Taking the Challenge -- Mincemeat!

One day I was thinking about Christmas desserts and recalled a conversation in a restaurant years ago:

ME: Do you have any mincemeat pie?

WAITER: Mince. We serve mince pie, which is made from fruit. Mincemeat pie actually has meat in it. We don't serve mincemeat. And we don't have any mince pie left today.

This got me to thinking how much I enjoyed the mince pie my grandmother made when I was a child and also wondering how mincemeat pie would taste. Well, since I have a nice collection of historical cookbooks, I thought it would be a perfect addition to this blog. I accepted the challenge I posed to myself!

A leisurely cruise through the books turned up a variety of recipes. Some I rejected out of practicality -- I don't like beef heart and I didn't want to mess with beef tongue. (Though I like it pickled and thinly sliced on sandwiches!)

I was looking for one that appeared authentic as well as old enough to really feel historical. I decided on one from an ebook (free!) by Mrs. Eliza Leslie entitled Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches.
 

Mrs. Leslie was a popular author of cookbooks and manners guides in the 19th century. Here is a little about her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Leslie


This recipe is found under the section of "Pastry, Puddings, Etc.". She has a short discussion on mince pies (she means mincemeat) in general: "These pies are always made with covers, and should be eaten warm. If baked the day before, heat them on the stove or before the fire."

Mrs. Leslie includes several recipes which she ranks as Good Mince-Meat, The Best Mince-Meat, Very Plain Mince-Meat, and Mince-Meat for Lent. I chose Good because it seemed rich and exciting while not having to obtain the tongue, rose water, bitter almonds, and sweet almonds required by the Best. Very Plain had no alcohol and not as much meat or fat, and the Lenten version used hard-boiled eggs instead of meat.

GOOD MINCE-MEAT. 

Take a bullock's heart and boil it, or two pounds of the lean of fresh beef. When it is quite cold, chop it very fine. Chop three pounds of beef suet (first removing the skin and strings) and six pounds of large juicy apples that have been pared and cored. Then, stone six pounds of the best raisins, (or take sultana raisins that are without stones,) and chop them also. Wash and dry three pounds of currants. Mix all together; adding to them the grated peel and the juice of two or three large oranges, two table-spoonfuls of powdered cinnamon, two powdered nutmegs, and three dozen powdered cloves, a tea-spoonful of beaten mace, one pound of fine  brown sugar, one quart of Madeira wine, one pint of French brandy, and half a pound of citron cut into large slips. Having thoroughly mixed the whole, put it into a stone jar, and tie it up with brandy paper.

This struck me as an awful lot of food that I wasn't sure I could store properly or even use up in a reasonable time, so I decided to make a half recipe. I still bought the full quantity of brandy and Madeira wine (heh!) since Mrs. Leslie says, "Whenever you take out any for use, pour some additional brandy into the jar before you cover it again, and add some more sugar." Hey, I can always drink the extra wine!

Ingredients for a half recipe

It is important to recognize that everyone recommends taking two days to make this. The first is to cook the beef and the second is to pare, core, and chop everything up then mix it. So here goes....

DAY 1 Boiling the Beef 

Mrs. Leslie assumes you know how to do this as she does not include directions for it anywhere in the book. Various sources say to put the meat in a heavy pan, cover it with water, bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, then put on the lid and simmer it over reduced heat until it is tender. You can add herbs and spices as you see fit but I didn't so I didn't change the flavor of the mincemeat recipe.

Boiling the beef

To simmer it required a very low heat; the idea is to cook it slowly so it gets tender. I allotted one hour and that was plenty of time for my thin, one pound slab of beef.  It could have come out in less than an hour.

Cooked and cooling

I think the broth will make a good start for a soup base or useful for boiling pasta. After the meat cooled on the plate, I put it in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

DAY 2 Mixing It Up 

Just so you know, finding citron during the summer is quite a challenge. I ended up using candied lemon peel. If, by the time the mincemeat is ready for use, I can find citron it can still be used via Mrs. Leslie's directions, "You may reserve the citron to put in when you make the pies. Do not cut the slips too small, or the taste will be almost imperceptible." Several other sources suggest filling the pie crust with layers that alternate between mincemeat and citron.

It took a long time to chop everything, as I expected.  I used the food processor to chop the raisins and make them about the same size as the currants.  The meat and suet I chopped finely by hand.

A note on the suet:  I asked the butcher for suet and he sold me a bag of beef fat trimmings.  I had to go through and cut out the extra meat and also the remove the "skin and strings" mentioned by Mrs. Leslie.  I should have asked for parts that were thick chunks of fat because a lot of what I bought was connective tissue.  It was white like the fat but thin and slick and put the mincemeat at risk for being chewy.  It took a while to cut all that out. 

Mixed up chopped stuff without spices

I grated the whole nutmeg by hand and used a dedicated coffee bean grinder to powder the 1 1/2 dozen cloves. 

Mixed up chopped stuff with spices

It really helped to mix the ingredients three times.  Once before the spices went in, once after the spices were added, and once again after the liquids were poured over it.  Mrs. Leslie tells you to "thoroughly mix the whole" and I found the three mixing sessions broke up the sticky gobs of raisins, currants, and suet.  Everything looked uniformly distributed once "the whole" was stirred.

The final product

Now keep in mind that this is my largest bowl -- 16 inches across and 6 inches deep -- and it is half full.  Even at the half recipe, it is a lot of mincemeat!  I'm guessing it is about a gallon and a half in volume.

I have a stone jar (ceramic crock) but it isn't big enough to hold all of this.  Fortunately I found a glass jar with a clamp-on "lightning lid" that could do the trick.  Once all the mincemeat was in the jar, I tamped it down with the bottom of a ladle to push out the air bubbles.  It also helped to get the liquid up to the top.

Instead of covering it with brandy paper (which I assume is parchment paper soaked in brandy), I poured a thin layer of brandy on top of it, enough to cover the surface entirely.

Mrs. Leslie doesn't mention it but other sources say to let this sit in a cool place and "ripen" for about a month before you use it.  I suspect you can use it right away if you want to but I chose to tuck this jar away into a cupboard that I know stays cool.  I'll get back to it in a month and let you know the results.

The Verdict:  Success!  I thought it was reasonably easy to make if you are patient when it comes to paring, coring, and chopping up all those apples.   It makes a lot so it helps to have a container for it picked out ahead of time.  The part I tasted before packing it away was very good.  I just don't think you can go wrong with the brandy, Madeira, and all those spices.  And I look forward to seeing what it is like once it has a chance to soak and blend the flavors. 

Final notes:  You could do it all in one day for a half recipe.  It didn't take that long to boil the meat so if you did that in the morning it would be cool enough to use by the afternoon or evening.  Chopping does take a long time so plan ahead on that.

Cornish Pasties and a Bonus

I spent a week exploring California's Gold Country -- seeing towns like Ione, Sutter Creek, Nevada City, Grass Valley, and Jackson.  What fun!  I learned a lot about mining technology, the history of the towns (most burned down at least once), the personalities of the prominent people, and the various cultures that were imported from around the world.  The primary time period is from 1849 (when gold was discovered) to about 1900.

One group that contributed much to the advancement of gold mining technology was the Cornish miners.  They were particularly good at mining underground!  Here's a little bit about them:  http://www.nevadacountygold.com/about/gold-rush-stories/159  They brought with them their traditions, their songs, and their recipes for pasties (pronounced "past - ees", not "paste - ees").

    Picture from http://kenanderson.net/pasties/cornish.html

This traditional lunch was designed to be hearty and easy to eat. One source even claimed the miners held the fancy crust border with their dirty hands, ate the part with the filling, and then threw away the border so as to keep their food clean.

Upon visiting the Empire Mine, I picked up a flyer they published called "The Cornish Miner and His Pasty".  It, of course, contained a recipe which I decided to try.

Cornish Pasties

3 cups flour
1 cup shortening
1 tsp. salt
8 tbs. cold water (approx.)
4 tsp butter
5 potatoes, sliced thin
2 lb round stead, diced
3 onions, cut thin
minced parsley
salt, pepper to taste

Make a rich dough by mixing flour, salt, shortening, water.

I used my Kitchenaid mixer with the wire attachment to first cut the shortening into the flour and salt mixture.  It resembles cornmeal when you get it right.

Then I used the mixer again to blend in just enough water to make the dough stick together.  Use very cold water so the shortening doesn't melt during the mixing process.

It was a hot day and my kitchen matched that, so after I scrunched the dough into a ball, I covered it and popped it into the refrigerator while I made the filling.

The recipe continues with...

Divide into six parts and roll out each part about 1/4 inch thick.

I waited until the filling was made before doing this.

Combine remaining ingredients...

Now this picture doesn't show it, but this is a large bowl (5 inches high and 10 inches wide) and it is pretty full.  How am I going to fit all this into the six parts of the dough???

I had promised myself to do the recipe as it was written, so I bravely continued.

Here is one piece of the dough rolled out:

It is the requested 1/4 inch thick and turned out to be about 8 inches in diameter.

... and place filling on each section of pastry.  Fold over half and pinch edges together so that juices will not run out.

After a bit of practice, I found what seemed to be a good quantity of filling and still leave enough dough to cover it.  I didn't even try for the fancy border!  

I worked with my hands to press out the air and compress the filling so I could make a pinched border around it.  The dough did break in a few places so I expected leakage.

Cut hole in top of pastry and in this hole put a chunk of butter.  

I used a small spoon to twist a hole in the top, making nearly a complete circle and leaving the flap of dough attached.

The white stuff is the butter

The amount of butter listed in the recipe was too much for these six pasties, so I used half of it here and the other half about 30 minutes later.

Place in baking pan and bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes; then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 45 - 50 minutes.  When pasties are baking good, put a little hot water through the hole of each one to keep them from becoming too dry.  May be served hot, or cold on a picnic.

"Baking good" to me meant about 30 minutes into the cycle, so that is when I poured in some hot water from my kettle and dropped in the second batch of butter.  There was leakage of juices from the breaks but not in a bad way.

So how did they turn out?

The Verdict:  Oh my, they were yummy and filling, too.  Moist and rich and flavorful.  They even made my house smell good.  I declare it a success!

I loved this quote from the flyer:

"Remember, pizza delivery and quick hamburgers were not even conceived at this early time and what you brought from home had to serve you throughout your 12 hour work day.  (While you shoveled rocks.)"

I think I would have brought all six pasties with me in order to accomplish that task!

***

Now let's return to the giant bowl of filling, shall we?

This is what was left over after I made the six pasties:

The level was only dropped down by about an inch or so.  This is a lot of leftover filling!  I figured that I could have made 3 to 4 more batches of dough to use all this up.  So I would recommend that you either reduce the filling quantities to 1/4 of what was listed or make four batches of dough.  This would get you 24 pasties.

I wasn't up to making more pasties -- did I mention it was hot? -- so I took the remaining filling and added some flour, some spices and herbs (pepper, marjoram, savory, and powdered garlic), diced carrots, and 28 ounces of chicken broth.  This turned it into a large bowl of stew.

Before cooking

I baked it, covered, for about an hour at the same 350 degrees as the pasties.  The stew also turned out delicious and so I got a bonus from my pasty recipe.

Final Note:   A quick look around the Internet shows me that there is no limit to pasty fillings except in your imagination.  Ham-and-cheese, chicken-and-vegetables; even dessert pasties with Nutella-and-strawberries or pumpkin pie filling exist.  Basically, if you have a tasty filling, wrap it up in a pastry and you have something fun to eat.  I particularly liked that the crust was thick and rich because it added to the heartiness of the taste. 

To Boil a Capon with Oranges and Lemons

This was an attempt at reading a period receipt (recipe) and interpreting it correctly despite the lack of measurements and explicit directions.  As with anything you try for the first time, there are parts you do well and parts that don't always turn out the way you want them to.

A capon is a "male chicken castrated when young to improve the quality of its flesh for food."  (www.thefreedictionary.com/capon)

The receipt came from The Good Housewife's Jewel, by Thomas Dawson, originally published around 1596.

Published by Southover Press, 1996

The directions are as follows (page 13):

Take oranges or lemons peeled, and cut them the long way.  If you can keep your cloves whole put them into your best broth of mutton or capon, with prunes or currants and three or four dates.  When these have been well sodden put whole pepper, great mace, a good piece of sugar, some rose water and either white or claret wine.  And let all these seethe together a while.  And so serve it upon sops with your capon.

 
Did you notice that he never says when to put in the capon?  I assumed it was in the beginning with the broth, citrus, cloves, prunes, currants, and dates.  Note that I used lemons, I didn't have any dates, and I have no idea if my chicken was a capon or not.  I didn't ask it...  or check it or even really care.  Our modern birds are bred to be tender and we don't need to go out of our way to get a capon.

Chicken, lemons, cloves, currants, and prunes

And then with the broth

I deemed the mix "well sodden" after it had simmered gently for about an hour.  Then I added the Grains of Paradise (a black pepper substitute, ground), mace, sugar (about 2 tablespoons), some orange water because I had no rose water (just a splash), and a few cups of white wine.  For all of the spices I just guessed at the amount and can't really tell you how much that was.  Certainly no more than a teaspoon of any type, keeping in mind that I wasn't that familiar with the strength of the Grains of Paradise and I didn't want to over-spice the broth.

Here it is all together

Now is where I think I went astray with my preparation.  His directions say to "let all these seethe together a while", which I took to mean about 30 minutes.  I think this was far too long.  The flavors blended but weakened considerably and I think the meat was over-cooked.

Here is what the chicken looked like when I pulled it out of the broth.  I think it looks over-cooked although it was certainly tender.

It looked nice sliced on the platter with some parsley and a few of the currants:

My overall impression was that the meat was over-cooked.  Not dry but not as flavorful as I wanted and had that sort of mealy texture.  However my dinner guests did not agree with me and said it tasted great.

The Verdict:  Success?  It made a nice main course for dinner with the slices served over toast (called "sops") and some of the juice it was cooked in spooned over that.   (The sops soak up some of the juice.)

I'm not giving this a complete success rating because I felt it was cooked too long.  That didn't stop me from eating it, though!

This requires another test drive, I believe.

Wardyns in Syruppe

Wardyns (wardens) are a type of pear and were used often in medieval and Elizabethan times.  From what I gather from reading a lot, the original wardyns are either a variety that has been lost or has just been renamed.  Some sources say it is the name of any long-keeping pear that is good for cooking.

I have a reference that this receipt is found in the Harliean manuscript, a 15th century book on cooking.  

I haven't found the specific receipt yet but have made this enough times to know it without the book.

    pears  -- you want a variety that
                 holds up under cooking

    red wine

    honey

    pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves

(You can see the two types of pears; I ended up just using the ones on the right because they were ripe and the others weren't ripe enough.  I also used Grains of Paradise for the pepper.)

If you are serving a small number, then slice the pears in half.  Remove the core and stem.  If you are serving many, slice the pears into large, bite-sized pieces.  For these pieces, you may wish to remove the skin, too.

Flavor the red wine with honey and spices.  Add pears and simmer gently until tender.  

The pears right after they were put into the wine mixture

Pears after they simmered for awhile

Serve warm or cool.  

Notes:  You don't need measurements here because they depend on how sweet the pears are, how the wine tastes (sweet or dry?), and how you like the spices.  I love ginger with this dish and cinnamon is good, too.  And how much honey do you like?  You can use sugar instead but I think honey adds some depth to the flavor.

So put in what you think is right, stir like mad, then taste the wine syrup.  Do you like it?  Keep in mind that the spices should be stronger than you want because the flavor will soften a bit with cooking and the pears don't soak up their flavor that much.  But the sweetness level should be comfortable to your tongue.

Then you have to consider how long to cook this.  If your pears are very ripe, as these were, and quickly get mushy when cooked, then cook them over a very low heat so the pears have time to soak up the wine and flavorings before they get soft.

If the pears are firm you can cook them at a higher heat but really you don't want to if you can avoid it.  The longer the pear slices sit in the warm wine syrup, the more flavor they absorb.   

Here's what they looked like after they had cooked long enough that I was afraid they would turn to mush if I let them cook any longer:

You can see that the wine soaked in just a little way into the pear.  This will still taste good but I like it better when the red has gone much deeper into the pear slice.  If you make them in advance, you can store them in the wine syrup and they will absorb more of the flavor.

People love these warm or cool, especially if some of the spices stick to the outside, as happened here.  

Once when I had dinner in a restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I was eating a salad when the most wonderful flavor burst into my mouth.  I investigated to find that the salad had wine soaked pear slices in it. Wow!  It was wonderful!  So the next time I made them at home, I saved some, sliced them thinly, and put them into my salad.  Yes, it is good!  Chilling the pears makes them firm and easy to grab with your fork.

I mentioned above that I used Grains of Paradise in place of pepper.  They are an unusual spice that I recently acquired and was excited to try.  They are not related to pepper but have a peppery kick.  

They come as a whole spice and then you grind them up to use them.  

Grains of Paradise, whole

Grains of Paradise, ground

The websites I reviewed before using them said they tend to lose some of their peppery bite when cooked, so plan accordingly for the recipe.

When you are done cooking all the pears you plan on using, don't be too quick to throw out the wine syrup.  It will have a lovely flavor from all the ingredients and from the pears, and you can probably find someone who would like to drink it.  It is sort of a fruity Hippocras, that sweetened, spiced wine drink that the Romans loved and still showed up in medieval cookbooks 1200 years later.

The Verdict:  Success!  This dish always pleases the crowd and is easy to do.  Just make sure your pears are ripe before slicing them!

Hard Eggs, part 2

In Part 1 I tried out Alton Brown's recipe for hard-cooking eggs in the oven.

Next I'll show you the results of cooking eggs in ashes and in salt, the more historical methods.

Well, the first attempt was not really in ashes after all.  The fire pit in my field kitchen was so hot that I thought I should just put the eggs in there.  I even built a little heat block so the eggs didn't cook too quickly.

This turned out not to be the best idea because after two hours in there, I cracked one to see how it was doing.  Oops!  It was only partially cooked and when I put it back into the heat, it popped open.
 
I put some hot coals right next to the remaining two eggs and let them sit for another two hours.  They were still somewhat raw, but that didn't stop the people who like soft-cooked eggs from eating them.

I would call this a "failure".

I tried again later by putting the eggs right into the hot ashes.  This fire was a lot hotter and it took all of five minutes for both eggs to explode with a startlingly loud BOOM!  They didn't make a mess (they just opened up; no shrapnel was ejected) but it sure scared me when they exploded.

Then I tried later that same day when the fire wasn't as hot and put the eggs in the ashes.  This time it took about 10 minutes for them to explode.  No such luck in getting eggs cooked in ashes.  I still consider it a failure.

Next I tried cooking eggs in the salt.  I put a layer of rock salt in a cast iron pan and set the eggs on top.

Then I covered them completely with more rock salt.  One thing I realized is that if I kept the salt reasonably clean, I could use it over and over again.

Then I put it into the fire pit with the full force of the heat.  I turned it once after about an hour since most of the heat was on one side.

After two hours I took out one of the eggs.  It was cooked to the point of being scorched around the edges!

All three eggs were like that but again, that didn't stop the hard cooked egg eaters from devouring them.  In fact, the feedback was that the eggs were very tasty.

I would call this a "success" with the caveat that I should try again to get the right timing down.  I thought it was interesting that the first attempt at both methods had the salt eggs cooking quickly as compared to the ones just in the fire pit.  They were all placed in the heat at about the same time.   And then I had such trouble getting the eggs in ashes to cook without exploding.

Hard Eggs, part 1

I know.  You are not used to seeing "hard eggs"; you expect to see "hard boiled eggs".  Well the Alton Brown recipe for Hard Cooked Eggs strolled across my desktop one day and I knew that I had to try it.

He tells you how to cook eggs in the oven instead of boiling them on the stove.  Here's his recipe:  Hard Cooked Eggs. 

I'm excited about this idea for two reasons.  One is that if I'm going to make a few dozen hard eggs then I hate having to haul that heavy pan full of water and attempt to keep the eggs from cracking while they are cooking.  (You have to regulate the heat just right to keep them from boiling vigorously.)  The other is the historical connection.  It made sense to me that people who cooked on a hearth had heat and ashes to spare so why fill a pan full of water and bring it to a boil?

A little reading told me that even during the Elizabethan period in England, people hard boiled eggs.  But before that, when pans for boiling liquids were not as prevalent, what was done?  Easy!  You bake them!

I have seen two references for the process:  bake them in ashes or pack them in a shovel full of rock salt and bake them.  I can see that the first is the easiest but it takes experience to regulate the heat.  When you pack them in salt, it acts as a heat regulator; that is, it heats the egg more uniformly.

I decided to try all three methods.

First I used Alton Brown's method.  I put the eggs on the rack in a preheated 325 degree oven and baked them for 30 minutes.  It was so easy!  I put them in, set the timer, and ignored them until the timer went off.

The eggs sit right on the rack when they cook.

I didn't quite follow the directions when I tried the recipe the first time.  I didn't put the eggs into cold or ice water when I removed them from the oven -- I just put them on a rack to cool on the counter.  I was curious to see how they turned out.

Eggs cooling on the counter.

 Nearly every egg had the little brown spots.  A few were lightly cracked but none exploded or leaked white into the oven.

But the big question was:  How well did they cook? I took one egg and sliced it in half right through the shell.

It looked great!  Both the yolk and the white were firm and cooked.  I saw a little bit of the green ring around the yolk that tells me it was overcooked and I confirmed it by pulling out the yolk.

I assumed it was my fault that the yolk was overcooked because I didn't put the eggs into cold or ice water when they came out of the oven.  I have tried this several times since and put them in cold water -- and they always come out perfectly cooked.

I wondered why they were all spotted with the brown dots.  It looks like the little air pocket that all hen's eggs have is the culprit.

I suspect the air inside expanded and cracked the egg.  The moisture inside boiled and that is what caused all the splattering.  It certainly doesn't affect the taste of the egg!

The Verdict:  A resounding success!  Much better than I had expected because it is easy.  The second time I tried it I cooked a dozen eggs at once and it was just as easy.  *It helps to use some tongs to move the eggs to the cold water.  I used the metal kind that has loops as the tong ends; it made grabbing the egg and getting it to the water simple and risk-free.

So that's my experiment with an alternative method for cooking eggs until they are hard.  A later attempt used eggs cold from the refrigerator -- very cold -- and half of them cracked when done.  None leaked or caused a problem in the oven.  I would recommend letting them warm up for even 10 or 15 minutes before putting them in a hot oven.

In the next part, I play around with cooking eggs in ashes and packed in salt.

My Own Tudor Kitchen

Not only do I like to try historical recipes at home, I sometimes demonstrate historical cooking techniques for the public.  This year, with a lot of help from my friends, I created a Tudor Kitchen -- as close to what was found during Queen Elizabeth I's reign as time and budget allowed.

It is actually a field kitchen because it is outdoors.  If a noble person or the Queen herself traveled, sometimes the Kitchen would travel ahead and be set up and cooking when the Lord or Queen arrived.  Or, in the too-often event of a kitchen building burning down (this is why they were built separately from the living quarters), a field kitchen would be erected so food preparation could continue.

The idea was to create a theater set that convinced people they were actually seeing a period kitchen in action.  Certain adjustments for modern fire regulations and to help control public access were made but overall, I thought it turned out well.

Here is the morning of the first day it was open, before the public arrived and before the tools, serving containers, and other items were out.  In other words, this is an undecorated set.

We made it visually interesting by using a lot of colors.  The red and brown box you see is both a counter and a place to hide the modern ice chest and other food supplies.  This is handy because you don't have to leave the set to get your food items and it keeps them shaded and therefore cooler.

Here is a close up of the fire pit.

It is built out of cinder blocks (unmortared) and has a cinder block base to keep the fire up off the ground.  I plastered it over with a mix of clay, sand, and water to make it look less like modern cinder block.  Unfortunately, most of that mix didn't survive the torrential rains that followed the first weekend.

Then we pulled out the props:  bowls, plates, platters, knives, fire tools, cooking pots, spoons, cooking forks, goblets, tankards, etc., and we decorated the set.

I had spent time examining pictures (drawings) of medieval and Elizabethan kitchens and realized that what made them interesting was the joyful clutter of items.  Perhaps those drawings were "condensed", meaning the items were more spread out or not always out but were put into the drawing just to show them.  But I was there to cook and entertain the public, so I reached for the cluttered look.

It turns out this was really too cluttered -- the entire counter top was full and there was almost no room to put food that was being pulled out from under it.  So after that we didn't put out as many props.

Here's what it looked like the second weekend:

That's not me.  That's my assistant, "Lizzie".

The wooden cabinet on the left was a wonderful place to stack the quantities of bowls and platters I would use throughout the day.

To the right of the cabinet we had shelves that were reserved for the "special" items, like glass (expensive at the time), nice tankards, a marble mortar, and fine pottery with turned wooden lids.  There is even a baker's peel and realistic-looking skinned hare.

By the end of the day, those "S hooks" near the hare were filled with fresh herbs tied and hung for drying.

Here are most of the cast iron pots and pans that I cook with:

This cook yard was put to use both Saturday and Sunday for seven weekends by me and by others.  It was functional, roomy, fun, and fascinating to observe.  Some visitors were pulled in by the smell of the cooking food -- especially when we had a chicken roasting on the spit!  Others were intrigued by all the items we had set out.

I had many a good conversation about what I was cooking, how I was cooking it, the various spices and preparation techniques utilized, and whether or not that rabbit was real.  (Of course it is real.  It is not imaginary!)

We produced a number of tasty dishes each day; I did mostly cooking and the person using it on Sunday did mostly baking.  Much of the food went to feed the rest of the people who were there to demonstrate and entertain.

The Verdict:  Success!  It was the best place I have ever had for demonstrating historical cooking techniques.  We got a lot of positive feedback from our fellow performers as well as the public and I have many fond memories of cooking, making mistakes (and laughing them off), learning new techniques, and having excellent conversations about it.

Look for a future posting that goes into detail about the cooking pots and special tools I used.