Julia Child Interview – Eating Healthy and Smart – Quotes about Diets – Esquire.
I love Julia Child. I wish she wasn’t gone, as she’s definitely on the list of “people I’d love to have a dinner party with”. As long as I wasn’t cooking, anyway, as that’d be WAY too much pressure.
Julia Child Interview
Black and Gold Houppelande
Black and Gold Houppelande, circa 1420
The goal for this gown was to make something fun and dramatic for Atlantia’s Kingdom 12th Night (2007).
Jeun de Meun, Le Testament, les Sept Articles de la foi et le Codicille Paris, 1400-1402 Paris, Bibliotheque national de France, Fr 12595, folio 5
Hours of Catherine of Cleves, New York, Pierpont Morgan library, M917, p 65
This gown is not based on any specific illumination; elements are taken from several roughly contemporaneous images but I can’t say for sure they would have been combined this way. The collar is from BNF 12595 fol. 52, but can also be worn folded down to appear more like the collar in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, which the sleeves are modeled from. The first manuscript is dated 1400, the second manuscript dates from approximately 1440 but there are many works from intermediate dates that show similar fashions.
The garment fabric is a black-and-gold patterned wool, the lining is a red wool gabardine. Fur linings are more common, but fabric linings (including red fabric) are mentioned in contemporary inventories.1
Click on any image on this page to be taken to a larger version.
Gown Assembly
The first problem was figuring out the neckline/collar.
Draping the Interlining
Draping the Interlining, Back
Draping the Interlining, Front
I had never made a gown with this type of standing collar before.
After consulting several better seamstresses than I, I knew it would need some support from the bodice area.. So, I started by draping an interlining out of some scrap linen on my dress dummy. The front is shaped so that support extends as far as possible down the front opening of the gown, but ends higher on the sides so that the pleats created by the belt can extend as high as possible.
Patterning the Collar
Patterning the Collar
Next, I used some scrap fabric to establish a shape for the collar, and pinned that to the interlining to test. The collar is a slightly curved rectangle. It can be worn in the “up” position as shown, or folded down to create the “Peter Pan” collar look that is more common in illuminations of the time. When folded down, the neckline can be pinned at the throat, otherwise it opens to mid-sternum level.
Collar, Interlined
Assembled and padstitched.
The collar and interlining were duplicated in 2 layers of wool flannel (more scraps from a previous gown) and assembled.
A lining and collar were cut from red wool twill, and the interlining was padstitched (by machine) to the lining.The padstitching consists of closely spaced rows of machine stitching – it is barely visible when the dress is worn, as the thread closely matches the color of the lining. The lining and collar were copied in the fashion fabric – a rather loosely woven black-and-gold wool.
Sleeve patterning.
Sleeve Draping
The gown was machine sewn, and seams were ironed open. (Since it’s fully lined, no further seam finishing was needed.) After the lining and body fabric were assembled, $1/yd fabric was used to establish a pattern for the sleeves. This pattern was used to cut sleeves from both lining and body fabric. The sleeves were sewn together along three edges, turned and the shoulders finished, then mounted in the armholes. Hemming was done using the blind-hem stitch of the sewing machine – lining and outer fabric were hemmed as one layer so they would move together. (I miscalculated the length of the gown slightly when determining the cutting layout. Though I’m only 5’3″, 58″ fabric wasn’t quite long enough to allow the body panels to be cut width-wise along the fabric and still have the hem “puddle” on the ground. Scrap fabric was used to extend the length of the skirt in back, unfortunately there wasn’t quite enough to do the same in front so it’s slightly shorter than my ideal.)
Final Gown
Since I wore this to Atlantia’s 12th Night, I was lucky enough to have Baron Bardulf Rauen take several pictures of me wearing it. More of his work can be found here.
Oh the Pimpage…
As Jennifer mentioned, we’ve totally re-done erminespot.com. A new look, running on new software, and slowly, more and more new content. We’ll keep posting about the content additions as we push them out.
For them that care, the site is basically one big WordPress blog now. We can use the blog feature for updates (like these), and use the “pages” feature to publish our more static content. Through the use of some plugins and such, we can push posts (like this one) to our respective Live Journals – so not to worry, we’re not going to go become “real bloggers” and forget all you nice people over in LJ land. We’re also running an OpenID plugin, so you can probably log into erminespot with your LJ username. Cool huh?
On top of that, we’ve been able (through some custom coding) to get our del.icio.us tags to pull to the relevant site. So, let’s say I’m cruzing the intarwebs and find an awesome armor site. A quick tag in del.icio.us and it’s already posted to the armor links section of erminespot.
We’ve also revamped the gallery (mostly by ripping it all down and moving to zenphoto). I’m slowly going though and tagging the photos and putting in some captions, so anyone can search on my gallery for all the pictures of say, yourself, or of fighting… you get the idea.
Why the swap from the handmade css layout to the wordpress blog style? Well, we found that there were two large barriers to getting new content out there. The first is our own slackness, and there’s no code to fix that. The second was building an html file, getting all the formating down, and then ftp’ing that up to a site. The blog at least takes away that last hurdle.
The Joys and Woes of Hyperfocus?
So I mentioned at the Kappellenberg meeting that we were re-designing Erminespot… this process was expected to take something like a week. Well… I got interested. Which means it’s mostly up now. While most of the content hasn’t changed from the previous Erminespot, and the gallery is still a bit… fugly, there are a few things that are just now seeing the light of day:
- St. Catherine’s Tourney Documentation – A Light Evening Meal
- Feast Menus from Battle of the Oranges and Baronial Champions 2006 (recipes to follow)
- The Purple “Tacunium Sanitatis” dress
- And Girard has finally released his “Goat Scrotum Stout” recipe on the world. (NO goats were harmed in the production of this beverage).
Enjoy…
Purple Gown – Tacuinum Sanitatis
Dress in the Italian Style
BNF Latine 1673, Folio 52
What, Where, When:
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This dress is based on an image from the manuscript BNF Latine 1673[1], a Tacuinum Sanitatis that was copied and illustrated in Milan around 1390-1400.
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It is an overgown, intended to be worn over a second, supportive undergown with long sleeves.
Source:
The gown is based on manuscript BNF Latine 1673, folio 52v. Further details are taken from folios 46, 79, 82v, and 84.
Materials:
Fabric:
The exterior fabric is a silk/wool blend, chosen for its color and drape, which closely match those in the illumination. (Actually, the illumination was chosen to best utilize the fabric, as many of this sort of projects begin.) It is lined in a plain-weave silk, dyed using modern methods to approximate the color in the illumination. Both the purple and the pink/orange are colors which can be achieved with period dyes, logwood for the purple and madder for the pink/orange[2].
Mixed fiber fabrics such as silk/wool, wool/linen or silk/linen were common in period, although mixed fiber *threads* were not. For instance, a fabric with a silk warp and wool weft was known as “buratti” in Venice[3].
Threads and other Embroidery Materials:
The embroidery is stitched with twisted silk threads – a single strand of (12-stand) Splendor silk for the leaves and couching, a less-twisted shinier silk for the flowers. Gold is “Treasure Braid”, a nylon-based synthetic, as I did not have the money nor the skill for real metallic threads. The pearls are freshwater pearls, stitched with polyester thread. (Since this garment will be worn fairly often, strength was important, and I was unable to find silk thread that felt strong enough to hold the pearls and that also matched the garment well.
The gown is also stitched in polyester – the original plan was silk thread, but when the decision was made to use the machine for seams, I was afraid silk would cut the fabric of the dress.
Tools:
Due to the size of the work, I used a modern embroidery frame; although I attempted to use a smaller, period (slate) frame I was unable to mount the fabric to maintain tension over large areas like the sleeves. Likewise, using period needles was outside the scope of this project.
Design and Techniques:
Dress Pattern:
The gown pattern is based on 4 panels and 4 gores, for maximum fabric conservation. The panels are cut as rectangles, approximately the length of the gown + several inches and a quarter of the width of the fabric (60 inches). They are fit directly on the wearer, who must be wearing the supportive underdress intended to be worn under the final gown.
I used a straight front technique for this gown in an effort to improve the shaping around the bust, all shaping is done on the side and back seams[4]. (My first attempt at this gown had a curved front seam, which when combined with the natural stretch of the wool twill it was made of, led to unpleasant bagginess.)
The sleeves were cut to maximize the drape of the fabric – the wrist edge is on the straight of grain, and flares naturally from the shoulder. They are slightly larger/more dramatically flared than those in the Tacuinum ; however, the sleeve styles varied extensively throughout the Tacuinum and I wanted more “canvas” for embroidery, so I feel the larger size is appropriate.
Embroidery:
Several of the gowns in the Tacuinum appear to be embroidered, specifically folio 84v appears to have embroidery on the neckline and sleeves. I choose to use gold and pearls for the embroidery because I had recently read an inventory[5] of a French Countess’s wardrobe after her death in 1426, which mentioned several dresses “with large sleeves” so embellished. The vinework pattern is based on illumination of the time. It is executed in chain stitch, couching and satin stitch, all common to 14th century embroidery.
Gown Construction:
The gown is machine sewn (the original plan was to handsew it but time and other considerations intervened). It is flat-lined (exterior and interior fabric are treated as one) – I have not found documentation of how linings were treated in the 14th century, and treating them as one improved the drape of the fabric. Seams are finished by flatfelling[6].
Accessories:
The gown itself is worn over a supportive undergown, which shapes the figure, especially the bust. Chemise, stockings,etc. are also worn. Unlike French images of the same time period, the ladies in the Tacuinum wear their hair in braids wrapped around the head, and veils are very rarely worn. To achieve this style, “Italian hair taping”, in which a braid is sewn to the head with a blunt needle and decorative ribbon, is used (in my case with false hair). A thin, decorative silk veil is worn over the hair, as shown in folios 42 and 79 of the manuscript. The stuffed ermine? Not period in the slightest.
[1] Manuscript is available at the Bibliotheque Nationale website, found here: http://mandragore.bnf.fr
[2] Information from a class by Baroness Magdalena de Hazebrook, taken at Atlantia Winter University 2006.
[3] Mola, L., “The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice”, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2000; referenced at http://www.classactfabrics.com/information/glossary.htm
[4] Fitting was assisted by Lukas Byerly, without whose assistance this project could not have been completed – I am not dexterous nor flexible enough to fit this style gown on myself without help!
[5] From Revue des Sociétés Savantes des Départements. 6th series, volume VI, 1877, 2nd semester
The goods inventoried apparently belonged to the Provencal Countess Elipde, d’Avelin after her death. She was the daughter of Raymond, Count of Aveline and Jeanne de Beaufort, wife of Odon de Villars (1) and Conrad, Count of Fribourg and Neufchatel. A translation of this source by Katharine Barech can be found at http://jillwheezul.livejournal.com/34448.html#cutid1
[6] Flatfelled seams are documented in medieval wool garments, as seen in Heather Rose Jones’s article on the subject. http://www.heatherrosejones.com/archaeologicalsewing/index.html
Persona Pentathlon – 2007
Because I enjoy trying new things, my favorite yearly competition is Atlantia’s Persona Pentathlon. The rules are simple – 5 items in at least 3 categories, all related to a specific persona – but the scope of putting together that many items for a single event makes it a challenge.
In 2007, my entry was inspired by one of its five components – a translation of Le Recueil de Riom. This cookbook was written by an anonymous author in 1466, and I have chosen to conjecture that it was written by a cook, rather than by someone merely interested in food. This would not be unusual; other cooks of the 14th and 15th century wrote down their works (for instance, Maistre Chiquart, head cook to the Duke of Savoy at the turn of the 15th century, wrote an eloquent description of the items needed to produce a feast.) Given this persona, my entry deals almost exclusively with food. Though I didn’t win, I did receive a Silver Nautilus.
The entries are as follows:
- Le Recuil de Riom – A Translation of a 15th Century French Cookbook. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only English translation that has been prepared of this work.
- A calligraphed copy of Le Recueil, in French. This was done in a similar scale and hand to the original manuscript.
- Haricot of Lamb - – This dish was based on recipe 20, Ung haricot de mouton, from Le Recueil.
- A Subtlety. This dish was found not in Le Recueil, but in a contemporary edition of Le Viandier du Taillevent, which shares several recipes with Le Recueil.
- A survey of Cameline Sauces. Cameline sauce was one of the most popular sauces in the medieval French corpus, and was found in various forms. It could even be purchased at a sauce vendor. These sauces, however, varied significantly though they shared a name – I have included several variations that may have been used by the anonymous cook.
Redacting Period Recipes
REDACTING PERIOD RECIPES:
What do we mean by “redaction?” From the Oxford English Dictionary 1st edition in 2 volumes, vol 2, pg 293:
Redact - past participle
1. Brought together in a written form (1432)
2. Brought or reduced into (in), to a state, condition, etc, or under one’s power (1432)
3. Of material things: Reduced to or into ashes, dust, etc.
Redact - verb
1. transitive – a. to bring (matter of reasoning or discourse) into or to a certain form; to put together in writing (1432) b. to bring or insert (a thing) into a scheme or body (1570) c. to reduce (a subject) to a person’s understanding (1657)
2. to bring together into one body (1432)
3. To reduce (a person or thing) to, into a certain state, condition, or action. (1542)
b. To reduce (a material thing) to a certain form. (1634)
4. In modern use: a. to draw up, frame (a statement, decree, etc) (1837) b. to put (matter) into proper literary form, to work up, arrange, or edit (1851)
In other words, we are editing a period recipe to make sense to a modern reader. Period recipes are more or less notes from one cook to another – great if you know what your end product is supposed to look like, but sometimes vague if you’re not sure. Think about how you give a recipe to a friend – or how your grandmother passed on her recipes – “A bit of this, some of that…” – in fact, standardized volume measurements weren’t really popularized until the 18th century, though some 16th century cookbooks use weights or other measures.
The steps I use for redacting a period recipe are as follows:
- Read the recipe. In cooking period food, the first thing to do is look at the period source. Is it in English? If so, are all of the words familiar? If not, and you have a translation, how reliable is that translation? If necessary, rewrite the recipe in plain English, for instance:
- Before: Bray ginger, yolks of eggs without the germ, and pass them through the strainer with cows’ milk; or in the case it should turn, let the yolks of cooked eggs be taken and then brayed and passed through the strainer; moisten with cows’ milk and boil well. This recipe is translated from Le Menagier de Paris, a 14th century French source.
- After: To bray means to grind, so this recipe is instructing us to grind ginger (note that it doesn’t specify fresh or dried) and egg yolks (without the embryo, as most eggs would have been fertile). Then mix with cows’ milk (note the lack of proportions) and pass through a strainer. Alternatively, grind cooked egg yolks with the ginger and force the mixture through a strainer, add milk and boil.
- Ask questions: For this recipe, I would ask the following questions:
- What is the end product of this recipe supposed to be? I interpreted this as a thin, custard like sauce dish. Others may interpret it as a thicker sauce, and other recipes may have even more interpretations.
- Are any of the procedures unfamiliar? There are many sources for terminology such as “bray”, including Pleyn Delight and Take a Thousand Eggs. (While these sources also include the authors’ redactions, it’s more fun to do your own!)
- Does equipment used make a difference? While one often uses modern equipment to substitute for large amounts of labor (I love my Cuisinart) it can change the end product. For instance, in redacting a recipe for a “Bread Tart”, the author specifies that bread should be grated, and bread crumbs made using a grater gave the final product a fluffier, more consistant texture than those using a food processor. For this recipe, the difference between grinding the ginger and egg yolks in a mortar and pestle may be significant, though I haven’t tested that yet.
- Are there any other similar recipes? Sometimes, other sources can help inform your redaction. For instance, one might check other jance sauce recipes from 14th century French sources to see if there are other cooking tips or ratios included. I also check modern sources for similar recipes, both completely modern ones (custard sauces, in this instance) and others’ redactions of period recipes, just to get an idea of possible ingredient ratios and cooking times. There is a fine line to walk when doing this – if you rely too heavily on modern sources, your end product will be very modern, but attempting to cook completely unfamiliar dishes with no outside references can lead to, well, fairly inedible dishes.
- How would period ingredients and modern ingredients differ? What ingredient choices can I make to achieve a more period product? For instance, for this recipe I would check how ginger would be acquired by residents of Paris in the late 1400s, and make sure to use whole milk, preferably not homogenized.
- Make a stab at creating the dish. My redaction for this dish was as follows:
- For this sauce, I pureed 2.5 oz peeled ginger with 3 large egg yolks. I then mixed the puree with approximately 1 cup of milk, and brought to a boil, then strained the mixture and adjusted the seasoning with salt and additional ginger.
- Evaluate your redaction:
- Does it taste good? I’m still working on this one – it’s gingery, but it’s thinner than I would like. If you play with it and get a better result, please let me know.
- Does it closely match the instructions given? It’s very easy to fall into modern cooking habits while doing redactions – it would be so much easier to thicken this sauce with a roux, for instance, but that technique wasn’t recorded as being used until the late 15th/early 16th century.
- Is the result plausible?
A more difficult example: Cuskynoles
A mete þat is icleped cuskynoles. Make a past tempred wiþ ayren, &
soþþen nim peoren & applen, figes & reysins, alemaundes & dates; bet
am togedere & do god poudre of gode speces wiþinnen. & in leynten make
þi past wiþ milke of alemaundes, & rolle þi past on a bord, & soþþen hew hit on moni perties, & vche an pertie beo of þe leynþe of a paume & an half & of þreo vyngres of brede. & smeor þy past al of one dole, & soþþen do þi fassure wiþinnen. | Vchan kake is portiooun. & soþþen veld togedere oþe 3eolue manere, ase
þeos fugurre is imad:
______________________________________
| . | . | . | . | . |
|______|_______|______|______|_______|
| . | . | . | . | . |
|______|_______|______|______|_______|
| . | . | . | . | . |
|______|_______|______|______|_______|
& soþþ boille in veir water, & soþþ en rost on an greudil: & soþþen adresse.
The first thing to know about this recipe is that the letter “þ”, or thorn, represents “th”. Rewritten with modern spelling in mind:
“A meat that is (called) cuskynoles. Make a paste tempered with eggs, and so then take pears and apples, figs and raisins, almonds and dates, beat them together and do good powder of good spices within, and in lent make the past with milk of almonds, and rolle the paste on a board, and so then hew it in many parts, and each part be of the length of a palm and a half and of three fingers of bredth. And smear the paste all of one half, and so then do the mixture within. Each cake is one portion, and so then meld together of the below manner, as this figure is made: (see figure above) and so boil in fair water, and so then roast on a griddle, and so then dresse.
The question? Are they ravioli, or are they a single, many “celled” cake?
See http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/cuskynoles-msg.html for more debate.
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