The Wychwood Feast Handbook is included in the files attached to this page and has lots of useful information and a number of recipes. Any other recipes can be added to this page.
Our Recipes
Griddle cakes
Ingredients
Spelt flour
Butter
Sugar and/or honey
Rolled oats
Dried fruit
Milk or water
This is how axebreaker made griddle cakes, based on three or four recipes I found online. I didn't weigh the ingredients, I just went by what looked right. First put 1 part butter, 1 part sugar and 2 parts flour into a mixing bowl or trough. Add a blob of honey. Rub in until you get even breadcrumbs (like when you make pastry). Add extra flour/butter as needed. Add a little milk or water to bind into a dough - not too much or it will become sticky. Knead briefly. Add as many oats and dried fruit as you like and knead into the dough. Take small balls of the dough and flatten into rounds (3-4 mm thick). Melt some butter on a griddle or in a flat pan, and drop the cakes in. Turn every 30 seconds - 1 minute until both sides are nicely browned. Eat while still hot!
Sighfridh's Veggie-Stew
Disclaimer: Sighfridh does like meat. Very much, in fact. But he still knows how to make a veggie-stew.
This is a very simple recipe for a nice and potentially spicy stew. It's even free of things like wheat, gluten and lactose, so even Thorhelm can eat it.
Ingredients:
Carrots, parsnips, cabbage, leeks (or whichever of these/others you prefer)
Mushrooms
Onions. Lots of onions. Garlic.
Marjoram, Oregano, Thyme, Pepper
21st century vegetable stock cubes
Olive oil.
Quantities are a tricky issue. For a full meal you should calculate about 300-400g of vegetables (not including onions) per person, but if your men have just come back from a strenuous raid, you might want to make more. The amount of mushrooms depends on how much you like them. 50-100g per person is normally enough. Onions you will never have enough. I'd recommend at least one large onion per two people, but the more the better is a good rule to go by. Number of cloves of garlic = number of large onions, but as always, there's plenty of flexibility. If you cook it for a feast as one course out of many, then you might want to stick to half the quantities or even less.
Chop the vegetables, onions and mushrooms as small as you want. I generally like them small (they'll also cook faster) but chunky stew with chunks is also popular with many. Fry the onions and (crushed) garlic in oil (~1tb per onion) until golden-brown. Add vegetables and mushrooms and fry them too. Make sure they don't burn to the bottom. This will take a while, especially if you're making large quantities. Add the spices. I generally go with equal amounts of marjoram and oregano and about half as much thyme (1tb m. and o. per four people, but feel free to experiment with more). Add pepper until you think you have enough. Then add a bit more. Once the vegetables are fried (keep stirring!) add water and stock cubes (depending on strength/size, I normally use about one per three people, but be careful not to make it too salty - you can always add more later). Use enough water that all the vegetables are engulfed, but don't use more. Let it cook for an hour or more. Stir it occasionally and add water if too much has boiled off. Taste it and add more adjust the spice level accordingly. Eat.
Because it's such a simple recipe, there's plenty of opportunity to experiment with relative quantities, other herbs, authentic stock-cube substitutes and whatever else you can think of.
Historical note: Pepper would have been very expensive. At times it was worth its weight in gold. When Alaric the Goth conquered Rome in 408, apart from silk, gold and silver he also demanded 3000 pounds of pepper as ransom for the city!
Freya's Flatbreads
Flatbread is dead easy. Exactly the same method will do Saxon bread, chapattis, fajitas etc. - you just change the type of flour and how thin you make them. For our purposes the following should be all right. Please be warned that I never weigh ingredients for bread, I just go by eye so add the water very gradually until it feels right!
Ingredients and Equipment
- wholemeal wheat or spelt flour
- olive oil or melted butter
- water
- a skillet or similar
- something to mix the dough in
- a rolling pin
- a surface to roll on!
Instructions
1) Sift flour into some sort of large mixing receptacle and make a well in the centre. Add a little salt if you like.
2) Add a small splash of melted butter or olive oil to the well, say max 1tbsp per 250g flour. (I think we can get away with olive oil, right?) and a little water and mix together.
3) Gradually add more water until you get a dough that sticks together in a ball but is not too sticky (it should only stick slightly to your hands - keep a little extra flour handy in case you overdo the water)
4) Knead for a minute or so. If you haven't made bread before, you should be quite rough here - make your hands into loose fists and shove the dough back and forth with the heels of your hands. The dough should spring back a little after being shoved.
5) Split the dough into small balls. Roll each ball into a flat circle on a floured surface, you should be able to get it really thin (1-2mm). Sprinkle with flour.
6) Cook in a dry skillet (medium heat) for about 30s-1min for the first side and max 30 for the second side.
With wheat or spelt four, these will be quite heavy - it's the use of cornflour that makes fajitas nice and light.
Links
- The Food Timeline: Anglo-Saxon Food
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Recipes
- Viking and Anglo-Saxon Recipes (pdf) from Dutch group Tjursläkter
- Coquinaria: List of Historical Recipes
- An Anglo-Saxon Menu
- Medieval Recipes 1 Podcast by an SCA member who produces a series called Ancient & Medieval History
- Food Fit for Heroes: the Viking Age mp3 of a BBC radio programme
- An Anglo-Saxon recipe for chicken stew from the British Museum (.doc file)
- Game's On: lots of game recipes
- Regia Anglorum's food page
