1 Tbs. flour
• 1-2 cups meat broth, depending on desired consistency
• 1 cup shredded chicken meat
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• dash of ground mustard
• 2 slices toasted bread

Melt the butter in a shallow saucepan, then gradually add the flour and mix until you have a smooth paste. Cook this for a few minutes, then pour in the broth, while stirring. Add the remaining ingredients, cook for a few minutes until the flavors have melded and it’s hot through, then serve over toast.

“Thanksgiving we eat and drink of ye best.”
Dated Nov. 24, 1748 from
William Haywood’s journal, Charlestown, NH

Without gushing too much, I have a lot to be thankful for this year, but on a daily basis, I’m surprised and delighted by waking up in my new old house. The oldest part of it was built in 1795, when George Washington was still president. The brickmaker who built it is buried in the old, old cemetery up the hill. There’s a brick-floor section of the cellar that never gets wet. Talk about fantastic engineering.

So when I started to think about this year’s Thanksgiving festivities, I decided to do something a little different. I really wanted to make up a spread that would delve into history, and reflect what might have been served at very early colonial-era Thanksgiving celebrations. My mother, on hearing this, wondered aloud if she could cook cod for the occasion on a bed of coals out in the firepit.

At least you know I come by it honestly…

I haven’t gone full Pilgrim with the meal (never go full pilgrim), for a couple of reasons. The main consideration is that the early pilgrims were met with a coastal array of fare, while I live in VT. Rather, I’ve tried to think about what meal might have been served when the house was still new, in the late 1700s.

As always when researching recipes, I begin with actual excerpts from the text, and go from there. Let’s start off with a great historical anecdote. For a citation just past the colonial period, this is too fantastic not to consider.  From a 1779 letter from Miss Juliana Smith to her ‘Dear Cousing Betsey’, we learn that some staples of this meal have been around just about since the beginning, like pumpkin pie.

‘This year it was Uncle Simeon’s turn to have the dinner at his house, but of course we all helped them as they help us when it is their turn, & there is always enough for us all to do. All the baking of pies & cakes was done at our house & we had the big oven heated & filled twice each day for three days before it was all done & everything was GOOD, though we did have to do without some things that ought to be used. Neither Love nor Money could buy Raisins, but our good red cherries dried without the pits, did almost as well & happily Uncle Simeon still had some spices in store. The tables were set in the Dining Hall and even that big room had no space to spare when we were all seated… of course we could have no Roast Beef. None of us have tasted Beef this three years back as it must all go to the Army, & too little they get, poor fellows. But, Nayquittymaw’s Hunters were able to get us a fine red Deer, so that we had a good haunch of Venisson on each Table.’ There was an abundance of vegetables on the table…Cider was served instead of wine, wiht the explanation that Uncle Simeon was saving his cask ‘for the sick’… ‘The Pumpkin Pies, Apple Tarts & big Indian Puddings lacked for nothing save Appetite by the time we had got round to them…We did not rise from the Table until it was quite dark, & then when the dishes had been cleared away we all got round the fire as close as we could, & cracked nuts, & sang songs & told stories.”

To sum up, her Thanksgiving dinner was made up of:

• Haunch of Venison, Roast Chine of Pork
• Roast Turkey, Pigeon Pasties, Roast Goose
• Onions in Cream, Cauliflower, Squash
• Potatoes, Raw Celery
• Mincemeat Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie
• Indian Pudding, Plum Pudding
• Cider

I certainly wouldn’t turn my nose up at that! What I find especially delightful is that the even seems not to have changed considerably in the last 200 years. Even with our improved technologies in the modern era, the cooking/baking still takes days to complete. When the family assembles, there is still barely enough room at the table for all the guests, nor enough room in bellies by the time dessert is served.

At a certain hour before dinner, we will light the house only with candles and oil lamps. I expect it will be a cozy and intimate evening, during which we reflect on what makes us truly thankful. Everyone who is coming is encouraged to bring something period to read aloud during the digestion part of the evening in the living room.

And now, without further ado, I’m very excited to present to you my Colonial Thanksgiving menu! Anything with an *asterisk* will be posted in time for the holidays, and while this is a starting point, I’m sure it will change over the coming month. I also welcome any suggestions!

*UPDATE*

Thanksgiving has now come and gone, and I can say with great certainty that this is a menu to be many times repeated.

The grape sauce, adapted from my recipe for Goose and Mulberry Sauce, was a tart and surprisingly wonderful addition to the meal. I went back and forth between that and the usual gravy, and never could decide which I liked better. We were unable to obtain an heirloom turkey, so that will have to wait for next year. An organic bird took its place, and a tastier, more tender and juicy turkey I have not yet encountered.

I plundered the cellar for all sorts of delectable homebrew- with dinner we enjoyed wildling cider and a completely unique bottle of birch beer (which got all the neighborhood talking when I tapped the birch out front), with a Concord grape port to finish off the meal.

But what really made the evening for me, apart from the delicious simplicity of the foods, was the ambiance of the continued candlelight.

Colonial Thanksgiving Menu

Starters:

pemmican, cheese, cured sausage, Acorn Cakes

Soup:

 Venison Stew? with Wheatsheaf Breadsticks

Main and Sides:

Heirloom Turkey with concord grape sauce

Scalloped Turnips with Cheese

Skillet Cranberries

Dessert:

17th century Pumpkin Pie, with ground acorns instead of almonds

Indian Pudding

Drinks:

Hard Cider

Homemade Birch Wine – coming soon to Game of Brews!

Syllabub

So, when I asked on Facebook and Twitter what you all suggested for real-world foods that would be at home in Castle Black, a number of you suggested Pemmican.

I’d never heard of it, but when I looked it up, I knew you’d nailed it.

Pemmican is a Native American Indian food consisting of dried and ground meat and berries, held together with fat.

I know, it doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? But this amazing food has sustained not only natives, but also early colonial fur trappers, AND (here’s the good one) Arctic explorers. Shackleton and Peary, among other, relied heavily on pemmican’s relatively dense calorie count for survival. As soon as I read up on it, I knew it was getting made.

Making it, however, is no light task, but rather a drawn out preparation for such a relatively plain meal-replacement. The meat has to be completely dried (which would be done over a fire in Westeros), then ground to a powder (with stones. STONES.), and combined with equally dried berries and tallow (rendered from the same fat as the butchered animal). I sorely pity anyone who had to grind their dried meat between stones. I even gave my food processor a peck on its little plastic cheek. Even with modern conveniences, this took the better part of a day to complete.

The resulting, ah, food, is… curious. Very dense, and not unpleasant, it’s somewhat bland, if nutritious. The rendered fat helps it harden, so it travels very well. Flavor-wise, it’s not unlike jerky, which makes sense, as it essentially was that before shredding. A friend who tried it also said it resembled a very dry pate in flavor, due in part to the fat content.

I’d wager that with the addition of a few key modern ingredients, such as freeze-dried veggies, it could actually be a pretty decent trail food.

Where in Westeros?

Definitely up north. I imagine that the Wildlings would rely heavily on something like this, and that the rangers of the Night’s Watch, as well as some other lords of the hilltribes surrounding Winterfell, would have picked it up from them. It would make a great source of protein in a small size for rangers out north of The Wall, where foraging can be difficult even at the best of times.

Were I a ranger, I’d add some ground rosehips for the vitamin C content. Once their limes run out, scurvy is bound to become an issue, as Jon muses in Dance. As a wildling, can you even conceive of how much pemmican one could make with a mammoth? It boggles the mind. The more I think about it, though, the more I like what could be done with this. Wild duck, cherry, and thyme? Venison, rosehip, and acorn? *Drool*.

Pemmican Recipe

Cook’s Notes: This is a highly adaptable recipe. You can use your choice of meat, and add whatever berries youlike. Also, if you’ve got a dehydrator, you’re golden. Otherwise, you’re stuck making this in a conventional oven. I suppose you could also use pre-made jerky as a starting point, but the additives in it might throw off the recipe, and it would probably still need further drying.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. steak meat
• rendered fat, ~2 cups
• 1/2 cup dehydrated berries
• pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to its lowest setting (mine was 170F). Slice your meat as thinly as possible, against the grain. Arrange on a cooling rack over a baking sheet, and place in the oven. The ideal temperature for dehydrating the meat is between 130-150F, so you may need to prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon, like I did. The drying process takes many hours; mine was completely dry and no longer pliable after 6-8 hours, depending on the size of the slice.

When the meat is completely dry, place it in a food processor and blitz until it is a light and powdery consistency (this won’t work if the meat is at all still soft). Place in a bowl, and do the same with the dried berries, keeping the two separate.

If you need to render your own fat, you will need to start with suet, often available in the weirder-foods section of the meat department in grocery stores, alongside liver, tripe, and pig feet. Cut the suet into chunks, and place in a tall pot. Cook over medium heat until you have a nice layer of melted fat in the bottom of the pan, then reduce the heat to low. Continue to cook for around an hour, or until the bits of suet have become brown and crispy, and there is a substantial layer of clear golden fat in the pan. Strain into a clean container, and allow to cool somewhat (it should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: hot fat is really hot, and the spatters burninate).

To actually make the pemmican itself:

To the powdered meat add about 1/4 volume of ground berries. Weigh this mixture, and gradually add a little less than the same weight of rendered fat in its liquid form. Mix these as much as possible with a spoon, then by hand once it’s cool enough to handle. Press into cupcake tins to harden, or roll out into flat shapes, and cut into bars. Wrap in parchment or wax paper, and slip into ziploc bags.

By all accounts, it shouldn’t need to be refrigerated as long as it’s kept cool and in a dark place, but it can’t hurt to put it in the fridge. Historical accounts claim it would last for decades, but I’d recommend eating within two weeks, just to be on the safe side.