Saw this message come across today and thought I would share it here:

Greetings unto the Known World from Lady Margherita Battistina, Dean of the Pennsic School of European Dance!

The magnificent and longstanding Pennsic Grand Ball will be changing this year, based upon your input and votes from last fall’s survey. Therefore, to give everyone fair opportunity to practice their dancing and prepare their clothing, we are announcing these changes early and widespread. I apologize to all who will see many duplicates of this message.

First, be it known that the Grand Ball of Pennsic 43 will be a masked ball. Don your finest clothing and a lovely mask and join us for a night of decadence, disguise and dancing (masks not required). To top it all off, there will be a prize for the attendee who best displays kingdom heraldry in your clothing.

Second, be it known that the Grand Ball is moving... in day and in location. Based on your votes, the Grand Ball will be on the second Monday of war, this year the fourth day of August. In addition, the Grand Ball will be held in our Dance Pavilion, within the University complex (no more concrete floor!).

Third, be it known that the set list has been decreed as follows:
Set 1: Gathering Peascods, Montarde Branle, Bizzaria d'Amore, Petit Vriens, Hide Park, Petit Rose, Official Branle, Contrapasso, a Pavan & Galliard
Set 2: Black Alman, Villanella, Hearts Ease, Rufty Tufty, Gelosia, Pease Branle, Chirantana, Goddesses, Piva
Set 3: Ly Bens, Gracca Amorosa, Horses’ Branle, Rostiboli, Parsons Farewell, Madam Cecilia Alman, Amoroso, Whirligig, Cassandra Branle, Charlotte Branle
Set 4: New Boe Peep, La Castellana, Jenny Pluck Pears, Anello, Lorayne Alman, Upon a Summer's Day, Washerwomans Branle, Saltarello

May you find joy in every step!
Margherita

To add to my collection I now have the book covering animal bones, textiles and textile equipment from Ribe!

Eventually I want to own (or ILL/scan) all of the books covering the major Viking settlements.  My current stash is pretty impressive and eventually will all be added to Mendeley so I can churn out a full list of my resources.  (Who knew that it would be THAT much work to pull together???)

It has been announced that registration for Pennsic University will open on February 1st.  Get you class descriptions ready!

http://thing.pennsicuniversity.org/

Because I enjoy pushing myself, I decided that my fourth weaving project would be fabric for a Norse aprondress.  This garment has become a ubiquitous Viking dress within the SCA.  Given that the garment is simple to make, comfortable in any weather (depending on materials) and flattering on most figures, it is no surprise that its popularity seems to grow each year.  I have made many such garments, and have even hand sewn and hand embellished several and was very much intrigued by the idea of weaving the fabric for one.

Because twills, of various sorts, were more common than tabby (plain) weave in Scandinavian finds of wool from the Viking Era (Welander, et al. 167-168), I chose a broken diamond twill weave structure from Birka that was common throughout the Viking world.

For yarn, I wanted to use singles as that was what was most commonly used in extant examples for garments. Singles are unfortunately not easy to find in the fine yarn I envisioned for the project.  I was got lucky enough, however, to have a friend gift me a very large cone of very fine weaving wool that was single ply (aprox. 20/1, maybe 24/1).  The color was a very pale green so I tried to purchase a similar color in the commercially available Borgs Faro yarn (6/1).  The color match was not as close as I had hoped for, but the two look nice together in the final fabric.  Note that many of the woolen twills available to reenactors have lovely contrasting colors in the warp and weft, but because this practice was uncommon in period, I did the best I could to use colors that were close in hue and value.

Even though the the base color was chosen for me, I also made sure that the color was attainable with period dyes.  Both Penelope Walton Rogers and Jenny Dean have demonstrated that there were yellows and blues  (weld, dyers broom and 'yellow x' for yellow and woad for blue) available in period and I know the two can be used together in an over dying process that allows for a range of greens. (Walton - Dyes, Dean)

In addition to my desire to use singles, I also knew that I wanted to reflect the disparity that was often seen in grist of the warp and weft yarns.  A thicker weft, as is common in Viking finds, allows the weaving to progress more quickly and allows one to use both a strong, fine, strong warp and a more softly woven weft (for added warmth as woolen style spinning allows air to be trapped in the fibers and offer more insulation).

In the end, I did opt to use the Faro yarn as the warp, rather then the weft (though the weaving would have gone quicker the other way) as the yarn that I was gifted had passed through several hands and I suspect that it is quite old.  I did not want to risk warping with that and discovering that it would start to fray or break.

I wound my warp on onto a warping board, chained it (in bundles of 60 threads) and transferred it to the loom when all 800 warp threads were ready.

There were two probable types of looms for fabric weaving available to the Viking-era Norse.  The first was a warp-weighted loom and the second a two-beam vertical loom.  The former is considered the most common given the number of loom weights that have been discovered at various Viking era sites.  Norway specifically has more discoveries of loomweights than any other country (dating from pre-history until the 16th century).  (Hoffman, 20)

Because I do not have a full-scale warp-weighted loom (see my article on this blog about my table-top version if you want to know more about these looms), I wove the fabric on my Oxaback Lilla countermarche loom.

I used four shafts on the loom and had a total of 800 heddles resulting in 20 epi for the warp.  My weft wove in at 32-34 ppi.  This, I feel, is about the low-middle end of the range for thread count in period grave burials.  There are extant examples of wool that can have a thread count of over 100 threads-per-inch in one system.   (Christensen and Nockert, p177-182). 

Below you can see the fabric on the loom and a detailed shot of the early stages of the weaving.

I experienced several issues during my weaving, most of which were due to inexperience.   The first problem that arose happened each time I would advance the warp.  The Faro yarn was exceptionally “sticky” wool that did not want to release and glide over the lease sticks.   I found that inserting a pick-up stick and lifting the top layer of warp (every other thread) helped me to advance the thread properly with no breaks.  And speaking of breaks, I had four threads break during the course of the weaving and learned how to repair the breaks but tying in new warp threads that were suspended from the back beam with metal clips as weights.  I also have one spot where I lost my place in the pattern.  The thread was too fine and too sticky to undo the six rows without risking breaks so I left the weaving error as it was.

The other major issue I had was with tension along the right hand side of the loom.  I adjusted it several times as I went by slipping folded paper into the warp, but the final fabric had a ripple to that edge because of that issue.

After the weaving was complete, I cut the fabric from the loom and wet-finished it in warm water and then pressed it with an iron.  I did not use exceptionally hot water, nor did I agitate it, as I did not want to start the fulling process as fulling did not become common until after the Viking age. (Walton - Coppergate, p 94)

My final fabric was by no means perfect, but I learned a great deal throughout the process and am happy to have, at last, woven my own fabric for a garment.

Unfortunately, history gives us little with which to work when it comes to this particular article of clothing.  Archeological finds have left us only minute scraps of textile, often only in the form of loops, attached to the backs of brooches (which helped preserve them).  Because of the loops and layered fragments behind these pieces of metal, we know that clothing in period was often worn in layers. (Thunem; Hägg).  In addition to the textile remnants, bits of tapestry depicting human figures and from art such as the silver figurines from the 9th and 10th centuries also suggest costumes with multiple layers.  We also know that many women across the time/places where the Vikings lived were often buried with a pair of brooches at their shoulders.  (Hägg; Geijer)

The loops preserved within the brooches suggest they held up a garment (or garments), rather than than having a garment pinned through a solid piece of fabric (though it is possible that earlier in history -or even during the Viking Era in Finland- that these brooches fastened a peplos style garment - the possible predecessor of the hangerock).   Often brooches, such as one set found in Birka, as well as those from a Scandinavian woman buried in South Yorkshire, have a pair of loops on each brooch, one at the lower end of the pin, and one at the top.  (Speed and Walton, 76)  Sometimes there were multiple sets of loops, which could be evidence of a wrapped garment or of cords that suspended tools from the brooches.

Beyond the preserved loops and small textile fragments, the only large historic remnant we have of what is believed to be a tailored apron dress is from Haithabu Harbor (dated to the late 10th century).  Beyond the Haithabu fragment, there are and two pieces of dresses from Pskov and Kostrup - but neither show any evidence of being a fitted garment - and there are very small pieces from other finds such as that in Birka (dated to the 10th century). (Thunem)  The fabric from Haithabu is cut and pieced in a manner that suggests it was fitted to the wearer's figure, and has the addition of vertical darts that would allow for further tailoring. 

As the Haithabu pattern piece is one of the more complete pieces (allowing one to extrapolate construction theory), I often use this as a starting point for my recreations of this garment.

In an effort to explore some of the speculations regarding the constructions of the Haithabu dress, I have experimented with a variety of pattern shapes. My reasoning for not always recreating what exactly I felt this dress looked like is that there was more than one manner of cutting a tunic in period, and likely, there was more than one manner of cutting the elusive apron dress as well.  Further, there is so little we know about the Haithabu fabric in terms of placement, number of pieces, and additional pattern pieces that even the typical representations of the garment are based largely on speculation.

I prefer aprondresses that have simple cuts that make excellent use of fabric with minimal waste.  Additionally, I try to use pieces and shapes that can be arranged in a manner that makes best use of the wide fabric one could weave on a wide warp-weighted loom. (Fabric on these looms could be as much as 2 ells - or 90 inches wide – during the Viking Age). (Simpson 63) 

Aside from the Haithabu dress remnant, there are also what appear to be seams on two separate textile fragments of apron dresses from the Birka grave finds.  Some recreationists have made the assumption that these are side seams.  Depending on the size of the wearer, this is possible, though it is just as likely that  because the seams are placed not far from the brooch, closer to the front of the garment, they might actually mark the edges of a center front panel rather than the sides of the garments.  I recreate garments based on both theories.

For this particular garment, I have chosen a cutting diagram that involves very minimal waste as I believe that during the Viking era that would have been a of exceptional importance.  When using the cutting diagram below, the dress is cut from minimal fabric with very little waste.  Because of several weaving errors, however, I chose to use the same shapes, but arrange the cutting differently to allow me to make best use of the better portions of my fabric.

For my sewing thread, I chose to use the remaining weft yarn from my weaving project.  On seams that will have no stress, and for overcasting the edges to prevent fraying, I used the yarn as-is.  For the body, I over spun the yarn (Z direction) using a spinning wheel and then S-plied it. 2-ply is an appropriate choice as it was one type of thread used in the Viborg shirt.  (Fentz)

The stitch types I chose were all present in various archeological finds.  I overcast the edges of the fabric with a whipstitch to prevent fraying.  A running stitch was employed to fold the edges of each cut panel. The joining seam is a butted seam, completed in small overcast stitches placed close together.  These seams can be stress points and I prefer them stronger than the stitches I used for the folded edges mentioned above. The double fold hems are completed with a running stitch.  (Baker)

For Pennsic 41 I completed a handsewn aprondress in a red wool twill.  Information (that varies from the garment above) is included below.

My cutting diagram for this dress is based heavily on finds from Birka, and the spacing between the brooches and seams.  This makes the idea of a dress constructed of four panels quite conceivable.

Materials:

Below, I present to you a list of materials used in my recreation of an apron dress.  With each item is the rationale for that specific choice.

The fabric is a modern machine-woven Shetland wool.

The weave is a 2/2 twill.  Examples of this can be found from Scandinavia to the British Isles. (Walton - Coppergate 1749; Christensen and Nockert 177-182)  Twills, of various sorts, were more common than tabby (plain) weave in Scandinavian finds from the Viking Era.  (Welander, et al. 167-168)

While it is certainly possible to find nice twills, both diamond twills and herringbone fabrics today are hard to come by, tend to be expensive and often have the warp and weft in different colors allowing the pattern to be more visible.  This practice of multiple colors in a weave, however, was not overly common in period textiles I have seen or researched.  Based on all of this, I chose a common period weave that I could readily get in a monochromatic fabric at reasonable cost.

On my fabric, there are approximately 25 ends per inch on both the warp and the weft. This falls within the low end of the range for the textiles from the Oseberg ship, as well as other finds (Christensen and Nockert 177-182).  Anne-Stine Ingstad noted that typical of Viking era fabrics to have a higher thread count (and finer fibre) for the warp than the weft.  Unfortunately, this is not something you can commonly find in mass-produced fabrics today.

The color for this dress is a brilliant red.  When selecting my fabric I took care to look for a color that would have existed in the Viking Era and that had been available to the Scandinavian Vikings (whether by the fact that the dye stuffs were grown there, or could have been imported).  I chose a red because both madder and bedstraw were used to dye some of the garments/fragments from actual archeological sites (Walton - Dyes 14-20).

Jenny Dean, author of the book Wild Colour, has also studied dyes used by the Anglo-Saxons (contemporaries to the Vikings) and has experimented with the colors they yield.  All colors I used for the project were rendered in her experiments.

Stitching thread used for sewing the seams is a modern wool/acrylic thread used in tailoring wool suits.  I chose this primarily because I wanted something a bit stronger than the more loosely woven threads I purchased for the decorative stitching.  It is also stronger and easier to work with than the woolen threads I attempted to unweave from the garment fabric itself to use.  Wool, linen or silk thread could have been used in period.  (Jones).  The chosen thread is, however, 2-ply which was a period-appropriate choice as it was one type of thread used in the Viborg shirt.  (Fentz)

Decorative yarn used for seam finishing was left over from a tablet woven band I created that will later be applied to the dress.  For the weaving, I choose to work with a fine crewel wool produced by Renaissance Dyeing.  Their yarns are all hand dyed with fresh or dried plant materials and mordanted, when necessary, with alum (a mordant used in the Viking era). (Dean)  

The yellow yarn was dyed with weld, which was known in period, but note that yellow during the Viking age could also have come from other sources. The blue yarn was produced with indigo dye, though in period the blue would likely have been achieved with woad (a relative of indigo that grows throughout Scandinavia and the British Isles).  (Walton - Dyes)

Stitch types I chose were all present in various archeological finds.  I used a running stitch at the edges (which were folded in to prevent fraying) in the weld dyed crewel wool.  Had the fabric been more tightly woven or fulled, I would not have had to turn these edges under. (Baker)   The joining seam is a butted seam, completed in small overcast stitches placed close together.  These seams can be stress points and I prefer them stronger than the stitches I used for the folded edges mentioned above. (Baker)

The small, decorative Xs along the seams were made from the blue crewel wool left from the warp ends of my tablet weaving.  Spinning, dyeing and weaving were such labor-intensive endeavors in period that little would be left to waste, even scraps of thread less than a foot long.  It stands to reason that they could be used for decorative measures even if they are not long enough for another more practical purpose.  Seams are tied off at the ends as was proper for the period.  

The hems use a running stitch and are also completed in the weld dyed crewel wool.  The top hem, under the trim, is a single fold with running stitch and the bottom hem is a double fold with running stitch.  I opted to use a blanket/buttonhole, also used in period, stitch on the straps/loops because I wanted something a bit more decorative.  (Baker)   And overcast stitch was used to apply the trim.

Trim for the dress historically would have been either tablet-woven bands or imported silk samite strips.  Both were types of items found in the Oseberg ship burial and at other Norse gravesites.  (Christensen and Nockert 383-398; Larsson 182)  It is possible that small pieces of tablet-woven bands found near the brooches in graves might actually have been remnants of the tablet weaving used at the beginning of the process of creating fabric on a warp-weighted loom.  It is also entirely possible that woven bands were created specifically to decorate the top of an apron dress.  Without intact examples, we cannot know if either or both were options.   Note that the pattern I used here, as a tablet weaving novice it is the best example of a Scandinavian-style motif (even though I feel the yarn used may have been of an acceptable quality and weight). 

Baker, Jennifer. "Stitches and Seam Techniques." 2009.

Christensen, Arne Emil and Nockert, Margareta. Osebergfunnet: bind iv, Tekstilene (Universitetet i Oslo), 2006.

Fentz, Mytte. "An 11th Century Linen Shirt from Viborg." 1992.

http://forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Viborg/VIBORG.HTM

Geijer, Agnes.  Birka III, Die Textilefunde aus Den Grabern.  Uppsala,1938.

Hägg, Inga.  Die Textilefunde aus der Siedlung und us den Gräbern von Haithabu (Karl Wachlotz Verlag). 1991.

Harte, N.B. and Ponting, K.G.  Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe, (Heinemann Educational Books), 1984.

Hoffman, Marta. Warp Weighted Loom (Scandinavian University Press), 1975.

Jones, Heather Rose. "Archeological Sewing". 2004.  http://heatherrosejones.com/archaeologicalsewing/wool.html

Larsson, Annika. "Viking Age Textiles". The Viking World (Routledge), 2011.

McKenna, Nancy, Chairperson.  Medievaltextiles.org.

Simpson, Jacqueline.  Everyday Life in the Viking Age (Hippocrene Books), 1967.

Speed, Greg and Walton, Penelope. "A Burial of a VikingWoman at Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire". Journal of Medieval Archeology, Volume 48.  2004.  51-90.

Thunem, Hilde.  "Viking Women: Aprondress."  January 2011. <http://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html>

Walton, P. "Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate." The Archaeology of York Volume 17: The Small Finds.  1977.

Walton, P. "Dyes of the Viking Age: a summary of recent work." Dyes in History and Archaeology" (Papers Presented at the 7th Annual Meeting, York 1988), 1988. 14-20.

Welander, RDE, Bateyt, Colleen and Cowie, T.G. "A Viking burial from Kneep, Uig, Isle of Lewis," Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 1987. 149-174.

Andersonn, Eva. Tools for Textile Production from Birka and Hedeby (The Birka Project for Riksantikvarieambetet), 2003.

Beatson, Peter and Ferguson, Christobel. "Reconstructing a Viking Hanging Dress from Haithabu." 2008. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/hangerock/hangerock.htm

Carlson, Jennifer. "Sewing Stitches Used in Medieval Clothing". 2002. http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/cloth/stitches.htm

Dean, Jenny. Wild Color (Potter Craft), 2010.

Graham-Campbell, James. Viking Artefacts (British Museum Publications), 1980.

Hägg, Inga.  Die Textilefunde aus dem Hafen von Haithabu (Karl Wachlotz Verlag). 1984.

Hayeur-Smith, Michele. “Dressing the Dead: Gender, Identity, and Adornment in Viking-Age Iceland”, Vinland Revisited, the Norse World at the Turn of the First Millennium, 2003.

Ingstad, Anne Stein.  "The Textiles in the Oseberg Ship". http://forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Oseberg/textiles/TEXTILE.HTM 

Jesch, Judith. Women in the Viking Age (Boydell Press), 2005.

Jenkins, David. The Cambridge History of Western Textiles (Cambridge University Press), 2003.

Pritchard, Frances. “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin,” Archeological Textiles in Northern Europe (NEASAT 4), 1992.

Priest-Dorman, Carolyn.  "Colors, Dyestuffs, and Mordants of the Viking Age: An Introduction." 1999. http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/vikdyes.html

Skre, Dagfinn.  Things from the Town: Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-Age Kaupang (Aarhus University Press), 2011.

For those who have not see these already, a number of museums and archives are putting books and image collections online for free.  Some even give the rights to to use the images in research documents (always check the fine print to see what use is considered personal, research or commercial).  Many other museums have also taken to putting their collections online for browsing.  This is a great way for us to gain inspiration or to get a broad view of a culture or item and possibly find answers to lingering qu  Listing a few below that you can browse at will:

Getty Publications Digital Library - http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/index.html

Metropolitan Museum of Art - http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications

British Museum - http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx
    And British Library at Flickr Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary

Wellcome Trust - http://wellcomeimages.org/

University of California - http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/search?facet=subject;rights=Public;;brand=eschol

Google Art Project - http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/browse/?c.projectId=art-project&v.view=room&v.filter=items&projectId=art-project

Shire 12th Night was a very nice event.  I had a wonderful time sitting and spinning and doing fiber stuff with lovely ladies, and even got to reconnect with a college professor. Yes, I even did some European dancing!

The image to the left is a book that was sitting at Troll when I arrived.  It was beautiful and it was also edible.  Yes, that book, pages and all was cake.  Excellent, wonderful cake.  It was the King Cake for the event, and the individual who found the bean hidden in the cake was the King or Queen of Misrule for the event.

I was asked to do decorations for feast for the event, so I had Rosamund du Grasse assist me with cloving oranges and assembling centerpieces for all of the feast tables.  Given that I have to split my time between AEthelmearc and Atlantia mundanely, I loved having the opportunity to help out with something for the Shire (given that I cannot attend the regular weekday meetings).

Feast itself was very nice, particularly the mushroom and leek tart and the apple dessert!

There was a competition for subtleties and all things sweet and I reworked my Sheker Burek (taking into account the advice I was given to improve my dough).  The dessert was much improved and people ate them quickly and yes, I even got compliments on the dough itself!  I "won" the competition because I was the only entrant and got a lovely gift basket with chocolates and gummy fish and also got a seat at High Table (and never sat there before so that was fun). 

I had a conversation with someone about my comments regarding the sheeps tail fat that was in the period recipes.  That is not easy to come by, and honestly, I am reluctant to use it in a dessert, even though it is supposedly more mild that the rest of the animal's fat.  I might, however, try to use lard as a substitute in the pastry dough at some future point to see how that works out.

This event was a very nice reminder to me that events truly are what you make them.  While Pennsic will eternally remain my favorite event, smaller events can be delightful as well.  I talked with so many people and got to geek over so many topics.  Everyone came with a smile and enjoyed the afternoon with friends and that is a great way to enjoy 12th Night.

I also, finally, got to really "play" with my Christmas gifts from my boyfriend!  He gave me a number of extant Viking beads and a spindle whorl.  The night before the event I was able to string the beads and after I got home from the event I was able to test out the spinning whorl. 

I have to say that it somewhat blows my mind to know that I was spinning yarn with the same whorl someone used 1100 years ago to make their clothes.  It is awe inspiring and I am very honored to have these treasures.

The last project of my busy weekend was to wash the white Icelandic wool that I purchased for a specific experiment.  Hopefully next weekend I will get to start the combing process so that I can complete this work before Pennsic.

I found that after compiling my Ottoman Pinterest collection (which was initially done as a visual reference for others) that I personally keep referring back to the images when working on projects. 

It is also useful to see extant items, textiles and paintings (from a time span of a couple hundred years) all on one page.  It also quickly allows you to see the progression from one decade to the next which can be insightful.

Since it has been so useful, I have started one for Viking items as well.  This first page will focus on extant items and images from academic works.  I might eventually start a second page that will cover what I consider to be some of the better recreations of Viking era garb. 

http://www.pinterest.com/alfrunketta/viking-items-artifacts-and-costuming/

Now if only Pinterest would function well for more than a few minutes at a time, I would get a good many more items added to the page ;-)

For Atlantia's Holiday Faire event I did my first ever food entry for a competition.  The theme was Holiday items so I made Sheker Burek, a sweet dish, served during Ottoman festivals.  My documentation and recipe are below.  The judges comments were very helpful (they loved my documentation, filling and presentation, but the dough itself was a bit overworked).  I will hopefully be revising my methods and trying the recipe again soon.

(For the competition I had several pastries laid out on an ornate dish and sprinkled slivered almonds and powered sugar over them.

Sheker Burek – A Sweet Dish for Festive Occasions

History

Sheker Burek is the ancestor of the the modern börek pastries which are found in Turkey and the nearby region.  While the origins of this dish have been suggested to be unleavened flatbreads cooked by nomads on griddles  (Malouf, 265), they are today most often comprised of a savory filling encased in dough similar to phyllo.  Another modern form of this food has a pasta-like dough that is filled and boiled (Roden, 132).

Historically, Muhammed bin Mahmûd Şirvanî, a 15th century Ottoman physician, translated an earlier 13th century cookbook at the request of Sultan Murad II (and in his translation he included an additional eighty recipes) (Samancı, 1981).  In this volume of work, the only the sweet version of this burek is mentioned.  (Yerasimos, 128) 

This dessert is also listed in the palace accounts from 1490 and was among the items served at a circumcision feast for Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s sons in 1539.  (Yerasimos, 128; Samancı, 1981)  Occasions such as a royal circumcision were grand festivals, and with books compiled to commemorate these festivities.  In these tomes, called surname, were incorporated the details for everything from processions, to the entertainers and to the foods served during the feasting that were part of such grandiose holidays.

Also worthy of note, the residents of the 16th century Ottoman Empire had developed a love for sweets that included sweetened rice dishes, fruit preserves, candied nuts and fruit and even included large-scale sugar sculptures that were displayed during festivals.  So valued were these sugared dishes that there were even special kitchens on the palace grounds dedicated to the production of sweets.  (Yerasimos)

A Note Regarding Sources

I was fortunate to be able to get two translations of this period recipe from Urtatim al-Qurtubiyya bint 'abd al-Karim al-hakam al-Fassi al-Sayyida from the West Kingdom.  She provided me with translated material from Stephane Yerasimos’s French translation of the Şirvanî’s text and also, later, with the modern Turkish translation by Mustafa and Çakır.  In addition to those translated passages, I also have the redacted recipe by Yerasimos, but found it no more valuable than the translations of the original recipe in recreating the dessert.  (Due to copyrights, I did not include the translations here.)

Sheker Burek – My Recipe

3 cups flour

1 cup warm water

One packet of yeast and a bit of sugar

Salt

4 T butter

100 grams sugar

100 grams almond flour

Rosewater

Preheat oven to 350.


To make the filling, mix together the sugar and almond flour.  Sprinkle in just a bit of rose water and mix.  The mixture will just stick together and there should not be enough water to make it syrupy.

Add a bit of sugar to a cup of warm water and stir in the yeast.

Melt butter and add to the flour.  Add four pinches of salt.  Add the yeast/water to the four and mix until a dough forms.  Knead until smooth.  Let rest for 15 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured board and cut into small pieces (I used a coffee cup to make circles from the dough 3-4 inches in diameter).  Add a spoonful of the filling to the center of the circle and fold in half.  Use a fork to press the edges closed.

Add the sheker burek to a cookie sheet greased with butter and back until the tops are just start to brown.


Issues with Recreation and My Adaptations/Changes

• Given that I have no access to sheep’s tail fat (and while it is supposed to be more delicate in flavor than fat from other areas on the animal, I do not know that many people would be willing to consume a dessert made with this ingredient), I used butter only as my fat. 
• For the almonds, I chose instead to use almond flour rather than whole nuts as I assume that the directive to grind the almonds them with a mortar would indicate that they should be very finely ground for this recipe.  (Additionally, my kitchen was already well stocked with almond flour.)
• I tested both a mixture of granulated and powered sugar together and just granulated sugar for the filling, and did not notice a perceptible difference in the the two after baking.
• I had two failed attempts when adding the yeast directly to the mixture, so instead, I chose to activate yeast in warm water with a bit of sugar and then used that water to create my dough. 
• It took two tries to get the water/flour ratio correct for producing a dough that I could roll out and cut.
• I initially had only the recipe from A la table du Grand Turc and it called for 150 grams of sugar and almond each as a topping and 250 grams of flour in the dough.  The almond mixture was to be used as a topping in this version and no matter how much I piled on, there was more than half of it left.  In a discussion later with Urtatim, she sent me the translation from the Turkish version, which called for the almond/sugar mixture to be used as a filling.  This worked much better and the result looks something like a pierogi (which some sources claim is to be a related dish to modern savory börek) and is definitely similar to the boiled borek that the Foat Tugay (author of Three Centuries: Family Chronicles of Turkey and Egypt) describes in the passage quoted in Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.
• I find the filling to be exceptionally sweet, almost too sweet for my tastes in her commentary on recreating these recipes, Yerasimos noted that the modern inclination would be to reduce the sugar.  I did not for the purpose of this recreation, but would possibly do so in the future.
• The version presented to day has no saffron, but I will continue to work on a saffroned version and getting the correct amount of the spice in the recipe.

Sources Cited

Argunşah, Mustafa and Müjgan Çakır. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Mutfağı, (Urtatim al-Qurtubiyya bint 'abd al-Karim al-hakam al-Fassi, West Kingdom/ Ellen Perlman, Trans.) Istanbul. 2007.,

Malouf, Gred and Lucy.  Turquoise: A Chef’s Travels in Turkey. 

Chronicle Books, 2008.

Roden, Claudia.  The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.  Random House, 2008.

Samancı, Özge.  “Food Studies in Ottoman-Turkish Historiography.” Writing Food History: A global Perspective. (Ed. Clafin and Scholliers.)  Berg, 2013.

Yerasimos, Stephane and Belkis Taskeser.  A la table du Grand Turc. (Urtatim al-Qurtubiyya bint 'abd al-Karim al-hakam al-Fassi, West Kingdom/ Ellen Perlman, Trans.) Sindbad/Editions Actes Sud, 2001.

The internet is an invaluable resource for members of the SCA not only in that it can guide our research, but there are a million ways in which we can use it to find sources of inspiration.  Even when things do not fit our persona, they can inspire us and I have decided that once a month I will share something that I just find to be exceptional.

This month's inspiration is Mistress Mathilde Bourette.  I saw a post on a SCA garb forum showing off an exceptional hennin and was rather in awe of it!  I was even more delighted to see her website detailing both the research and construction of the hat and knew that this would have to be my first Mid-Month Inspiration post, please check out her work below!

http://wp.bymymeasure.com/15th-century-butterfly-hennin

Atlantian 12th Night was lovely.  The site itself was absolutely perfect for the Ottoman theme of the event and there were tons of rooms and spaces for all manner of the activities that happened throughout the day.

The food was very good, especially the mushroom-cheese pastries and the meat dumplings. 

My favorite thing about the event was, as always, getting to hang out with friends.  Quite a few folks from my household were there, and I also got to spend time with some people I only see at war and a few new friends who share my geeky tastes in projects!

ETA - Now that I am not so tired from the event, I have to comment that the garb at this event was outstanding.  SO many people made garb that fit with the theme (and for many of them it was their first Ottoman attire ever) and there was a very nice, period feel to the entire event because of the effort of many people in their dress.  It makes me genuinely happy to see how far Middle Eastern garb has come in the SCA!