Lelly gave me a blog award! Eeeeeeeeeeee! How very exciting! Thank you! Apparently I am supposed to put up this little banner thing. And nominate more people. I can do that. But Lelly already nominated Vincent over at Vegan Improv. *sigh* Once again, Lelly is a step ahead of me. Now, I suspect that the people I nominate are supposed to nominate yet more people, so get on it you guys!
First, I nominate Tuimeltje over at twigs and tofu, because she tries new stuff, and rocks.
And Jake, who writes some of the funniest and most insightful stuff out there.
And...ahem.. Hezbollah Tofu, for being fabulous, and regularily exposing the fuckwititude of Anthony Bourdain. This saves me endless time, as otherwise I would have to expose said fuckwititude myself. Plus, yum fancy-pants food that will impress everyone you know and often takes a long time to make, which can lead to excellent bouts of cooking-as-procrastination.
Also, Jillian and her bitchin' vegan kitchen. Jillian makes food by actually following the recipes. This is an inspiration to me, and I secretly use her as my recipe tester, even though she doesn't know it. Shhhhhhh!...
And finally.... Vegandwhatnot, a fellow Canuck ,whose blog is just starting out, but looks brilliant. Saskatchewan needs more vegans. And more pirates.
Now. A project: Ducky's Modern Medieval. Starting at some yet-to-be-decided date this fall, I shall embark on a one-month experiment, mostly to see how my tastes change if I move away from the dominant spices in my spice cupboard. Soooo...for a month, I'll let loose in my kitchen with medieval recipes. Yes. A month of vegan medieval. Just to be clear, I won't be following the recipes in the sense of trying to recreate medieval food. The question is: if a cook from a medieval vegan kitchen (say a monastery) found themselves with my vegbox in my (modern) kitchen every week, what would they do? For lack of a better term, I guess I'll be doing fusion cuisine, only across time instead of geography. So Modern Medieval, not "Ducky's Time Travel", okay? There seem to be a fair number of vegan recipes out there, mostly because meat, eggs and milk were off limits for so many religious communities for so much of the year. I'm vegan for slightly less godly reasons, but no matter. I shall move bravely forward (or backwards? which am I doing here?). Basically, this is going to be an experiment with different spice combinations and cooking techniques. I've been fascinated by medieval/renaissance cooking for a while now, partly because there isn't much of a distinction between the use of what we would now consider to be sweet and savoury spices and partly because there was some pretty interesting cooking (and scholarship) before plain boring-ass food took over because it was somehow less sinful (less decadent?) than yummy food. So, bring on the cloves, cinnamon and rosewater! If you have any specific recipes you'd like to me try out, send me a link, and providing it's not something totally unveganizable, I'll probably try it.
Now. A project: Ducky's Modern Medieval. Starting at some yet-to-be-decided date this fall, I shall embark on a one-month experiment, mostly to see how my tastes change if I move away from the dominant spices in my spice cupboard. Soooo...for a month, I'll let loose in my kitchen with medieval recipes. Yes. A month of vegan medieval. Just to be clear, I won't be following the recipes in the sense of trying to recreate medieval food. The question is: if a cook from a medieval vegan kitchen (say a monastery) found themselves with my vegbox in my (modern) kitchen every week, what would they do? For lack of a better term, I guess I'll be doing fusion cuisine, only across time instead of geography. So Modern Medieval, not "Ducky's Time Travel", okay? There seem to be a fair number of vegan recipes out there, mostly because meat, eggs and milk were off limits for so many religious communities for so much of the year. I'm vegan for slightly less godly reasons, but no matter. I shall move bravely forward (or backwards? which am I doing here?). Basically, this is going to be an experiment with different spice combinations and cooking techniques. I've been fascinated by medieval/renaissance cooking for a while now, partly because there isn't much of a distinction between the use of what we would now consider to be sweet and savoury spices and partly because there was some pretty interesting cooking (and scholarship) before plain boring-ass food took over because it was somehow less sinful (less decadent?) than yummy food. So, bring on the cloves, cinnamon and rosewater! If you have any specific recipes you'd like to me try out, send me a link, and providing it's not something totally unveganizable, I'll probably try it.
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7 comments:
Great chere made our hoste us everichon,
And to the soper sette us anon;
And served us with vitaille at the beste.
Strong was the wyn, and wel to drinke us leste.
A semely man our hoste was with-alle,
For to han been a marshal in an halle;
A large man he was with eyen stepe,
A fairer burgeys is ther noon in Chepe:
Bold of his speche, and wys, and wel y-taught,
And of manhod him lakkede right naught.
Eek therto he was right a mery man,
And after soper pleyen he bigan,
And spak of mirthe amonges othere thinges,
Whan that we hadde maad our rekeninges;
And seyde thus: "Now, lordinges, trewely,
Ye been to me right welcome hertely:
For by my trouthe, if that I shal nat lye,
I ne saugh this yeer so mery a companye
At ones in this herberwe as is now.
Fayn wolde I doon yow mirthe, wiste I how.
And of a mirthe I am right now bithought,
To doon yow ese, and it shal coste noght."
Excellent. I feel inspired already. Though some strong wyn can't hurt...
Aw shucks :) Thanks!
Aw, thanks. Am I supposed to put that image somewhere friendly as well?
Sounds like a really cool project, that.I can't think of any recipes, but I'm looking forward to reading about the ones you'll try.
ooh, awards! Thanks, sinead. I shall have to see who I can pass this on to, who hasn't recieved it already.
And you had better be planning on sharing some of the medieval goodness! Seriously, I'll probably be checking for new recipes here far too often now. Ooh, and rosewater- for anybody who has no idea what to do with it, throw a tablespoon or two on a fruit salad of mostly oranges and blueberries. When you open up a container of this stuff for lunch, you're surrounded by the most gorgeous, delicate smell... you can't be angry/stressed/grouchy while eating a rosewater-fruit salad.
*glee* I'm insightful! Thanks! Also, EatFeed was a cooking podcast I used to listen to. I don't know if it's on my sidebar, or if it still exists, or what, but about 2.5 years ago they did a show on medieval cooking, which I'm sure you could find with a search through their archives if you were so inclined.
I don't worry, I"ll share the modern medieval goodness. And badness, if it all goes horribly wrong... But the experiments I've done with adapting medieval recipes to a contemporary vegan kitchen have all been the yum. As a bonus, Most of the veg that they use/appear suited for are the kinds of things you get in a Scottish veg box, like parsnips, carrots, turnips, beets, kale, onions. I'll be using potatoes, even though they hadn't been introduced here yet, because...uh...Scottish veg box. So spuds. And anything else in the vegbox, even if it's a new world food (tomatoes, for example). Anyway, stay tuned. The Modern Medieval project will start in the fall. Right now, I"m concentrating on eating as many raspberries and exciting salads as humanly possible.
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