I got my friend Dave “A Feast of Fire and Ice”, the official cookbook based on George RR Martin’s “Game of Thrones” series, for his birthday. It’s got recipes for meals mentioned in the book, broken into categories based on the geographical areas of Westeros. They’re all well-researched medieval recipes, along with some modern variants. We decided we’d try making a meal based off some of the recipes this past weekend. This is probably the most ambitious I’ve gotten with cooking to date, and it was quite a learning experience.
First hurdle were a number of spices I’ve never heard of before. There were substitutes mentioned, but a after a bit of research I found that the substitutes weren’t nearly as flavorful or complex as the originals. Galangal, Grains of Paradise, Aleppo Pepper; along with some I’ve heard of but never used, like Saffron. Thank the old gods of the north for internet mail order.
Second learning experience is that bread really doesn’t like to be on the top rack of the oven. The dough made three round loaves, and they wouldn’t all fit on the middle rack, but we caught it before it was too far gone. Just the very top got burnt.
So, we made Crusty White Bread, Bean and Bacon Soup, Medieval Pork Pie, Iced Blueberries in Sweet Cream, and Mulled Wine. And damn, they were good. The sweet cream didn’t turn out as sweet as I thought it would, but the blueberries were sweet enough on their own. The medieval pork pie is sweet rather than savory, but very good (they also include a recipe for a modern pork pie that is savory). The bean and bacon soup was probably the best bean soup I’ve ever had, and even the bread was good despite the slightly burnt top. It took all day to prepare, but it was worth it.
I told Dave that when we got around to the recipes from Across the Narrow Sea, he was going to have to try the Honey Spiced Locusts.
