What I made at and for An Tir / West War (an extremely overdue post!)

I realized I never did a rundown of AWW! How sad! Since I've waited so long, this is now being reconstructed as best I can from memory. The Cooks' Playdate was, as always, magical. I spent every day cooking, nibbling on and making "play food" throughout the day and preparing things for the shared dinner.

Things I made in advance (mostly already described):

• Salted lamb, following the process for Venison in CoI (wet brine followed by packing in salt)
• Salted and smoked tongue, following process outlined in the Menagier
• Dry-salted pork
• Pickled mushrooms, following recipe in Digby. Shared these as "play food" and they were met with much approval.
  
• Hedgehog springerle, not really following a documentable recipe. Given as "party favors" to the other cooks.
  
• Brined and smoked beef tongue, using basically a modern brine. This was subsequently baked in a pie with dates, currants, spices, egg, and suet in a suet/hot water crust (that I couldn't get to fricking stand on it's own! rrr!), which was shared with all and sundry on Thursday night.
• Small pies with a regular short-crust pastry and filling made of bacon, apples, onions, cheddar, and sage
  
• Strawberry and rose petal mead. I took this with me to several parties and made a lot of friends!
  

What I made on site:

• For fish Friday, I made "Solys in Bruet," sole grilled and served with a sauce of ale, bread, and spices. It was nom.
• Gingerbrede. Turned out great cooked on the fire!
• Cornish game hens (sooooo not period!) cooked following a recipe in CoI for pigeons. The birds are stuffed with peeled garlic and herbs then braised in broth. Really, really yummy.
• Peach sauce loosely based on a recipe in De Nola.
• My salted lamb, soaked and then cooked following the salted venison preparation in the Menagier (cooked in water and wine, liquid discarded, cooked again in wine with turnips and scallions).
• Pine nut candy. I started out by following the instructions in CoI for pine nut taffy made from sugar, but my attempts failed miserably, likely due to a combination of technique (or lack thereof, ha!), not quite perfect equipment, and weather conditions. Eventually I gave up and cooked honey to the hard ball stage, added pine nuts, let the whole mess cool enough to handle, pulled it on an iron hook, rolled it into balls, and rolled the balls in sugar. It was delicious!
• Bacon-wrapped dates, because I like them :)
  

I did not end up cooking either the salted tongue or my salted pork. Later when I got home, the salted pork smelled... stale. Not rotten, but like the fat had gone rancid. So I chucked it.

Everything I made was a big hit, which is always a humbling compliment when I'm with the serious foodie crowd! I was proud of myself and felt I did a nice job of representing for High Middle Ages English cuisine :) Doing more recipes from CoI was really fun, as was focusing on preservation. As always, I can't wait for next year...