VIFC August Meeting- The Elizabethans.

Yes, yes, my VIFC write ups have been remiss of late and for that I apologise. I let myself off the hook for July as I was otherwise engaged in Twickenham that night and sadly unable to attend so your guess about how the 1930’s theme night went are as good as mine!

As for the 80’s night review, I was waiting for someone else’s photos to upload then I was busy then I had an itchy toe for a while and, yeah. It didn’t get written. I can summarise to say that we had Duck a l’orange (yum), potted shrimp (nom), chicken liver pate (drool) unintentionally blackened nutty shortbread (cough), a syrup sponge pudding (happy diabetic coma), my silly cake as pictured and something else that Matt made which I can’t for the life of me recall at this point. Sorry Matt.
80’s night was a funny one, as the more I googled, the more 80’s food I found was actually 70’s food, or 60’s or 90’s……because long story short a lot of food doesn’t change all that much and remembering stuff my mum cooked me in the 80’s she learned in the 70s and so on and so on. But to hell with the semantics and off we went and the main running themes we as a group identified from the 80s were dinner party favourites and the wider introduction of haute cuisine. Plus, you know, cake. Every generation needs cake.

So on to the August meet and another time period theme- The Elizabethans. Bit of a wider range than the 80/30s but not as easy as it might first appear. I for one will freely admit to much swearing for this task. I was allocated a starter or side dish and went to my usual information source, the jolly old interweb.

I found lots of information on what the Elizabethan’s didn’t eat, which didn’t help much, and lots of general blaaaah about how the rich ate meat and the poor didn’t, the majority of seasonings were spices and herbs tended to be eaten fresh in green salads rather than cooked in. Fish and fowl were popular, as were dried fruit and nuts plus the Great British staples of bread, cheese and beer. Could I find any helpful actual recipes though? Negatory. Fine, I’ll get something modern that has lasted since those times. Bread? I cannot make bread. I thought about trying it again then remembered the weapon like bricks of doom that my dough making has always resulted in and decided against it. However as the old wives say, those who don’t have bread hands do have pastry hands. I can make pastry and once won first prize in the Brownie’s Cornish Pasty making contest thing. Yeah. I made those eight year old bitches weep with my mad shortcrust skills. Pasties it was. Did the Elizabethans have pasties? Debatable. Some old history on The Globe Theatre tells us that arts lovers in the days of Shakespeare would merrily partake in a little sweet meat and nut pie topped off with a sort of marmalade as a pre theatre nibble. I could make something like that. I must confess I did not use a strict recipe but will try to recreate it properly for a later post but the basics were lamb cooked up with quite a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice and ginger, plus dried berries and roasted nuts. Wrap it all up in a shortcrust shell, served with my friend Louise’s rather fantabulous fig and grapefruit chutney. You’d like her actually, read her blog here! I was pleased with the outcome, although the pastry wasn’t my best but I suspect that it would have made any of Queen Bess’ followers happy enough.

So, the results!

 

 

So there we have it and don’t I sound like a suck up again going on about how good everything was! Well it was, I can’t lie. Well I can but I’m not right now. Or am I?

Anyway moving on to the summary- Elizabethans ate some OK stuff, heavy on the meat and carbs though, one has to wonder just how uncomfortable those corsets became if this was standard dinner fare. I certainly could have done with a cart ride home by the time we were finished. More fatty stodge from the nuts too, maybe a saving healthy grace in all that cinnamon which is all kinds of good for you, though not enough good to fend off the masses of scurvy that came from such a low vitamin C diet. Good job potatoes were right around the corner really!

Next month we have our first Celeb Chef night, where we all have to bring a Rick Stein dish. Three guesses which Celeb Chef’s books I own non of?

Back to my old mate google then, until next time.