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Alfarhaugr Publishing Society, Inc., Published 1988. Wraps, 101 pp.; 28 cm; plastic comb binding; printing record at foot of the readers' page reads "5-88: 100c. / 2-89: 100c.", two runs of one hundred copies; illustrated with strawberry and forget-me-not decorative borders on every page and black-and-white filler cuts; index.
In Very Good condition. Cream paper covers printed in black, front cover with a ruled panel enclosing a woodcut of an open-air field kitchen, cauldrons slung from an iron bar beneath a canopy, Italian manuscript captions in the plate. Mild shelf and edge wear, circular sticker residue at lower corner of front cover. Comb binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Anthology drawn from the first eleven issues of A Watched Pot, the quarterly of the Guild of the Black Kettle of the Kingdom of An Tir in the Society for Creative Anachronism: Vol. I nos. 1-5, Autumn 1982 to Autumn 1983; Vol. II nos. 1-4, Winter to Autumn 1984; Vol. III nos. 1-2, Winter to Spring 1985. The readers' page states that it is not an official Society publication and in no way delineates policy, and that the volume was assembled to put the guild's material in front of the wider populace. Editing and layout by Yseult of Broceliande, since Baroness of Adiantum and a Laurel, with proofreading by Reginleif the Unruly; strawberry borders by Janet of Arden, adapted for this issue from the Hours of Peter II, Duke of Brittany, mid fifteenth century. Filler cuts are taken from Bartolomeo Scappi's Opera o Epulario, Venice 1570, by way of the 1974 Gastronomia de Rinascimento edited by Luigi Firpo. A second volume followed in 1991; this copy carries no volume designation. Feasts and tourneys: Fit For Kings, a chronicle with diagrams of the ducal feast given for Sir Steingrim Stallari at West Kingdom Twelfth Night A.S. XVI, recording a twenty-seven pound roast piglet, gilded walnuts with hand-painted shells and an inedible sugar castle with a wire-and-newspaper dragon; A Lions Gate Baronial Banquet Chronicled; Dinner, or A Peacock Recalled; Games and Feasts; A Feast for Gude Folk, Celtic Ithra I; Tourney Food, Coping with Camp Cookery; Tourney Foods and Hypoglycemics; Cooking Without Salt, Low Sodium Diets; The Care and Feeding of Quality Kitchen Knives. Foods: Introduction to Middle Eastern Cooking; cookery competition reports on flower cookery, fruits of the season, flavored vinegar and preserved fruits and vegetables; Flower Cookery, The Calendula; Basic Fruit and Herb Vinegars; Medieval Fresh Winter Vegetables; Considering the Herb Mint and Its Family; The Herb Saffron Accompanied by Divers Recipes; A History and Glossary of Ancient and Medieval Herbs. Beverages: Wine in the Middle Ages, An Introduction for the Period Palate; Mulling Over the Adulteration of Wines; A Taste of Medieval Wines; Ale and Beer, Who is Who and Does it Matter; A Tale of Wassail; On the Making of Sake; The Making of Apple Wine; The Making of Mead. Books: On The Bookshelf, fifty-one signed reviews of cookery books for the Current Middle Ages by Asahla Telerion and Aishah bint-al-Sakr. Index of recipes, menus and subtleties at rear.