Winterstammtisch in Hamburg-Harburg

On December 20th (yes, we're going back in time a little but then that's normal for re-enactors), we went to Hamburg-Harburg for the annual Winterstammtisch. This time, 'we' was not just Schatz and I but also Kees, Danny, Marion and Janneke from Holland who drove up here for a long weekend. See also Kees' blog entry of December 23rd.

do they have cheese in Harburg?

As I mentioned before, history or rather re-enactment enthousiasts meet in Hamburg-Harburg once a month on a Friday evening for a meal, a drink and some merry-making.

Wall of rememberance in the FZ Nöldekestraße pub

And in December, around the Yul weekend, we meet for a lavish banquet.

Everybody shows up dressed in their finest garb - except for me, I still need a real party dress. I tried to bluff my way through with two dresses atop each other but it wasn't quite as grand as I had hoped. Maybe I'll do better next year.

As people entered, they put plates and bowls on the table, as well as some cutlery and drinking vessels, and slowly the table was set.

getting ready

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Michi was keeping an eye on things.

in the eye of the storm

Birgitt was lighting candles and providing everyone with drinks.

"there's a light, over at the FZ place..."

And we - well, we were milling about, admiring each others' dresses and discussing fashion throughout the millenia, and taking pictures.

milling and mixing and admiring

women across time

suffering from gout?
or just conspicuosly inconspicous checking out her camera's TFT screen?

Whereas in past years most participants 'came from' the Early and High Middle Ages, there were hardly any late Middle Agers around this year. Instead, we had a lady from the first century AD and a couple of folks from Napoleonic times. Most fascinating indeed!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Michi was still keeping an eye on things.

Michi developing the menu on the go

Slowly but surely we sat down and then the first course arrived, announced by the Chef himself.
Instead of going through all the details, with a picture for each dish, here's the menu.

the masterplan in runic inscriptions

For those of you who by now are totally confused, check out the Trutzhavener Feldküche website (for that's who Michi and Birgitt are) for the original menu in German, or read on for the menu in English.

- First Course

• melon and apple on a bed of rocket lettuce with a honey-ginger dressing spiced with parsley and mint
• small omelettes with salmon and dates
• pastries with a goat cheese, onion, parmesan and gingerbread filling, served on a bed of red beets with red wine and thyme
• slices of pork fillet, pickled with sugar, pepper and salt
• moretum
• whole rye-dinkel bread, wheat bread

- Second Course

• pork shoulder butt ragout with slices of cooked and raw pears
• fish fillet rolls with gingerbread and dille
• parsnip and pumpkin mousse
• sugarcrusted herbed curds (quark) with almond splinters

- Third Course

• smoked trout, filled with goat cheese, walnuts and honey
• veal saddle, marinated with gooseberries and poppyseeds and cooked at low temperature
• slices of eggs and orange in a peppery orange sauce
• grilled garlic gambas on a bed of roasted pork belly
• goat cheese baked in honey with an almond splinter crust

- Fourth Course

• small pancakes with apples and amarettini
• fruit bread with a sauce of spiced wine and marzipan

If you think you have gained weight by just reading this, try taking a look at the collage that Schatz put together:

Chef and his evil creations

We tried to eat slowly, we tried to enjoy every morsel, and we tried to talk to keep our thoughts from our slowly but surely filling stomachs while coveting our neighbour's bowl.

gimme gimme gimme!

No, I am not yet stuffed!

it's only a teensie weensie bit, honestly!

he: if I eat any more they will have to alter my tunic again! or:
she: if he eats any more, I will have to alter his tunic again!

I still am somewhat at a loss of words to describe this feast but our faces should say more than enough.

uhhhummm! fingerlickin' good!

purrrrr...

it's a ... food! a twin!
or: we may be able to eat again next year...

But all good things come to an end. Birgitt did some fast cleaning in the kitchen...

the gods be thanked for industrialization!

...and the rest of us cleared the tables.

all gone...

I will leave you with my two favourite pictures, one by Schatz:

seems to be fun to get your head chopped off by Robespierre

And the other one by Kees, from his set of photographs on Flickr (and his blog):

just before the breaking of bread

PS: if you have any complaints about pictures, those must be Schatzes! My pictures do not offend...

PPS: some may wonder what melons or oranges are doing at a 'medieval' banquet - but then nobody said it was an authentic copy but rather a mix of ingredients from various times and various parts of Europe.

Indonesian Rice Table

For some years now, Schatz and I have frequented the Mittelalter Stammtisch in Hamburg-Harburg. One Friday evening a month, people interested in the Middle Ages meet for a meal, a drink and, above all, a good chat. Mind you, we don't mind when Roman gladiators or Napoleonic soldiers stop by, or Larpers, for that matter. More about the Stammtisch in a week or so.

In addition, some of us meet one Sunday a month, for a "Nähtreff". We meet to sew. Or needlebind, or embroider, work on bones, wood or ... I think you get my drift. It's not exactly a Stitch 'n' Bitch session but it comes close (Schatz says bitching should come first in that term...). And we end the day with a meal from Michi's pots and pans. The guy from Trutzhavener Feldküche, you know, that I wrote about before.

Michi

Previously, Schatz and I cooked a pancake breakfast for the December Bitch 'n' Stitch, or made bagels or such. This year I felt the need to cook an Indonesian Rice Table for dinner. Which suited Michi and Birgitt just fine as they had a gamer group in the house from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning.

With 13 people to cook for, we had the opportunity to put together a real rice table and not just a handful of dishes. Here are some of the spices we brought along:

Sambal Manis, Sambal Udang, Surinamese Sambal, Javanese Sambal,
Sambal Brandis - and a few other spices...

And then there were other ingredients, such as spring roll skins, rice, Indonesian noodles, chilis (rawit, madam jeanette, lomboks etc.), ginger, kroepoek udang, rasped coconut and the like:

no no, I will not tell you what is in the brown plastic bag...

We started with cutting this - beef, fish, pork, chicken, tofu, and shrimps, to start with -, boiling that - eggs, for example - and marinating the rest.

The work bench

Good thing I brought my own commis chef!

In the meantime, while we were working hard and building up a sweat, Birgitt checked the action outside the kitchen where the others... you know... did sensible things:

Martina, Ute, Mara, Svenja, Britta, and Ilka (clockwise) or:
"Ze 'ens are in ze 'en'ouse" (this caption by Schatz)

In between supervising the commis and creating chaos in the kitchen otherwise, I went to entertain our friends with a little show interlude straight from Holland. Okay, 6 months too late, but that is nothing to medieval re-enactors...

The Dutch lion shows its tonsils...

The T-Shirt, by the way, is a leftover from last summer's European Championship. Football, of course. Or Soccer, if you insist. And with all those layers in front, it protects you well against mishaps in the kitchen!

Anyway, we went on cooking, and then cooked some more, and then - more!

Here's the menu (especially for Ute):

• Beef Rendang
• Saté (Chicken, Fish and Shrimp)
• Babi Pangang
• Ikan Boemboe Bali
• Ayam Roedjak
• Sambal Goreng Telor
• Loempia
• Gado Gado
• Dadar Isi
• Pisang Goreng
• Tumis Buncis (with little to no coconut milk!)
• Sambal Goreng Perai
• Sambal Goreng Tofu and Soy Bean Sprouts
• Seroendeng from coconut rasps, kroepoek, miniature french fries, roast onions
• Atjar Tjampoer
• Peanut Butter Sauce
• White Rice
• Bami Goreng

Babi Pangang, Sambal Goreng Perai, Ayam Roedjak,
Bami Goreng, Saté, Beef Rendang,
Seroendeng, Pisang Goreng, Gado Gado

As Birgitt put it "you spend 6 hours in the kitchen and they eat it all in 15 minutes."

before...

Well, it took them closer to 45 minutes... and they were STUFFED afterwards. Except for Arto, who still managed to eat a whole box of ice cream. Serves us right for not putting any dessert on the table!

and after - or:
Stuffed like turkeys on Thanksgiving...(this caption by Schatz)

For recipes, I can recommend Kokkie Blanda´s Indonesian Recipes (Dutch and English) and the Indochef. And if you do not want to mix all the various boemboes yourself (as we did), there are good ready mixes to be had in your local Indonesian toko!

PS: Nils, Gisela and Arto were there, too, and of course Birgitt, but only a "slice" of Nils survived on one of the photos. Better luck next time!

PPS: thanks to Birgitt for taking most of the pictures, and to Schatz for the gimp-magic. And the captions.

Convenience Loo and Viking Tux

Last weekend, Schatz and I went to the Kreismuseum in Syke near Bremen for a weekend Viking craftsmarket. A group of about 25 re-enactors had been put together by Lutz from the Hacheschmiede. Crafts shown included smithing, bow- and arrow-making, working with bone and antler, turning wooden bowls on a lathe, filting, card weaving silk braids with silver wire brocading, turnshoe-making, silver smithing, pottery, and last but not least, sewing, needlebinding and spinning.

When Schatz and I arrived on Friday evening during a major downpour, most other people were already there and had put up their tents. Unfortunately, the space allocated to us was not only wet but rather under water and quite muddy - and on top of that we weren't quite sure whether it was big enough. And you don't want to drag your tent about in the mud this way or that in the dark to be absolutely certain you cannot fit it in.

Fortunately, Lutz still has a flat in the same town and so we bedded down in his guestroom for the night, hoping the weather would be better the next morning. Lutz is moving to another city and so his flat is rather empty but fortunately he has not yet dismantled his loo corner.

Convenience Loo with built-in beaker holder and reading table

With a maximum load capacity of 500 kg, the reading table is perfect to hold heavy exhibition catalogues, smith hammers or possibly even anvils. A must for any smith!

Just prior to leaving the museum grounds on Friday night, we had spotted the perfect place for our tent, though: right among a few 18th and 19th century gravestones, underneath some majestic trees with extremely good foliage... had we discovered this place when we arrived, the tent would have been up in no time. On the other hand, we would have missed the Lutz' loo then.

(c) Syke Kreismuseum

Anyway, the next morning we set up our tent in the 'graveyard' (top left, between the children's museum and the vegetable patch) at 8 am, while the space originally reserved for us was taken up by two ladies whose matrasses had already submerged the night before in a little brook that had formed underneath their Viking tent. The joys of roughing it!

Torsten was roughing it, too. We discovered that his second 'good' shoe had somehow not made it to Syke and so he had to wear his worn-out Iron Age shoes with major holes in their soles. Since I had packed the shoes and not discovered the shoe's absence, I did penance by doing all the outdoor walking (and fetching) while he kept his feet dry and warm on a few pieces of wood underneath his workbench.

Even though it was still raining some, we managed rather well under the trees, and the audience quite appreciated the reprieve from the rain and mud there as well. A good 250 people actually did show up despite the cold and the drizzle. Real die-hards, hats off to you!

In the meantime, Birgitt and Michi from the Trutzhavener Feldküche worked hard to prepare the banquet which we were to enjoy on Saturday night.

The banquet was exquisite as always. The food was medieval - with a bit of Roman thrown in for good measure.

Michi is happy when we are

Some excerpts from the menu:

- chicken fillet rolls with apple
- pork carpaccio with dill and chives
- moretum
- hare and rabbit stew with coarsely ground pepper and coriander
- grilled salmon on a bed of red cabbage with ginger and mustard
- leg of moufflon with apples, sauted with tarragon and parsley
- smoked pork roast with Swiss Chard (or Mangold) and gooseberries
- plum compote with a trace of black pepper
- wheat pudding

Leg of Moufflon! Bones! Moufflon leg bone! Schatz' eyes lit up but Susanne was closer. And faster!

Susanne and the Moufflon Bone Whistle

And once she had gotten hold of the bone - under the pretense of helping Timm with carving the meat - there was no way she would let go of it again. The twinkle in her eyes did not leave any space for doubt about who our bone and antler worker was at the market.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next day brought better weather and more than eleven hundred visitors. Schatz' dad and his aunt and uncle also came to visit and he showed them around while I demonstrated needlebinding, silver wire braiding the Vikingestrik, polished brass and bronze wire beads and explained and answered questions until my lips started to fray a little at the edges.

A little later, I was able to briefly visit the museum's permanent exhibition. If you are in the area, and like to be taken back not only to your own childhood but a bit further, do pay the museum a visit, it is most delightful. Their collection focuses on 19th and 20th century crafts, agriculture and household activities but there is also a typical 1930's classroom and a historical exhibition about the history of the area, including finds from as early as the Stone Age and right through to the Middle Ages.

Until the end of August 2008, the Kreismuseum is host to a special exhibition of quilts, under the motto "Man and Sea". Dutch and German quilters have put together an extraordinary collection that left me speechless. And without pictures of my own! Fortunately, some of the quilts can be found on the net...

One of my favourites is called Aquamarine Window by Miriam Pet-Jacobs. "Silence under water. You can open your mouth but no sound emerges. You are cocooned, as it were. Through a window you catch a glimpse of the chaotic world", she describes it. Another quilt that really caught my eye is by the same artist and is called Rhythm I. This two-sided quilt is made as a tripticon and somewhat wasted on a wall...

By 5 pm, when the museum officially closed its gates for the audience, we were worn out. The audience in Syke was just as curious as the last two times, not just asking questions but listening to replies and then asking some more... a big applause to all those who visited!

It was time to pack up and go home. When we took the tent down and lifted the ground sheet, we discovered that the voles in this part of the museum had not lazed about during the weekend: they had tunneled a penthouse addition to their extensive tunnel system right underneath our tent. Unfortunately, the cameras were already packed in our chests. And it was only when we arrived at home that we noticed that neither Schatz nor I had taken a picture of our little tent in the 'graveyard'. Wadda mistaka to maka!

At home, we also found the missing shoe in Torsten's car where it had been hiding between the backseat and the side wall since our return from Ribe a few weeks ago...

While carrying several heavy chests upstairs, we lamented the photographs we hadn't taken, the ones that didn't come out (Birgitt and Michi in their director's chairs supervising the food in the barn cooking itself), and the captions we never got to write about graveyards or voles or cooks. Until we unpacked some of the items we had acquired in Syke, that's when we started grinning broadly:

Tux goes Viking

The egg cozies are made by Anja Stolzmann from Dat Beekfolk. She made Tux from a picture we had given her, and the result is most amazing. The helmet is an egg cozy itself, of course. I'm not supposed to eat a lot of eggs but at least I'll do it in style from now on! The tux, by the way, is for a friend's birthday: kill that lobster, Jan!