Mi Contra Fa

Dutch Oven Bread 4

This time, I disassembled a springform pan.  I crumpled up 4 alumnim foil balls and placed them in the bottom of the Dutch oven, then put the bottom of the springform on top of them, to create a raised surface inside the oven.  The sides of the springform served as a charcoal ring for the Dutch oven lid.

The bottom did not burn!  But it was underdone, again.  And in an attempt to let it cook through, I left the bread sit in the oven - apparently too long, because it got really really tough.

Probably worth trying one more time, maybe with a few more coals, and a longer bake time.

Clay-pot Stew and Frybread

If I had timed things better, this would have worked out awesomely.  It was still very good.

Chicken Stew in a Clay Pot

I sliced up a carrot and a small onion very thinly and put them, with a whole clove of garlic, into my pot.  Then, about half of a can of canned chicken.  I didn't have any broth, so I used some of the water from the chicken can - not too much, since some would cook out of the veggies.  I lit up about 8-10 pieces of charcoal in small pile, and put the pot on a grate above them once for 15 minutes.

After 15 min, the broth was hot but not boiling.  I took a chance and removed the stew from the grate, then removed the grate.  I put a few old, ashen coals on top of the hot ones, and set the stew on that.  I also added some chopped fresh sage and parsley.

Ten minutes later, it was boiling.  I had some Bisquick + milk mixture, and dropped in a few spoonfuls as dumplings.  After a minute, I tried to sort of roll them around, since the pot doesn't have a lid to cover with.

Cooked ten more minutes; dumplings seemed done (and had absorbed a good bit of broth).  It was delicious!  But not loving the dumplings so much.  Will go with whole grains next time.

Frybread

If I had started the dough before the stew, I could have fried this while the stew cooled down after coming off the coals, and eaten them together.  

I made a dough of 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 tsp. yeast, 1/4ish tsp salt, and warm water.  I started with 1/4 c. water, but added more to make a fairly loose dough.  I mixed it very well with a fork, sort of kneading it, and then let it sit 30 min.

Then I melted a pat of butter in a frying pan (inside, on the stove, on medium heat).  I took the dough, kneaded it some more, floured it, and pressed it out to a round about 1/4" thick.  Once the pan was hot, I put it in.  About 4-5 min first side, 2-3 min second side.

I must not have gotten it evenly thick - there was one part noticeably thicker, and it did not cook all the way through.

It was sort of weird - it looked like a pancake, but tasted almost like a mall pretzel - buttery and salty (having been cooked in salted butter).  I mean, it tasted fine, and wasn't too dense, but my brain kept expecting pancake.

Songs for War!

Marching Songs

To War!: Easy to make up verses as you go.

Storvik, Bloody Storvik: New for Pennsic 44! Call and response. You can also bend anything that scans like "Mama, Mama, Can't You See" into the verses to add more.

War Songs

Fighting Like Gods: For the heavies

Fangs of the Serpent: For the fencers

Go Ahead and Run: For the archers

To War!

An older marching song I wrote in... 2008? 2009? But I don't see it on the Original Work page, so here.  Podcast tonight.

It is the deadest of dead-simple songs.  There is a one-line chorus, and a series of one-line verses.  Verses don't have rhyme.  Scansion is extremely fudgeable.  The idea is that anyone, including the fighters themselves, can make up roughly six syllables and call it a verse.  Obviously, put your group's name where GroupName appears. If I can fit "Atlantia" into a space originally designed for "Storvik," so can you.

Chorus:
To war! To war! GroupName goes to war!

Verse:
"Put some words down right here!" GroupName goes to war!

The verse filling can be threatening:

Killing all before us!
Swords are at the ready!
Fear the mighty GroupName!

It can give voice to common complaints:

My armor's really stinky!
I can't see in this helmet!
Wow, I'm so hungover!

It can be chivalrous:

Fight for home and honor!
Inspire all who see us!
Fair and valiant blades!

It can be for groups besides heavy fighters:

Arrows flying true!
Make way for the baron!
Fencers strike with honor!

And it can be blue:

The sheep are getting nervous!  (Sung by His Majesty of Atlantia at Highland River Melees, I kid you not.)

 

Storvik, Bloody Storvik

A marching song for Pennsic War 44.  I'll try to record it tonight.

Song Leader sings 1st and 3rd lines each verse; all respond on lines 2 and 4.  Can repeat chorus after each verse as well.

Chorus:
Storvik, bloody Storvik
Fears no doom nor death!

Longships sailing out to sea
Storvik, bloody Storvik
See them coming, turn and flee
Fears no doom nor death!

Ashen spears close at hand
Storvik, bloody Storvik
Marching o'er the war-torn land
Fears no doom nor death!

Allies grin and foemen fear
Storvik's blades are coming near

War-cries loud in air do ring
Fighting for Atlantia's king

We fought like gods at last year's war
We'll do again in 44

Storvik comes with sword and fire
Light the foeman's fun'ral pyre

Pyres light the midnight land
Destruction lies behind our band

Folk of Storvik, fighting strong
Enemies shall not stand long

...and on, and on, and on it could go.

With some rhythmic massage, anything that fits "Mama, Mama" can be used as well.  ...we had a bunch of those with Atlantian words.  Wonder if they're on my HD at home?

 

Pattens

Pennsic is going to be muddy this year.  I had been thinking about buying Dutch wooden clogs, but wasn't sure if I wanted to try them out for fit at War.  Then maybe pattens... but nobody seems to sell pattens.  I sighed and decided to pack my snowboots.

Then! Our awesome chatelaine Grazia announced a patten-making workshop at her house yesterday!  Whoa, just what I was looking for!

Pattens on shoes

As far as I know, the earliest pattens are well after my usual period.  But I don't know of any Anglo-Saxon mud shoes, so here we go.

Grazia and her husband have a fantastic woodshop in a shed.  We traced our shoes onto poplar boards that we brought, then cut them out with a jigsaw.  Label your feet!  Next, we used a table saw to cut four 2.5" chunks off our board.  These went under-ish the ball and heel of the foot - the idea is that when you roll your weight, the toe or heel of the patten has room to dip forward.  Once they were in place, we marked where on the sole they were positioned, and also the edges of the sole on the blank.

Next step was to use a router to cut the curve seen on patten feet.  In period, I think this whole thing would have been carved from a single block.  Grazia's book says that alder was the preferred wood, and poplar is a kind of alder.

Curved patten 'feet.' Also, leather straps secured with carpet tacks.

Back to the jigsaw to cut the 'feet' to the shape of the sole.  Use a file to neaten up all the cut edges, then back to the house for leatherworking.

We cut wide straps for the toe, two support straps for the ankle strap, and an ankle strap.  The only buckles I could find were small, so my ankle strap is fairly dainty.  I had quite an afternoon of follies, attaching one strap upside down, riveting various things inside-out, and splitting the wood of the sole - the poplar really didn't like the carpet tacks, and really, REALLY didn't like the carpet tacks placed close together.

A carpet tack splits the sole of the patten

Finally, a combination of wood screws and wood glue to secure the feet to the sole.  Screw from the sole, into the feet.

One finished patten

Yay!

I think I will still pack my snow boots - I have been hearing tales of mud up to the ankle, which these will not help with.  But if it's just somewhat muddy, then these ought to be a great, period solution to keeping my toes dry(er).

Charcoal-Baked Bread

The third step in the bread saga!

My father sent me "Dutch Oven Baking," a cookbook, for my birthday.  From it, I got the number of coals to put over and under my oven.  (10-12 on the bottom, 30 on top to preheat; 10 on the bottom, 20 on top to cook.)  Preheat was just 10 min, baking 30 min.  

My sister was down to visit for the weekend, and she helped me with the setup and oven-wrangling.  Two people really made it easier - all the coal-shifting was more fiddly than "pop it into the oven."  Longer tongs would also be useful - that gets hot!

The outcome was much like the last bread - beautiful, tasty, slightly underdone.  Except the bottom was badly burned, and some of it stuck to the bottom of the oven.  No real surprise there, "the upper crust" and so forth.

But it really burned.  The previous two loaves popped out of the pan with no problems.  I had to tear this one out, and then get the char out.  I have boiled it, scraped it, scoured it with salt, and there is still char sticking to the bottom of the oven.  My next move is sandpaper.

That is way more clean-up effort than I am willing to do, on a semi-daily basis, in the field.  My next step plan is to find a 10" aluminum pie or cake pan, set it up on aluminum foil balls in the oven, and see how that goes.

AOI

In "The Song of Roland," after many (but not all) of the laisses, there comes a puzzling marking: AOI. I've seen it explained in several ways, out there on the Internets:

1. An exclamation like the joyful medieval "Eya!", although (given the number of different emotional contexts it occurs in) I would think it would have to be something like our modern "Oh!" which takes on many meanings depending on inflection.
2. A mistaken writing of "Am", short for "Amen." 
3. A notional relating to music.
4. A notation relating to performance (e.g., perform only the AOI laisses for a slightly shorter performance).
5. An exhortation to the audience to "Listen!"
6. A copyist's mark noting which laisses came from a version considered canonical by the copyist, and which came from other versions.

I have one more possibility to add.

If you sing "AOI" as "aou-EEE," on a rising fifth, it sounds very much like a horn.  You know, like the most famous medieval fictional horn, which features exactly in this chanson.

I think this ranks as more plausible than someone mis-spelling "Amen" dozens of times, but not as plausible as a copyist's or performer's notation. 

Roland for BotB

The theme for Battle on the Bay 2015 is "Normans," so I started poking around for a good verse translation of "The Song of Roland."  My copy from college is nice, and even poetic, but the poetry is free verse-like.

The first one I came across was this new translation, which comes in "normal edition" and "performance edition" - with the text broken up by speaker, for multi-person staging.  I looked at the Kindle previews and it seemed okay.  But in the course of looking for some reviews of it, I came across a mention of the poetic edition that preceded it.

Dorothy Sayers, it turns out, before inventing Lord Peter Whimsey, had an advanced degree in Old French.  And her verse translation of "The Song of Roland" is the Penguin Classics edition!  Some reviewer dinged it for the archaic terms she uses on occasion.  Now, I don't have any problem with "bliaut," but I admit that using "County" instead of "Count" (e.g., County Roland) threw me.  But you know what? That's readily fixed by changing "County" back to "Count."  It may throw off the syllable count of the line, but since there's no fixed meter, the audience will never know.

I've taken laisses 128 - 138 and edited them way down, to about 780 words.  (My 10-min "Beowulf" is 830 words, so this should be a reasonable length. We'll see how it goes as I rehearse it.)  "Roland" uses a lot of repetition as an emphasis device, so I cut a good deal of that out (but not all of it).  I edited out other references that didn't seem critical to get the word count down.

This part of the text is toward the end of the great battle, when all but 60 knights of France have fallen.  Roland asks Oliver how they can possibly inform Charlemagne of what's going on, and Oliver tells him off. (At the start of the battle, Oliver had suggested they signal the king, and now it's too late).  Archbishop Turpin reconciles them, and Roland blows Oliphant three times.  Each time, we cut away to Charlemagne, who hears it, but treacherous Ganelon downplays it.  Finally, another advisor tells Ganelon to cut the crap, and Charlemagne's troop (in a really scenic set of laisses) turns around and heads back - but they will not come in time! 

I am thinking harp accompaniment for this one - more appropriate for Norman era than the lyre.  A vielle would be the best, but I don't do bowed strings.  Maybe I'll try a tune to sing it to.  Something to work on at Pennsic!

Dutch Oven Bread: Second attempt

I changed three things: I used white flour, I only let the dough rise overnight, and I (very) lightly kneaded it - not much, but more than I did on the first loaf.

A lonely slice of bread

The crust was really hard and dense - you could make this into a bread bowl for soup, no problem.  It tasted good, like bread. It's dense, but not as dense as the wheat loaf was.  It did not survive very long.

I don't think it would slice well for sandwiches, but for anything else - this is awesome.  I will happily eat this at War, if I can make cooking it on coals work.  That's up next!