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An Elizabethan Madrigal Dinner (part 2)

My Lord Lumley"s Peas Potage Most of the peas in the soup are strained. The reason for leaving some of them whole, say"s Digby, "is only to show that it is peas potage." Mussels, Bacon, and Pullets Robert May prefaced his eight-volume cookbook with the modest admission that "God and my own conscience would not permit me to bury these experiences in the grave. "When The Accomplished Cook was the first published in 1660, he had served some fifty-five years as a professional cook in a dozen noble places. Mays experiences were fast becoming dУ©modУ© in a nation infatuated with French cuisine and in such dishes as the above he took his readers back to "those golden days wherein were practiced the triumphs and tragedies of cookery to be good rather than to seem so. "We took the liberty of changing the oysters with mussels. Fanfare The Fourthe CONCERT The Introduction of your Musicians and Singers as each is about to entertain while the dinner goes on. Fanfare The Fifthe Announcing the passing of the Salat, from the oldest know treatise on cooking in the English language cones this recipe for salad. The manuscript, The Form of Curry, was compiled around 1390. In Richard II"s court, some 196 examples of mid evil "curry" and cookery were identified. Fanfare The Sixthe Announcing The Homage To Ye Boar"s Head The use of the Boar"s Head is not only based on its value as an article of food, but it"s symbolism as well. The boar, because he roots into the ground with his tusks, had long been revered as having taught mankind the art of plowing. Henry VIII first established it as a dish. The head was dressed with a garland of rosemary and laurel. As a final touch a lemon, the symbol of plenty, was placed in it"s mouth. The eating of a suckling pig today is a variation of eating the boar"s head. Smoked Loin with Prunes and Apples The Danish sometimes refer to this dish as "mach duck" prunes and apples being a favorite stuffing for roast duck as well. CONCERT Lets have more singing and dancing Fanfare The Seventhe Time to announce the jugglers, Tumblers and Magician Boiled Beef With Sauce Robert In Rebellious day, the onion was judged excellent for exorcizing ghosts, warding off baldness, and curing dog bites, hence his remark that this old French sauce is "so salubrious and so essential. Fanfare The Eighte More singing, dancing Fanfare The Ninthe Announcing the passing of the Flaming Plum Pudding The plum pudding has evolved from a sorry mess of watery gruel pottage-fermety-which, according to the oldest recipe extant, was, "what boiled till the grains burst, and when cool, strained and boiled again with broth of milk and yolks of eggs. "It must have been quite awful fir every year somebody tried to do something about it. As it"s thicker form evolved, it migrated to the end of the meal, with no sign of meat but the vestigial suet. The first published recipe for the pudding as we know it appeared in 1675. It"s change in form is partially due to it"s having been disguised when the Puritans outlawed the dish as sinfully rich. Surely the most spectacular pudding ever produced was Brobdingnagian 900 pounded, created by Devon Villagers in 1819. Fanfare The Tenthe There you have it, have a Madrigal dinner and have a lot of fun.

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