“Tivoli settled Locke and Jean in one of the alcoves, on chairs that would have been at home in the suite of false furniture they’d given to Requin. An attendant brought a tray of flaky brown pastries in the western style, filled with cheese and minced mushrooms. They were the richest thing Lock had eaten in weeks.” -Republic of Thieves

Thoughts:

After many months, and several books ahead of it in the queue, I finally got to read Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves, and it did not disappoint. The snappy dialogue is again at times laugh out loud funny, and although there are fewer descriptions of food than in the first two books, what descriptions there are made my mouth water.

This is one of those. Simple, easy, and fast to make, this mushroom pastry is full of flaky savory goodness. The mushrooms are the predominant flavor, which is accentuated by the dark ale, garlic, and thyme.

Recipe for Flaky Mushroom Pastries

Ingredients:

Preheat the oven to 400F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cook the onions and garlic in oil over medium heat until they soften and turn clear, around 5-10 minutes. Add the butter, followed by the mushrooms. Gently sautee until they are soft and covered with butter. Toss in the thyme and other seasonings, and stir for another 30 seconds. Pour over the beer (you can drink the rest for culinary inspiration!) and scrape up any of the tasty brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook until the liquid has mostly cooked off. Remove from heat and set aside.

Unfold the thawed puff pastry and cut into half. Place the pastry on the prepared baking sheet. Take a sharp knife and score a line around the outside edge of the pastry, about 1/2″ from the edge. This will allow the edges to puff up as they cook. Brush those edges of pastry with the beaten egg, then spread the mushroom mixture on the inside rectangle of pastry.

This started as an endnote on the Feasts of Epic Proportions post, and grew so out of hand that I had to make a new post for it. Brace yourselves, this isn’t a post for the faint of heart. All I ask is that you never, ever, show this list to GRRM. He’s described a number of strange dishes in his books, and really takes it to a new level in Dance.

However, this real world club put his imagination to shame. Which is fine with me- I’ve met my culinary limits.

Don’t get me wrong, I was the only one in the house to eat honey-roasted crickets, and I actually enjoyed them, but these meals take things to a whole new level. A friend of mine swears that bugs are the food of the future, since they are such a sustainable resource. If that’s the case, I hope I can get mine ground into a smoothie or something.  My entry to this dubious world of bizarre foods came with the list of dishes served at a dinner put on by the Explorers Club in NYC in 1992. It included: 

• roasted crickets and larvae 
• mealworm ghanouj 
• waxworm fritters with plum sauce
• cricket and vegetable tempura
• roasted Australian kurrajong grubs to roast beef and gravy. 
• dessert of chocolate cricket torte
•  live tarantulas as centerpieces

Now, you might think that this was a one time thing. I mean, the “Explorers Club” puts one in mind of the two adorable kids in the beginning of the film “Up”, with their badges and quest for adventure. But as the club was founded in 1904, they’ve been doing this for decades, and each year, they seemingly try to outdo themselves.

Wildling Special: all you can eat mammoth ribs

I mean, this is the group that served up thawed Mammoth meat in the 50s, and their later dinners are no less extreme. I’ll give you the link to this article, and let you read it for yourself. Seriously, not for the faint of heart. Some of the pictures alone are daunting, and cannot be unseen (there are eyeballs. For martinis…). Granted, some of the dishes are appealing, such as the slow-roasted elk with rosemary potatoes, or the mustard-thyme rubbed rabbit, or even the caramelized yak.  My favorite (might have to make it) are the edible orchids with a honey-creamed dipping sauce. Others sound completely made up, like the ricewine-pickled duck tongue, or jellyfish slivers in white soy marinade. For better or worse, I could see a number of these elements working their way into aSoIaF: Dornishmen nibbling on scorpions, prisoners in the Red Keep munching on roaches, and so on. I’ll spare you the more intense dishes, but in the spirit of things, what’s the strangest thing YOU have ever eaten? Would you take advantage of such a crazy buffet?

Dornish delicacies?

What a year this has been, readers.

First and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support, enthusiasm, and photos throughout the past year. Seeing how you incorporate Westerosi and medieval recipes into your holidays and viewing parties never ceases to delight me. Food is an invaluable way to bring people together, and it’s a joy to see so many of you enjoying it with friends and family.

I’d also like to thank you for your patience with the increasingly sparse posts during the past few months. The planets properly aligned, leading to a number of wonderful things: At the end of summer, I was fortunate enough to be able to unexpectedly buy an old farmhouse in Vermont, and have been working to get it back into the shape it deserves. That involves a little carpentry, a bit of creativity, and a lot of stripping 70s era wallpaper. It’s hugely gratifying, but time consuming. In November, I won NaNoWriMo, and threw my first Thanksgiving.

And then over the holiday, I got engaged. That’s right. As of now, I’m planning a wedding feast (no Freys or Lannisters invited, thanks), hopefully with a barrel of cider and a giant pit-roast. The cake, of course, could be nothing except lemoncake.

We also have a cadre of rescue animals, and are planning to tear down the ceiling of the kitchen (there are beams up there!). Life’s been crazy, and I very much miss all the wacky cooking for my blogs. I have a number of amazing recipes to try out, just waiting in the wings; I’m especially looking forward to Stargazey Pie…

That was a lot about me, all of which is to say: You are all great. Food is wonderful. Check back in the new year for some exciting new blog developments and new recipes. With all this additional house-space, I’ve got all kinds of schemes up my sleeves. :)

Thoughts:

This is a fun, medieval, glorified version of  whipped cream that is intended to look like fresh snow. The addition of beaten egg whites stiffens the mix beyond the texture of ordinary whipped cream. The flavor is only slightly sweet, although you could add more sugar to taste. The hint of rosewater is what makes this light and fluffy dish especially unique. Although originally a dessert dish in its own right, to our modern sensibilities, it’s more like a topping. Personally, I think this would make a great addition to any wintery feast, and would look especially fitting next to a nice chocolate yule log. It can accompany any dish with which you would serve whipped cream. 

For more of a dessert dish, check out this other recipe for Apple Snow, c. 1880.

A Dishful of Snow

Prep: 15 minutes         Makes 4 plus servings     

To make a dissh full of Snow. Take a potell of swete thicke creame and the whites of eight egges & beate them al togider with a spone / then put them in youre creame and a saucer full of Rosewater and a disshe full of Suger with all / than take a sticke & make it cleane / and than cutte it in the ende foure square / and there with heate all the aforesayde thinges togither / & ever as it ryseth take it of and put it into a Collander / this done / take one apple and set it in the myddes of it and a thicke busshe of Rosemary and set it in the middes of the plater / then cast your Snow upon the Rosemary & fyll your platter therewith. And if you have wafers cast some in with all and thus serue them forth. -A Propre new booke of Cokery, 1545

Ingredients:

• 1 pint heavy cream
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp. rosewater, or more to taste
• 2 Tbs. sugar, or more to taste
• rosemary and apple, for garnish

Combine the cream, egg whites, rosewater, and sugar in a bowl. Beat with a mixer until the mixture thickens substantially and begins to resemble a fluffy snow. Scoop into a colander and allow to drain in the fridge for at least five minutes. Decorate a platter with rosemary stalks, then spoon the “snow” on top. Dust with a little extra sugar for sparkle, then place an apple in the middle. Serve immediately. 

Thoughts:

In my ongoing quest to prove that medieval food is not gross, I knew I had to try these two recipes. I discovered the cookbook of Bartolomeo Scappi this summer at a medieval food lab (yep, I’m a dork), and was so diverted by the wonderful recipes in the book that I quickly added a few of them to my queue. You can check out the cookbook itself on Google Books, here.

Although Scappi provides much more detail about his methods of cooking, as well as proportions for ingredients, these recipes fought back a little. It took a few tries, and even now, I’ll probably take another crack at them to try and perfect the recipes. For those unfamiliar with these dishes, they are traditional Italian desserts. Zeppole are like little fried doughnut holes, and Zabaglione is like a thick alcoholic pudding. While I knew they were traditional, I didn’t know they dated so far back as 1570. I imagine they might even go back to Ancient Rome… I’ll take a look.

Medieval Zeppole, from Scappi

As mentioned, the Zeppole need a little work. I followed the recipe very closely, and met with some difficulties. I boiled the chickpeas and chestnuts, which seems now unnecessary, unless you are using dried chestnuts.  The yeast was not sufficient to leaven the dough, so I added the six egg whites suggested at the end of the original recipe, which helped fluff the fritters up. I ground up the nuts myself, which made for a lumpy sort of dough that was prone to falling apart without the eggs. These were the many trials I struggled with in the process of working through this recipe. In the future, I would use a variety of nut flours, rather than the coarsely ground nuts I had, which should result in a more cooperative dough.

Medieval Zabaglione, from Scappi

The Zabaglione, on the other hand, is wonderful. Rich and boozy, it’s also somehow also light and fluffy, somewhere between a custard and a mousse. The modern version tends to be plainer, but I love the traditional addition of the cinnamon, which gives it a nice spiciness. This recipe took me two tries to get right, but once I did, it’s an instant house favorite. I omitted the water the second time, and the mixture fluffed up beautifully, just the way it ought to.

One very cool thing about these two recipes is that they are so complimentary. One uses six egg yolks, the other the whites. The flavors and textures go well together, and the result is a tasty dessert pairing worthy of any dinner party.

Zeppole Recipe

Makes around 2 dozen small fritters.      Time: around 1 hour

Cook’s Note: I’m putting in the recipe as I made it, but plan to revisit and improve in the coming month or so. You’ll have an easier time if you just use nut flours rather than trying to grind the nuts yourself. Be sure to check back for the update!

Zeppole Ingredients:

• 1 15 oz. can chickpeas/garbanzo beans
• 6 oz. chestnuts, shelled
• 6 oz. walnuts, shelled
• 4 oz. sugar
• 1 Tbs. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. combined cloves and nutmeg
• dash of rosewater
• optional seasonings: mint, marjoram, burnet, wild thyme
• 6 egg whites
• oil or fat for frying (I used Crisco)
• cinnamon sugar, for dusting

Wash the chickpeas, removing any of the outer skins that peel off. Boil the chickpeas and chestnuts in a light meat broth for 20-30 minutes, until the chestnuts are soft. Strain, then grind together the chickpeas, chestnuts, and walnuts until you have a relatively fine meal or paste. Add the sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, followed by the yeast mixture. If you like, add in some minced herbs to taste. Stir in the egg whites. 

Bring your oil to medium heat. Using a spoon, scoop out about two tablespoons of the batter at a time. gently drop this mixture into the hot oil. They should sink to the bottom of the pan, but then rise to the top as they cook (you may need to loosen them up if they stick to the bottom). Fry for about a minute, until the fritters are a dark golden brown. It may take some time to get the hang of this part, but keep trying!

When the fritters are done, remove to a plate covered with paper towels to drain. Brush each fritter with rosewater and roll in cinnamon sugar.

Zabaglione Recipe

Makes about 6 small servings       Time: ~20 minutes

Zabaglione Ingredients: 

• 6 egg yolks
• 6 oz. sweet malmsey
• 3 oz. sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 4 oz. water
• butter

Combine six egg yolks with the sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Whisk briskly until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture looks like a very pale yellow cream. Add the white wine, whisk to combine, then place the mixture in a bowl over a double boiler, and whisk while it cooks until it is the consistency of a thick pudding. Carefully remove from heat (the bowl is hot!) and stir in the butter. Serve warm, as in the original instructions, or pour into serving dishes and chill for a thicker set.

 Many of us read about the feasts in Martin’s books, and think to ourselves, “77 courses?! That’s absurd. You’re just making this up! No feast could be that big!”  We’d think that, but we’d be wrong.

In fact, some historical feasts were considerably more lavish, more huge, and more absurd than those that GRRM details. In 1213, King John of England’s Christmas feast included 3,000 capons, 1,000 salted eels, 400 hogs, 100 pounds of almonds, and 24 casks of wine. A few decades later King Edward I’s coronation feast featured, among other items, 440 oxen and over 22,000 hens.  

Just think of the logistics of that for a moment! How far afield would one have to go, and how far in advance, to secure that amount of livestock for a single event? I’m terrible with numbers, but I can tell you that it’s NUTS. 

Richard II and his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, threw a feast for hundreds in the late 1300s that featured mostly roasts. Roasting animals was a relatively expensive undertaking at the time, given the amount of wood required for the fire and the cost of the animals themselves. In addition to nearly 100 pounds of salted venison, the feast included a wide variety of waterfowl, including herons, cranes, swans, and geese. The bill for the feast also called for 11,000 eggs. If you figure that a good laying hen can lay around an egg a day, ponder for a moment how many hens it would take, and how long, to amass that number. Here are the courses for the rest of the feast:

• 14 salted oxen
• 84 pounds salted venison
• 12 boar, including heads
• 120 sheep heads
• 300 marrowbones
• More than 100 waterbirds, including cranes, herons and curlews
• 50 swans
• 150 capons
• 1,200 pigeons
• 210 geese
• 11,000 eggs

According to the HRP site (Historic Royal Palaces), in a typical year, the royal kitchen in Henry VIII’s time served 1,240 oxen, 8,200 sheep, 2,330 deer, 760 calves, 1,870 pigs, and 53 wild boar. That’s more than 14,000 large animals, meaning each member of the court was consuming about 23 animals every year. The whole of this was washed down with about 600,000 gallons of Ale. Is it any wonder the king ended up looking like this?

Clearly Robert Baratheon and Henry VIII would have been the best of chums.  In order to process such quantities of ingredients and turn them into the feasts we all imagine, a staff of 200 worked extremely hard in the 3,000 square foot kitchen. Other notable features included:

• 6 fireplaces with spits
• a pastry house (!) with four ovens
• the ale cellar had double locks, and the keys were held by two separate officials
• three larders: for meat, fish, and all dry goods
• a boiling house, for making stock- the copper kettle could hold 75 gallons!

I would dearly like to have a pastry house of my very own…

Like her father, Queen Elizabeth I was no stranger to awesome food. The Spanish began cultivating a lot of sugar in the 1400s, and the English queen grew fond of the stuff. One of her earls, trying to gain the queen’s favor, threw a dessert feast for her. Lizzie sat in a gallery watching fireworks, while men carried up hundreds of desserts, among them:

• Sugar sculptures of castles, guns, soldiers and forts (English & French), as well as peacocks, swans and other animals.
• Marzipan creatures, fictional and real – eagles, lions, apes, frogs, snakes, worms, unicorns, mermaids and whales.
• Crystallized fruits, mostly apricots, damsons and plums.
• Preserved citrus peels (citrus fruits were still exceptionally rare in England)
• Sugar-coated almonds and spices, such as aniseed and fennel.
• Clear, cream and coloured jellies, flavoured with fruit juice, wine, rose-water, cinnamon and ginger, wobbling in bowls and or served in stiffened slices.
• Biscuits made from almonds, rosewater and ambergris.
• Fruit tarts of apples, pears and plums.
• Spice cakes made with cinnamon, cloves, saffron and mace.

Renaissance Sugar Cake, via marmitelover.blogspot.com

That lineup might not include sugar skulls, but here’s dearly hoping that GRRM includes a similar sugary feast in one of his books. He’s given us cream swans and spun sugar unicorns, but I’d love to make some of the dishes above! 

And of course, lest we forget the royalty of Pentos, Meereen, and other far flung cities across the Narrow Sea, I’ll take a look at some of the dinners put on by the Explorers Club in NYC. Stay tuned for that in a future post…

Thoughts:

This is a sweet and refreshing soup. The flavor of the rosehips is earthy and filling, with a bit of an acidic tang. The color of the soup is a rich dark orange-brown color, which can be lightened with a bit of yogurt. The additional ingredients, of vanilla and spices, add to what is already a subtle and complex flavor. Overall it tastes healthy, and no wonder. Rosehips have a very high vitamin C content, so I especially recommend this soup if you are feeling a little under the weather.

Proposed Location?

Either practically in the north, or aesthetically down in the Reach. Apart from the obvious rose connection to House Tyrell, this soup speaks of a summer outing. I imagine the Tyrells enjoying this soup in King’s Landing, and delighting in being able to incorporate rosehips and rose water into their feasts.

I could also see a very different version of it being consumed up in the North, where the high vitamin C content of the rosehips would be highly valued. The Night’s Watch could boil down the rosehips into a syrup that could be added to mulled wine, porridge, or any number of other dishes and drinks.

Rosehip Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cups crushed dried rose hips
• 4 cups of water
• 1/4 cup honey, or more to taste
• 1/4 of a vanilla bean, split and scraped and then tossed in, or a dash of vanilla extract
• a dash of cinnamon
• 1 Tbs. arrowroot, mixed with 1/4 cup cold water, to thicken
• yogurt (optional)
• additional toppings, as wished (nuts, granola, etc.)

Combine the crushed rosehips and water in a medium saucepan. Simmer for around 45 minutes, or until the rosehips are very soft. Strain the liquid through a sieve, and then using a spoon, press as much of the pulp through the sieve as will go.

Pour this liquid back into the cleaned saucepan, and heat over medium. Add the remaining ingredients except the yogurt and cook for 5 minutes more. Pour into bowls, top with yogurt, and enjoy!

dried rosehips