T-minus 9 days until our first living history event of the season: Menu planning

Pierre's new uniform continues apace, buttons arrived yesterday, and the pieces I've been making are all in their final stages. I should be finished by Friday at the latest, which gives me a week to plan food and start my pre-cook.

The thing that the SCA taught me well, is that I love being busy at events. There is nothing worse than sitting around, twiddling one's thumbs in an era where every part of daily life meant work. Being able to have a proper job to do at an event makes me insanely happy. Making food for people is like the highest form of fun, yup, even more enjoyable than sewing.

For the past week, I have been toying with menu items I can cook for the officers next weekend. Lent begins a week from today, so this is likely to be the only meat free event I cook all summer. We are also portraying the French Canadien peoples, so Lent and Catholic dietary restrictions should be a thing. Why not have fun with it!

Saturday morning's breakfast will consist of coffee, chocolate, bread, butter, fruit preserves, and a vegetarian oatmeal (white) pudding.
Lunch: Cod Saint-Menehould, a fish casserole that forms the basis for our modern Quebec fish pie; Talmouse, cheese tarts in the shape of little cocked hats, served with a fruit cheese; Roasted whole garlic, pickled vegetables; and for dessert, a Savoie cake with dessert cream.
Supper will be Feves au lard (baked beans), pea soup, bread and any leftovers from lunch.

Apart from the tarts and cake, I'm planning to make everything on-site. This requires planning out all the ingredients, and preparing the proper historical packaging for them, but also making sure that you have brought all the cooking implements and serving gear you might need. In a perfect world, you could walk into a properly stocked kitchen with your grocery items and just cook, but those perfect kitchens don't exist outside our own homes. I will spend most of next week planning out each dish, what groceries I will need, what cooking implements, and which service pieces I want to use. Yes, it will likely take most of the week to pack. We will pack the car Thursday evening, and leave from the base on Friday after work, hopefully saving about an hour of travel time.

Then, once we get to the fort, unpack the car and set up our kitchen for Saturday, socialize, prep the coffee for the morning, stock firewood next to the hearth if need be...and hope I don't forget anything. From the second we land, until we get back into the car on Saturday evening, we will both be working our arses off and having the time of our lives.

I just hope it's warmer than -28C next weekend, please?!

Bibliography

Dunton, Hope. From the Hearth: Recipes from the World of 18th-Century Louisbourg. University College of Cape Breton Press, 1986.

Vechambre, Chantal, and Anne Marie Lane Jonah. French Taste in Atlantic Canada, 1604-1758: A Gastronomic History. Cape Breton University Press, 2012.

an exercise in compromise, uniforming a warm man

The above sketch is from 1780, British Army Recruits. It's a bit later for what we are trying to do for this summer, and British rather than French, but it's a great example of different types of men in the eighteenth century, from proper soldier to regular joe.

Outfitting Pierre as a regular joe has been easy. Over the years I have made him nice clothes, but they tend to stay in the closet, he prefers clothing he can actually work in, and get dirty. So it's been a compromise in attire. I keep him covered in a manner fitting an eighteenth-century man, and yet also make him clothes that he will feel comfortable in. We both have had to shift our modern desires to better suit the situation at hand. He shifted expectations of comfort, I shifted expectations of cleanliness. It has worked for the most part.

This year is different. For the first time, I am making him a uniform that will see a good deal of dirt, grime, and wear. It is still a uniform though, and so there are expectations that need to be met. Compromises will need to be made. First off, Pierre will be wearing a uniform on the weekends as well as Monday to Friday. So his comfort level will be tweaked a bit more. 

Let me start with a bit of a modern comparison. When he is issued his modern uniform, he is issued EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN! He is a Sailor, and so has standard dress uniforms and work dress (Naval combats) for being a Sailor. He is now stationed at a base where the predominate service is the Army, and so he now also has everything an Army soldier could possibly need, including combat gear he would need if he was going to Afghanistan, because there are days where he needs to wear those things, like to the range. We have several kit bags down in basement storage of things he will likely never wear, but he's been issued them, and so we store them.

Now, let's look at this same scenario, but through the historical lens. I need to outfit Pierre as a French soldier this summer. We are portraying a certain unit that was stationed on the frontier of Canada. In the period, he would have been issued with the gear required to survive this field posting. The great thing about the French is that they were fantabulous record keepers, so we have a wealth of information of what was sent and issued to the men. We also have great sketches of the period showing soldiers of the period dressed in that kit.

But what would the average soldier actually wear on a day to day basis?

Pierre is one of those typical French Canadian guys who loves the winter. He is literally never cold...well unless he's coming down with something. He wears a flannel shirt as a winter coat. As soon as it's above freezing, he is back to his spring wind breaker. I bought him a whole winter snow/weather system one year for Christmas, and it may get worn for part of one day, once or twice a year, when he is snow-blowing the entire neighbourhood in a blizzard. Most of the time, flannel shirt over his T shirt. If the temps drop to stupid cold, he might layer a sweatshirt under the flannel.

This weekend we went down to Ticonderoga to get started on his kit for the season. Stuart and Nick tried their darndest to offer more pieces to complete the uniform. They want him properly turned out, warm when he needs to be, properly dressed for a soldier. I felt like that newbie, eighteenth-century reenactor though, knowing that all these uniform pieces wouldn't likely get worn. Pierre would just be too warm. I think we have struck a bit of a compromise, the four of us. I will make Pierre the bare minimum of kit to portray a proper soldier. Pierre will do his best to stay dressed as much as possible. Any extra kit that a soldier would own, could possibly be just pulled from stock at the fort, things that don't fit anyone, or might be too old for wear, to be used as set dressing for the space. Pierre will be working hard labour for most of the day, he will be able to get as dirty as he needs to be. These will be working clothes of an old soldier. I fully expect them to have really good heritage by the end of the first weekend. No fancy parade clothes though. He aims to work. All the chores that soldiers do, but tend to not enjoy, he is most in his element.

So, what is on the docket for the next few weeks? I have breeches and a veste under construction. The veste is a sleeved waistcoat. I also have under-drawers in linen cut, and a fatigue cap kit. There's also another shirt cut for him in my to-do pile. He already owns a capot, shoes, off-white wool stockings, and an apron. For me, I need a new cap; I need to replace the waistband on my old green petticoat; and I will be looking for some blue or green polished cotton to make a new pinner apron. Margaret has my new shoes under construction.

Oh, and I also have two men's suits to finish, under contract, and a thesis proposal paper to wrangle before the Spring.

Our next living history event at Ticonderoga is March 9th. This winter is going to fly!