HFF 3.11: Floral

The Challenge:  Floral. Make a dish named for, shaped like, flavored with, or decorated in flowers.

I initially wanted to make a savory dish flavored with sage, proving an excuse to use some of these flowers for a garnish:

They are very pretty sage blossoms.

But then I found this herbal tea recipe, and decided I needed to try that instead.

The Recipe: Another British Substitute for Foreign Tea from The New Receipt Book.

The Date/Year and Region: 1829, London

How Did You Make It: I picked a moderate handful of lemon balm leaves (having plenty of that but no other balm available), as well as 9 large sage leaves and a similar number of lavender flowers. I placed these in a tea pot, added boiling water, and steeped for about 5 minutes.

Time to Complete: Enough time to boil water.

Total Cost: All out of the garden.

How Successful Was It?: Very easy and a pleasant taste-- the three flavors work well together, and each get their own notes. 

I served the tea with lemon (York) biscuits from The Complete Biscuit and Gingerbread Baker's Assistant (1854). The biscuits were robust in texture and moderately dense without being as heavy as some other receipts I've tried. The lemon juice make for a delicate lemon flavor (which ws hard to detect when hot, but came through better when eaten cold); to the latter batch I added the peel of the lemon, which made for a stronger lemon flavor, almost bitter at times. [One-third scale, with 4 oz of butter, used juice and peel of 1 lemon.]

How Accurate Is It?: Very. I even used the 1850s wood-burning stove.

Lemon balm, sage and lavender for tea.
Brewed, it had a pale green-yellow color.

Lemon biscuits.

I served both at a tea party which also featured Quin's cup-cakes and a savory cabbage pudding. A sneak peak of the whole spread:

The floral tea party was a relaxing way to end the
busy long weekend.

Wimple Wednesday: Brimmed Coif, 2nd Quarter of the 16th Century

Aka, the Henrician Coif from The Tudor Tailor.

A very serviceable item. Until my coil comes unpinned,
at while point it tends to take the coif with it.

New research has suggested that this cut-and-sewn construction may be a modern re-interpretation of a one-piece coif that's meant to be tied over the hair. I'll be experimenting with that approach in a few weeks, when I attempt to duplicate an original 1590s coif from Patterns of Fashion 4.  [The one-piece construction does feature in The Tudor Child for a girl's coif, and I'm quite eager to see if any show up in the forthcoming Typical Tudor.]

Green Linen Apron, 16th Century

Recalling all those colorful aprons from my apron research post, I decided I needed one.

Of course it's green.

It's the same narrow-tape-tie-and-loose-corner style as my white linen apron; the main fabric is a mid-weight green linen (this one, IIRC) from fabric-store.com, the narrow goods 1/2" linen tape from Burnley and Trowbridge (natural color, dyed black with Rit dye and salt).

Wimple Wednesday: 16th Century Coif

The 'simple coif' from The Tudor Tailor.

It's not fancy, but perfectly comfortable.

HFF 3.10: Literary

The Challenge:  Make a dish referenced in a work of literature. Despite attempts to the contrary, I may have gone with Cranford. Again. Gaskell's just really good at using food to further her characterization of the town's inhabitants...

Mrs Forrester...who now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.

The Recipe: A Smaller Sponge Cake (very good) from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery

The Date/Year and Region: 1846, London

How Did You Make It: Separated 5 eggs, beat the yokes thoroughly, and mixed in 8 oz of granulated sugar; beat the whites until stiff, then stirred them into the preceeding, along with 6 oz of flour and the rind of 1 lemon (minced fine). Baked ~40 minutes at 350F in a butter-and-sugar-coated 8" tin cake ring. 

The book was somewhat ambiguous about whether sponge cakes should be iced; I decided to try the icing receipt it included (scaled down to two egg whites and 2/3 lb powdered sugar), though I opted to include the 2/3 tsp lemon juice recommended in The Complete Confectioner (1844). 

Time to Complete: About an hour, including baking time, plus a few minutes to ice the cake after it cooled.

Total Cost: ~$0.65 worth of eggs, everything else being on hand

How Successful Was It?: Palatable enough. The lemon flavor is quite delicate, such that I sometimes fancied the egg flavor was coming through. The cake might have stood a minute or two longer to bake, but it was starting to brown and was no longer liquid in the center, so I decided to pull it. The icing was less flavorful than I generally like, but good enough in its plain way. I do need to let it dry better, particularly while covering the sides of the cake...

How Accurate Is It?: I used an electric mixer to beat the eggs; more cake research, particularly on presentation (such as icing, mold varieties) is warranted. I did end up with some interesting notes on patty pans while researching this receipt (which will need to be a separate post). Overall, I would say this was fairly accurate, but could improve.

Still adding the icing too quickly...

Early 1850s cottage bonnet

Cottage Bonnet, modelled by a helpful lamp.

From Timely Tresses' "Ada Gray" pattern, using style line 1.  Custom-dyed tissue tafetta and silk satin ribbon, all hand sewn.

Wimple Wednesday: 16th century headrail

Now in the 16th century--it's the 36" square of linen, again, knotted over the hair (which has been braided in two bunches and wrapped around the head).  I like how this style of rail keeps my hair neat, off my neck/face, and clean from all the dust at Faire. I've honestly kept my hair up for a 12+ hour day with only one hairpin thanks to the headrail (and the linen strips on my braids).

Managed it this time without any pins!

This design is from The Tudor Tailor by Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies.

Wimple Wednesday: Late 15th Century Tailed Cap

Departing from the draped and knotted flat rectangles, it's time for our first sewn cap.

Late 15th century tailed cap.

The tails should properly be tied over the head, but a miscalculation may have made them long enough to wrap all the way around and tie at the center back. [It looks really silly with the tails hanging down 8" from the proper knot position.] I will be fixing that, but meanwhile, it's a comfortable cap to wear, and goes on with little more fuss than the knotted kerchief. My hair is braided and wrapped around the head; it's very secure, and requires no hair or fabric pins, just two linen hair ties and the cap itself. Also, it looks awesome from the side:  

Sort of a 'witch meets smurf' shape.

The only structural seams are the center back and interior of the tails--all other seams (on mine) are from piecing scrap linen; it could/should be cut out as a single piece.  This is the last design I'll be playing with from The Medieval Tailor's Assistant; next week, it's on to the 16th century.

Original: Figured Silk Dress with Puffed Sleeves, c.1840

Figured silk dress, c.1840, from MFA

I couldn't resist those puffy sleeves. Now to find a reason to make an early 1840s silk gown...

HFF 3.9 Savory

The Challenge: Something savory

The Recipe: Savory or Ragout Eggs from Mrs. Hale's New Cook Book, with pork forcemeat from the same.

The Date/Year and Region: 1857, Philadelphia

How Did You Make It: Very small scale. I hard-boiled two eggs. While they were cooking, I prepared the forcemeat by grinding up ~2 Tbsp of left-over ham and 3 small sage leaves in the mortar and pestle. I also mixed together 1 Tbsp of bread crumbs, 1/8 tsp of salt, 1/16 tsp each of ground allspice and black pepper. When the eggs were done, I peeled them and cut them in half, then scooped out the yoke and ground it with the ham and sage. When that was smooth, I worked it into the bread crumb mixture, then shaped the forcemeat into balls, placed one in each egg hollow, and fried them lightly in lard. 

Time to Complete: Thirty minutes once the water boiled.

Total Cost: $1.79 for the new sage starts. All food on hand already.

How Successful Was It?: It tastes pretty good. It reminds me of the chicken croquettes ('leftover meat ground up with spices and fried'), though I prefer the chicken. I would make these again for historic demos, especially if future research clears up my lingering questions.

How Accurate Is It?: I took some liberties, starting with adding ham to a forcemeat meant for stuffing ham. In fairness, the cookbook mentions forcemeat frequently, but rarely describes a particular set of ingredients (and the only ham-containing one I could find was for stuffing veal; it also looked less interesting).  I also assumed that the eggs should be pan fried, and not breaded. The receipt doesn't give details, and I need to know more about the assumptions a 19th century cook would make in order to assess my guess. I'd also love some info on shaping and plating. Also, I skipped the gravy, but without gravy was basically the other serving suggestion.

Savory eggs, garnished with parsley and winter savory.

Wimple Wednesday: 14th Century Knotted Kerchief

Bare throats, o my!

Return of the 36" square kerchief, this time without fillet or wimple; the fabric is just knotted behind the head. It's very quick, and no pins or other equipment is needed. This time, I dressed my hair in a simple coil at the back of the head.

Kerchiefs: simplifying things since the 14th century  

I actually like this variant better.
The glare is aimed at the camera.

I like the look of the thrown back kerchief (as before, but with the lower corners pinned up), but the linen really needs to be a rectangle to pull it off. An extra 12" would be great, but even 6-8" should work.