Sunday, June 9, 2013

The Majgreve menu and some thoughts

Friday

No food served. There was fire so that people could heat food that they brought. Erik graciously offered to stuff my sausages with cheese and wrap them in bacon. Yes, everything is better with bacon.

Saturday

Breakfast
Due to the uncertain number of participants and wanting to keep the budget I opted for pancakes and no other form of eggs served for breakfast. Otherwise it was a rather simple breakfast. The coffee filter holder worked fine directly in the thermos.

Lunch

Stew with chicken boiled in beer , bacon and root vegetables
Bread
Butter
Cheese

The stew went down well, but given the small amount of participants adding a kg of bacon was unnecessary and there was way to much food left although we decided not to chop all the vegetables.

Dinner


Smoked and dried beef (Bosnian style, with garlic)
Smoked pork tenderloin
Smoked salmon
Cream cheese
Butter
Honey butter
Bread
Flatbread
Radishes
Soup of greens

Mustard
Sauerkraut with apple and cumin
Pork belly

Rosehip and apple soup
Whipped cream
Hazelnuts
Dried apples
Dried plums
Dried blueberries

The iron age house had two indoor fireplaces and two outdoor fireplaces. All the water had to be brought to site and there was no electricity. Most stuff went well anyway, but more could have been prepped. I forgot the vegetables that I had peeled and chopped at home, and I had not done all of them anyway.

I did a lot of the shopping on my way to the event and was pleasantly surprised at the lack of stressed Friday evening shoppers at that store. 

We did not use all the smoked pork tenderloin, and did not have any hard cheese for dinner. Most of what was put on the table was eaten. I think that there was enough food, but it might have felt good to have some more leftovers to prove it.

I had bought some meat for a stew as well, since the numbers I was given the day before the event suggested there would be a lot of people. Given the actual turnout I decided to leave it in the cooler since cool leftovers are better than warm leftovers. 

There should have been a frumenty-like dish as well, made from barley, but it got burnt very early in the cooking process. We decided not to scrub the pot and wait for the water to boil again and just let that dish disappear. 

This interpretation of viking food seems to go well with the fussy eaters. Not to complex flavours and the foods can be identified

The numbers are likely to change late when cooking for local Holmrike events. I need to shop less ahead and have a plan to add food late in the process. 

I would like to recruit at least one dedicated kitchen helper ahead of time. It worked getting a bit of help here and a bit there, but it would have felt good to not have to rely on the event steward constantly helping out. 

On the subject of the event steward: she did well and I would no doubt work with her again if she decided to do another event.

Whipping lactose free cream is hard. Not sure if it is the lack of lactose, or that it was only 35% fat plus some thickening agent. 


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