The Staff of Life
by Ruth A. Casie
This is where it all started, the 1963 movie, Tom Jones. Albert Finney(Tom Jones) licks his chicken bones and Joyce Redman (Mrs Waters) looks likeshe's making love to an apple. It showed that playing with your food could befun and anything edible will do! But what was a banquet really like?
The extravagant feasts and banquets of the Middle Ages arelegendary. However, while menus for the wealthy were extensive, only smallportions were taken. Hosts were expected to offer extensive choices. With more extensive travel, a change insociety emerged, possibly prompted by the Crusades, that led to a new andunprecedented interest in beautiful objects and elegant manners. This changeextended to food preparation and presentation and resulted in fabulous foodarrangements with exotic colors and flavorings. Banquets prepared during theMiddle Ages were fit for a king.
Staffing and Presentingthe Banquet
The kitchen squires where responsible for provisioning thekitchen. Assisted by the cooks, they chose, purchased, and paid for the goods.
The food was plated on the serving dishes and staged in thekitchen until it was time to bring to the tables in the Great Hall.
The Noble of the castle, and his distinguished guests, satat a great table that was set on a raised platform, a dais, at one of the hall.
Buffets were tables with a series of wooden stepped shelves.The number of shelves indicated the host’s rank. The more shelves the higherthe rank. The 'Stepped Buffets' were covered with rich drapes and used atbanquets and feasts. The Nobles impressed their guests by using their finestgold or silver plates as service plates on the buffet.
The banquet feast consisted of three, four, five, and evensix courses. At times the presentations of the main courses were made into atheatrical representation with colored jellies of swans or peacocks orpheasants with their feathers. Served as a specialty the beak and feet of thesebirds were gilt and placed in the middle of the table as a centerpiece.
French MedievalBanquets
The French cooking historian described a great feast givenin 1455 by the Count of Anjou, third son of King Louis II of Sicily. Thisdescription demonstrates just how theatrical the presentation was:
“On the table was placed a center-piece, which represented agreen lawn, surrounded with large peacocks' feathers and green branches, towhich were tied violets and other sweet-smelling flowers.
In the middle of this lawn a fortress was placed, coveredwith silver.
The fortress was hollow, and formed a sort of cage, in whichseveral live birds were shut up, their tufts and feet being gilt.
On its tower, which was gilt, three banners were placed.
The first course consisted of a civet of hare, a quarter ofstag which had been a night in salt, a stuffed chicken, and a loin of veal.
The two last dishes were covered with a German sauce, withgilt sugar-plums, and pomegranate seeds.
At each end, outside the green lawn, was an enormous pie,surmounted with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large pieswere silvered all round and gilt at the top.
Each pie contained a whole roe-deer, a gosling, threecapons, six chickens, ten pigeons, one young rabbit, and, no doubt to serve asseasoning or stuffing, a minced loin of veal, two pounds of fat, and twenty-sixhard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavored with cloves.
For the three following courses, there was a roe-deer, apig, a sturgeon cooked in parsley and vinegar, and covered with powderedginger.
The feast continued with a kid goat, two goslings, twelvechickens, as many pigeons, six young rabbits, two herons, a leveret, a fatcapon stuffed, four chickens covered with yolks of eggs and sprinkled withspice, a wild boar, some wafers and stars and a jelly, part white and part redrepresented the crests of the honored guests, cream covered with fennel seedsand preserved in sugar, a white cream, cheese in slices, and strawberries, and,lastly, plums stewed in rose-water
Besides these four courses, there was a fifth, entirely ofwines then in vogue, and of preserves. These consisted of fruits and varioussweet pastries.”
I researched medieval banquets when I wrote Knight of Runes. Eating is fundamental and enjoyable. WhileArik and Rebeka don’t get it on quite like Tom and Mrs. Waters there isdefinitely an air of playfulness in the scene. The trouble every time I read that scene is I really get hungry. I’lllet you figure out for what!
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Author Bio
Ruth A. Casie was born in Brooklyn, New York. Fortwenty-five years she’s been writing for corporate America. Encouraged by herfamily and friends this ballroom dancing, Sudoku playing, aspiring gourmet cookhas given way to her inner muse and let her creative juices flow. Discoverstrong men and empowered women as they face unexpected challenges. Watch theirstories unfold as they encounter magic, danger, and passion. Join them as theyrace across the pages to places where love and time know no bounds.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
England, 1605When Lord Arik, a druid knight, finds Rebeka Tyler wandering his lands without protection, he swears to keep her safe. But Rebeka can take care of herself. When Arik sees her clash with a group of attackers using a strange fighting style, he's intrigued.
Rebeka is no ordinary seventeenth-century woman—she's travelled back from the year 2011, and she desperately wants to return to her own time. She poses as a scholar sent by the king to find out what's killing Arik's land. But as she works to decode the ancient runes that are the key to solving this mystery and sending her home, she finds herself drawn to the charismatic and powerful Arik.
As Arik and Rebeka fall in love, someone in Arik's household schemes to keep them apart, and a dark druid with a grudge prepares his revenge. Soon Rebeka will have to decide whether to return to the future or trust Arik with the secret of her time travel and her heart.
Title: Knightof Runes
ISBN:978-14268-9258-5
Release Date:November 14, 2011
Genre:Historical Fantasy time-travel
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