Ursula

The plot of The War Birds by R. M. Meluch (Roc, 1989) makes a lot more sense once you realize that our hero does not, in fact, come from the German planet. He comes from the white South African planet.

In the sixteenth century, one could buy wardships. That is, if a rich man died before his heir was of age, one could purchase the right to be the child's guardian from the dead man's executors. There were presumably benefits to be gained from managing the estate, but apparently the usual plan was to marry the heir to one's daughter, thereby keeping the income in the family. For example, in 1564, when Francis Willoughby decided to marry Elizabeth Littleton instead of his guardian Francis Knollys' daughter, Willoughby's brother's executors had to pay Knollys fifteen hundred pounds for the lost opportunity.

This excellent setup for a romance was brought to you by Mark Dawson, Plenti and Grase: Food and Drink in a Sixteenth-Century Household.

Here are two desserts from the An Tir/ West War cooks' dinner. Translations of the original recipes are found in Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World by Lilia Zaouali, translated by M.B. DeBevoise.

Dates with Honey
From a thirteenth-century recipe collection probably compiled in Egypt.

Take some dates, remove their stems, and dry and decorticate them. Blanch some almonds and substitute one for each pit [that has been removed]. Cook some honey to make a syrup and immerse the dates in it. Leave over a low fire and, when the honey has thickened, add all the flavorings and remove from the fire.

Notes

I used about a pound of dates and a cup of honey. I pitted the dates and substituted almonds for the pits. Since my almonds were small and my dates were large, I ended up using two almonds for each date. I simmered the honey for a while, then added the dates, reduced the heat, and cooked for a while longer. The flavorings aren't specified here; Zouali includes another recipe from the same Egyptian collection for carrot jam which says, "Mix in seasonings chosen from among pepper, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cubeb, spikenard, mace, galangal, aloe wood, saffron, and musk." Using this as my guide for flavoring options, I added around a half-teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger when the dates were done cooking. Another time, I might try pepper, galangal, mace, or more ginger.

Fried Bananas
From a thirteenth-century recipe collection probably compiled in Syria.

The bananas are fried and immersed in a thick syrup in which there are pistachios.

Notes

I made a syrup using about a cup each of sugar and water. Then I dumped in about half a package of Trader Joe's roasted, unsalted, shelled pistachios (this would be around 4 ounces), and allowed the syrup to cool. I peeled a bunch of organic bananas, cut each banana in half, then cut each half in half again lengthwise. I poured a sizeable dollop of un-toasted sesame oil into a pan, fried the bananas until lightly browned on both sides, and allowed them to cool slightly on a clean rag. Then I piled the bananas in a shallow bowl and poured most of the pistachio syrup on top. Another time, I might add a pinch of salt.

cross-posted from leftcoastfood

I made feta pies today, based on a recipe from Ibn Razîn's thirteenth-century Andalusian recipe collection, in Lilia Zaouali, trans. M.B. DeBevoise, Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World. The overall effect is of crackers with a very sophisticated cheese dip.

Recipe:

Another Mujabbana

Crumble the cheese as finely as you can and mix it with eggs, then with mint water and coriander [cilantro] water, and finally with whatever common spices are at hand. Spread [the mixture] over a thin layer of dough and cover with another layer. Cook in the oven. Learn to do this, in accordance with the will of God!

Dough:

I used the dough recipe for Lebanese Spinach Triangles in Anissa Helou's book Savory Baking from the Mediterranean, because one of the other Mujabbana recipes mentions a dough of flour, water, oil, and salt, like this dough. You can find Helou's recipe in metric units here; in American units, it's 2 cups flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 cup olive oil, and 1/2 cup warm water. The dough is soft and easy to work with.

Filling:

8 oz. feta
1 egg
2-3 tbsp. mint and/or cilantro water (I soaked a handful of finely chopped mint in warm water)
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
ground pepper

Assembly:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Divide the dough into eight balls (for larger pies) or sixteen balls (for individual pies). Roll out a ball into a translucent disk; place it on a baking sheet. (I buttered my baking sheets lightly, but I'm not sure I needed to.) Spread 1-2 heaping tablespoons of filling across the disk of dough, leaving half an inch or so of plain dough at the edge. Roll out another ball and lay it on top. Crimp the edges together. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Bake until puffed and golden brown (about twenty minutes?)

I've been working my way through Mass Effect 2, and growing more and more irritated at the fact that my female party members consist of a woman with psychic powers who wears heels on combat missions, a woman with psychic powers who doesn't wear a shirt on combat missions, an alien with psychic powers & spherical boobs who wears heels on combat missions, and an alien whose species (as far as I can tell) naturally walks on its tippy-toes at all times. I pine for Ashley Williams, with her combat armor and her big gun.

My ILL time on Patrick Amory's People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy is running out, and I'm enjoying the book enough that I've decided to buy myself a copy. (Short version: "Ostrogoth" was not a well-defined ethnic group with roots in some storied Germanic past.) I poked around to find out what Amory had written since the mid-1990s-- generally one assumes that people who get their Ph.D.s from Cambridge and immediately publish massive, influential, controversial tomes will continue in the same vein-- and discovered that in fact he quit academia to join the management of Matador Records.

I'm contemplating making myself a nice early-period (fifth- or sixth-century) overtunic. As far as I can tell, this should be cut like a genuine T (or woven in one piece, but I lack that technology), with sleeves reaching just past my elbows or so. Does anyone have any advice on figuring out the dimensions?

I was up long past my bedtime last night reading Spirit: The Princess of Bois Dormant (courtesy of amazon.ca, since it's not out in the US yet). The editorial reviews and back cover are misleading, in the sense that blatant Count of Monte Cristo references don't start showing up until halfway through, and at several hundred pages in I have yet to meet the Princess of Bois Dormant. The reviews don't mention that Spirit is a direct sequel to the White Queen books (and also to Life, unless that's convergent evolution); the book also has a handful of Fiorinda references. This makes for some dense, dense worldbuilding to sort out-- I'm not convinced that "Our heroine has two X chromosomes" would make any sense as a plot point on its own, for instance. Spirit also falls into the White Queen tradition of making "You have no idea what the aliens are thinking" a central plot element, this time with shades of horror. (Think Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series crossed with the Long Sun books.) And as we might have expected from Gwyneth Jones, there is angst about motherhood. Really intense angst about motherhood.

I suspect that whether the story is ultimately satisfying will depend on how much of a clue the Princess has about what is actually going on. Intermediate joys involve that dense worldbuilding: our heroine is Welsh/Pakistani (Bibi short for Gwibiwr) and grows up in the central Asian city of Baykonur, her fiancé is named Mahmood McBride and paints his mustache on, and while in other science-fiction novels that kind of ethnic mix works out to a generic paint-water gray, here it is layers and layers and layers of knowledge, and Traditional never means quite what you would expect . . .

I'm going to Estrella! For a weekend. (Now that we live in California, that's not a completely insane proposition.)

That weekend happens to be my birthday. Therefore, I should make (vote for one in comments):

1. Chocolate cupcakes. Birthdays mean chocolate, cupcakes mean sharing.
   
2. Excellent small cakes. It's not an SCA event without currant shortbread.
   
3. A more elaborate medieval dessert: maybe lots of ginger wafers, fool, a late-period cookie I haven't played with before, a fancy dried-fruit tart . . .
   
4. Lime bars. I have fifty limes on the dining-room table; I shouldn't be allowed to cook with other fruit.
   
5. You will demonstrate a medieval dessert that uses vast quantities of citrus.
   

I have a $5 credit for MP3s on Amazon. What songs should I get? (The main parameter here is that I pay attention to the lyrics. You should not fear to recommend to me the song that everybody liked ten years ago, or for that matter the song that all your parents' friends liked forty years ago or your ancestors four hundred years ago, because the probability is high that I don't know anything about it.)