Cookery and
Lord Burgh’s Retinue
In
1998 when the retinue was formed we made the firm decision to make
medieval cookery a number one priority.
Our first item of cooking ware, an iron 1 gallon cauldron from
Historic Castings Ltd (www.historiccastings.com), was sponsored by Nola
Hughes, sadly no longer
with the Society. A fire
tray was donated by Stan Parker, and, after searching, the rest of us
found, from our personal hoards, a range of pottery and wooden bowls,
spoons and other kitchen items that were gratefully scratched together
for our first events.
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early 1999 the Retinue put together a ‘dream sheet’ for a
Lottery bid to acquire all the equipment, furniture and kit we
thought (at the time) a serious Living History Society should
have; this included: small
fire shovel, ladles,
a range of pottery for eating from , mixing, preparing, and
serving with, poker, axe, Top Table carving set, eating knives,
spoons, pot hooks , frying pan, trivets, wooden bowls and dishes
of various sizes, chopping boards, barrels, vats, and bucket, as
well as tables and stools.
Our grant
application was successful thanks to guidance from Heritage
Lincolnshire, and we have continued to add more equipment to our
kitchen set up, from tinned brass cooking saucepans to a new
kitchen tent (funded with our thanks by Lincolnshire County
Council), more fire trays, several iron pots and another large
frying pan as well as two large medieval storage and transport
boxes, baskets, spice tree, spice boxes, sugar cone, and much
more………..
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What
Do We Cook?
In
the 1970’s Delia Smith wrote a forward for a book of medieval recipes,
painstakingly researched, where dear Delia informed the prospective
reader that medieval food was bland, stodgy and over
spiced……………. Well have we got news for you Delia darling!
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From
the start our members have been collecting recipe’s from
wherever they can be found, many are repeated variations, as
different people try their own version; we have tried out many
of these ourselves, and where we have found a better way to make
the dish we have altered the instructions.
But what we have found, in five years of ‘hands on’
cooking, is that medieval food is neither boring, stodgy OR over
spiced!
Just
ask our members.
The
only cooking we cannot do (for now at least) is bake at an
event. Before events we work out a menu for both days, and
dishes such as: members at home, then bake apple tarts, mushroom
pasties, mince pies etc. We
do our main shop; you will be shocked to hear, from Tesco’s
superstores, with meat and pies coming from Odlings Bros of
Navenby, Lincs.
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Pie and Lincolnshire Haslet
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The
menu for a typical day may look like this:
Bread,
cheese, apples and cold meat for snacking
Rice of Genoa - a
savoury rice
Followed by
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Douce Ame - Capon
(chicken) in milk and honey
Cherry Pottage - a
sweet dish served cold
Boiled Cream - an all time
favourite!
Apple Tart - with saffron
pastry
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As you can imagine, these
are all terrible and Delia Smith would hate them, but just ask any member
of the Retinue what they think!!
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Awful
isn’t it? Some of
these dishes would only normally go to the table of the Lord and
Lady but are passed down, ‘below the salt’ when Sir Thomas
and Lady Margaret are finished with them!
As
much of the preparation and cooking as possible is done in full
view of our visitor during events, and you may find yourself,
where it is safe, roped in to assist. We normally aim to serve a
meal at one o’clock during the day, thus most kitchen activity
takes place from the event starting to the washing up after the
meal, and we may need help with this too!
We
cook on fire trays (for safety, and to avoid damaging grass or
archaeology) using charcoal, and for roasting firewood.
We can fry, roast, boil, poach and griddle as well as
make sauces for the dishes, and now have over three hundred
period recipe’s to choose from.
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In
a real 15th century manor house you would find men running
everything but in this modern age it has proven very hard to attract men
into the re-enactment kitchen, thus we have a mainly female staff who
are engaged by Lady Burgh while the male staff are attending Sir Thomas
as he travels about the country on the Kings business.
We
have fully researched information, issued in pamphlet form to our
members, giving details of table manners, correct methods of cutting,
eating, and sharing foods, and we are lucky to be able to thank Peter
Brears, one of the UK’s most experienced food historians and a fellow
re-enactor, for his fantastic help and assistance with our kitchen and
our cookery.
The
proof of the pudding is as they say, ‘in the eating’ and the Retinue
have appeared on cookery programs for Yorkshire Televisions ‘Cooking
for Ages’, and for Carlton Cable TV network.
Thousands of visitors have seen the Retinue cooks and their hard
working staff ‘in action’, witnessed the hustle and bustle of the
kitchen, adored the heady aroma of expensive spices and tasted a morsel
or two of fine medieval food. Regular
visitors will be pleased to know that we are putting together booklets
of recipe’s for you to try out at home, and we hope that we can raise
money toward more copper wares and wood wares in doing so.
We
look forward to welcoming you and your family to our events, and if you
are interested in joining our kitchen team please click onto our
membership page, we would love to hear from you.
Can
We Book The Kitchen Separately?
Yes
you can, providing the main Retinue is not busy of course!
We can bring our kitchen tent or use existing cooking equipment,
give illustrated talks with nibbles, and give you recipe’s to try out,
or cook and give displays and demonstrations.
For
more details and to discuss your requirements please contact the
Chairman of the Retinue:
Paul Mason
Lord Burghs’s Retinue. 54 Grantham Road, Waddington, Lincoln.
Lincolnshire. LN5 9LS
Or
Telephone (07762) 300656
E-Mail burgh-steward@ntlworld.com
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