s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Stephen has promised to do at least a short write-up of this year’s Darton Anniversary event, but I wanted to take a minute to post the MENU. If you have been laboring under the notion that SCA “feasts” tend to consist of indifferently roast beast, some kind of bland chicken-and-starch dish, leeks, maybe some mushrooms and a lot of bread, have a look at the menu Master Stefano put together for the weekend:

Friday Night: Tapas (because people would be dribbling in all evening)

bread
blanched almonds
olives
sheep feta in olive oil
blue cheese in olive oil
apple fritters in the Italian manner
egg tortillas
egg tortillas with spinach
egg tortillas and bacon
�pain and destruction� (egg tortillas with lambs brains)
fried oysters with spices and orange juice
fried clams (scallops) with spices and orange juice
fried sardines with spices and orange juice
fried bream (snapper) with spices and orange juice
fried salmon with spices and orange juice
fried squid with spices and orange juice
stewed tuna with spices, nuts and dried fruit
stewed pork loin
cured ham
cured sausage
fried gourd (zucchini) with fennel seeds in the Italian manner
fried mushrooms with garlic and parsley
pickled asparagus with white garlic sauce
pickled onions
stewed eggplant stewed figs in the French manner

Saturday And Sunday Breakfast:

bread, egg tortillas, bacon
oatmeal gruel, figs, oranges, apples
tea, coffee, cordial
butter, jam, milk, sugar

Saturday and Sunday Lunch:

empanadillas (filled bread) — the cheese and mustard ones had more of that scrummy sheep’s feta. YUM.
–Castilian hornazos (ham, pork, salami, egg)
–meat pastry (lamb, spices, egg)
–cheese, mustard
–chickpeas, hummus, herbs
pottage of noodles and vegetables
figs, oranges, apples
butter, jam, milk, sugar
tea, coffee, cordial

Saturday Night: A feast, a service followed by three courses.

Service
bread, blanched almonds, olives, boiled eggs

First Course
stewed figs in the French manner
roast chicken with green sauce
roast lamb with white garlic sauce
roast pork with apple sauce
leek pottage
chickpeas

Second Course
migraust casserole of chicken, almond, cinnamon, sugar
meat casserole of beef, mild spices
�vin alho� spicy pork casserole in the Portuguese manner
with wine, garlic, spices, plenty of pepper
moji casserole of carrots with oil, spices, bread, egg, cheese, honey
rice casserole with saffron and vegetables
beans

Third Course
�angel food� of ricotta cheese, honey, rosewater
stewed peaches with sugar and ginger
stewed cherries with sugar

Wow, that was a lot of food. Most SCA meals, I sort of pick around a lot of things not really to my liking (on account of my meat fussiness) and fill up on some inoffensive side dish or other. This one I had a choice of things I actively WANTED to stuff in my face.

I meant to post these a while ago, but here are some photos of the two banners I did the artwork for. This is at an event back in the summer, in Australia. We didn’t go, but the banners did. :^) The black one with the yellow hunting horn is the banner for our local group, the Shire of Darton. The one with the two trees is the one we did as a gift to the barony that hosts this big event every year (each of the New Zealand groups did two banners: their own, and one other).

The trees were the big work — very fiddly. But I wanted a design that wasn’t too naturalistic, looked stylized enough to be medieval, without looking like a pair of fluffy green lollipops. I got the general pattern out of Victor Rolland’s _Illustrations to the Armorial General_, but I’ve no idea where he got it. Anyway, people like them, and I was asked for an electronic copy so the design could be reused. The Barony of Rowany even gave me and Robyn, who did the sewing, special little awards forthe work we did. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, that’s about the only photo there will ever be of the Darton horn banner looking that nice — it got rained on, and despite the dye claiming up and down to be washable — as in, you should be able to get it wet without it running all over the place — it ran all over the place. The black is now an interesting charcoal grey, and the gold is now mud. Ah well. It looks like a “relic” now, I guess.