Tomas de Courcy

Tart of Prunes

3.
This was done for the A&S competition at Lionsdale Champions in June 2009.  The competition was “Rhymes with June”.  My lady Kayleigh deLeis and I did this together.  We won the competition.

Recipe

Original source

The recipe we chose was from A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye which was published in 1557 in England.  It is for a dessert tart made with prunes.  We found a second source in The Good Huswifes Jewell, published in 1596 in England which we used to add a bit of spice to our adaptation.

To make short paest for tarte.
Take fyne floure and a cursey of
fayre water and a dysche of swete butter and
a lyttel saffron, and the yolckes of two egges
and make it thynne and as tender as ye
maye.

To make a tarte of Prunes.
Take prunes and set them upon a chafer
wyth a little red wyne and putte therto a
manshet and let them boyle together, then
drawe them thorowe a streyner with the
yolkes of foure egges and season it up wyth
suger and so bake it.
(Frere)

To make Tarte of Prunes.
Put your prunes into a pot, and put in
red wine or claret wine and a little faire,
water, and stirre them now and then, and
when they be boyled enough, put them into
a bowle, and straine them with sugar, synamon
and ginger.
(The Good Huswifes Jewell)

Modern Translation

By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Preserved Venison and Salmon

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2.

In June of 2009 my lady and I entered the Sealion War A&S competition.  The theme was “War Rations”.  We salted venison and salmon, then baked the salmon into a pie and grilled the venison.  I’ll be giving snippets from the documentation here and attaching the full documentation at the end.

Introduction

Competition

In war, the need to keep your troops well fed is an important necessity, but the long distances travelled to each battle requires some careful preservation and selections of such foods. As such the science points will be the best representation of period war rations. Points will be awarded to the rations that provides the best balance of nutrition/energy, best execution, and best documentation.

Supply Train

The supply train seems to have been a key part of medieval armies. The failure to cut off the English supply train during the siege of Orleans in 1429 for example nearly cost the French the city, and without aid from Jeanne d’Arc it would have (Kibler and Zinn). In the 13th century supply trains were so vital to the function of an army that Florence had a special guard unit simply to protect it (Nicolle and McBride). For this reason we have decided to focus ourselves on things that may have been carried in a supply train and cooked along the way.

Brief Outline

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

A&S 50

I’ve decided to try my hand at the A&S 50 Challenge.  For some background, here is a letter explaining the concept:

(The following is a letter Albreda wrote to introduce the concept behind the Challenge back in July of AS 42.)

Unto all good gentles of the Known World does Lady Albreda Aylese send greetings!

The Society for Creative Anachronism celebrates its 50th year on May 1, 2015, and that will be cause for much celebration.  I am starting early, and I hereby invite you to join the party!

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

April 29

I had a very fun practice the other day.  We did some high energy warmups, the glove game, which was very good for situational awareness, hand speed, and foot movement.  Then we did a bearpit to let the new fighters see how we fight in tournament.  To give them all Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Practice and Eddies

Had a great time at practice.  We did some running and high energy exercises.  There were a number of new fighters there.  I got to do some slow work with Giuame, and that was very good for helping me settle some actions, like fighting close.  Then I got to work Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, ago

A New Page

Greetings; I decided that now would be a good time for me to re-do my SCA website.  The previous one was in html, and fairly basic html at that.  Instead of redoing the site in html I figured I might as well switch platforms.  So here it is, my new Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Aquaterra Champions

Had a great tourney on Saturday.  I drove down with my Lady and Theign Oak.  We got through the border without issues and made it to the event just a bit before court, with enough time to get parked and set up and all.  We came forward to kneel and say that we would fulfill the duties of a champion if we succeeded.  After that we had the rest of the morning off, as the tourney was scheduled for one in the afternoon.

The event was outdoors with a few things in small halls.  And it was freezing.  Very freezing.  It tried to snow once.  So we spent most of the morning inside halls either watching the A&S or the Bardic competition and trying to stay warm.  Around noon Oak and I began practicing a little, and trying out the baton and cloak, as both were likely to come up in the competition, and Oak didn’t have much practice with either.

After lunch we armoured up and began practicing.  We got some fights in with some of the local dons and they gave us some good pointers, then we got ready for the procession.  We had the procession and setup for the tourney.  There were six entrants.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Gearing up

I’m off to Aquaterra’s All Champions event this weekend.  It looks like an interesting event.  You had to apply to compete, and you must have heraldry present with you.  It’s a challenge tourney.  Odd format though. One person challenges another to a number of fights.  The challenged party chooses the Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, ago