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The Feast

Written by Anette Pedersen

Guildmaster B in a fair-sized northern European town is giving a party to celebrate his second son's engagement to the daughter of another guildmaster. Come and let me show you what's going on.

The Street

The street leading past the house is not one of the main streets through the town, so it's paved with un-cut cobbles. On each side of the street the pavement slopes from the foundations of the houses toward the gutters to catch the runoff from the roofs, as well as any refuse thrown out the windows. The traffic—walking, riding or driving—follows the single row of big, flat stones down the middle.

For the past few days—and all morning today—the local people going about their daily errands have often been forced to step aside for wagons and riders bringing food and other goods to Master B's house. At the moment, chopped tree bark is being spread across the street to dampen the noise from passing wagons during the feast, while another wagon with milk, cream and other last minute deliveries is trying to get past.

The House

The house itself is one of the bigger and newer houses in town. It has two floors plus an attic and cellar, is half-timbered, and is built of mortared red-painted bricks in a frame work of tarred timber—also painted red. There's no roof gutter or drain pipes, but each floor of the house slightly overhangs the floor below, keeping the rain away from the walls.

The Kitchen Yard

At the right end of the house a gate leads to the backyard and kitchen entrance. Master B has no need for a horse, thus there is no stable by the house, and the guests arriving by horse or in wagons must stable these with Master B's neighbors.

The backyard is usually a fairly spacious place with a few outbuildings and storage sheds around the edge, but still enough free space in the middle to turn a wagon. Today, however, it's packed with bundles, baskets, tubs, crates and barrels, and servants are jostling each other as they carry items in and out of the house.

To the left of the gateway along the backside of the house are the big, lidded water barrels. They are filled from the fountain at the nearby street junction every morning. Next to them is the handcart used to transport the water and other heavy objects needed in the household. Then comes the door leading to the kitchen via the scullery, and—below the kitchen windows—sturdy benches and bins used to temporarily store vegetables and other items that don't mind the damp. Then there is the slanted door down to the cellar, and at the end of the yard, a small chicken run and the washhouse.

In many smaller houses the washing must be done in the kitchen, thus greatly disturbing the routine of the household and dampening the walls until the lime wash runs in streaks, but in Master B's house there is a separate building for this. Normally the washing woman comes for a week four times a year, but for the feast she has been hired for four extra days to wash, iron and repair all the fine linen usually stored in the great cedar chests. Mistress B still isn't happy; the linen should have been bleached by being spread out in the sun, but, alas, the weather did not cooperate and her best white tablecloth is slightly yellow along one side.

In the corner, as far away from the door to the house as possible, is the small midden and the latrine. Usually the night man comes to remove the refuse once a week, but as with the washing, Master B has paid for an extra removal yesterday. Still, it's piling up already.

Right across from the kitchen entrance is a lean-to with peat and firewood beside the wood chopping block. Finally—on your right when you enter the gate—is the shed where the rushes to spread on the floors are usually stored, along with big bundles of gorse used for baking. But today they've been displaced by an extra load of the expensive charcoal used in cooking the many delicacies planned for today's menu.

In addition to the permanent structures the yard today features:

A tub of live eels and one of carp over by the water barrels. The displaced rushes and gorse are piled almost completely across the gateway.

Hooks on each side of the kitchen door hold the linen-wrapped cured and smoked meats delivered last week.

A big basket of cauliflower with big bundles of dried lavender on top (to mix with the rushes spread on the floors) and three smaller baskets with peas, spinach and raspberries leave little room on the bench below the kitchen window for one of the two maids borrowed from the neighbors. She is plucking the feathers of two big geese, while the youngest of the two cats that keep the house free from mice and rats twines around her feet and bats at the feathers. The older cat has climbed on top of the hand cart, and is staring at the eels that are being killed and cleaned by the old porter, who's usually in charge of water, firewood and other rough jobs.

By the open cellar door is Master B, carefully carrying a hay-packed crate with six big clay bottles down the steep steps to the cellar. All the wine and beer barrels have been in place ever since the old guildmaster died—just in case—but the best quality Sack (Sherry) had to be ordered especially. Iwouldn't have done to seem too sure he'd get the position.

In the washhouse, two fires have been lit and two big iron cauldrons are bubbling under the supervision of the second of the borrowed maids. Because of the crowding, the cook must twist her way around the empty crates and other refuse overflowing the midden. She had prepared several lidded pots filled with rabbit meat, butter and herbs to produce jugged rabbit. She then sealed the pots completely with strips of pastry, and had only intended for the maid to watch the fires under the cauldrons, where the pots simmered half submerged in the boiling water, while she was cleaning and chopping roots and other vegetables. Unfortunately, the fires in the kitchen have no room for cooking vegetables, so nets containing whole cabbage heads stuffed with minced meat, celery and parsnips have to be boiled in the washing room. They must be watched carefully so they don't overcook and split.

The Scullery

Inside the house, in the scullery, the kitchen maid is cleaning carrots and onions on the table below the open window. The scullery is really just a small passageway between the yard and the kitchen and normally just contains a table with three washing basins and a big pitcher, plus some half-empty shelves. But today every shelf is filled to overflowing with cooling cakes and pies, while a big pile of bread loaves on the table is threatening to tumble into the water basin. The maid has been jostled by the passing people until she has nicked her finger and is crying. That may, of course, also be from peeling the onions.

The Larder

Aside from the door to the scullery, two more doors lead from the kitchen, one to the larder and one to the pantry and the rest of the house.

There's an ash-wood trap-door in the floor of the larder, which leads down into a cool cellar room. The narrow wood ladder down can be tricky to navigate. This lower room is much cooler than the rooms on the kitchen level and is used to store things like eggs, milk, butter, cream and cheese which need the cool to prevent spoilage. At the moment, the cellar is filled mainly with dishes for the third and last course of the banquet, so the trap door is kept closed to allow people to move freely around in the larder above.

Here troughs are lined up, filled with salt-covered meats. As well, barrels with oats, barley, peas, salted herrings and beer are packed as closely as can be on the floor.

On the shelves are smaller crates with anything from dried apples to sago from Malaya, pots with venison cooked in purified butter, and covered basins with the fresh mutton, salted beef and smoked ham, all boiled yesterday and now waiting for the cook to find the time to dress them for the table.

Under the ceiling hang dried cod, smoked and dried sausages, as well as dried herbs for cooking and tisanes.

The Bakery

On the opposite side of the kitchen from the larder is a partially screened off area with a three-foot diameter, beehive-shaped, clay-covered stone oven that is built into the wall. The area also contains a big trough made of planks and a big solid table. A short pitchfork, a long-handled peel (spatula) and half-burned broom hang on the wall beside the oven door, various ladles and scrapers stand by the trough, while the table holds a two-foot-long knife that catches the eye. The shelves along the walls hold tin-plated hoops, molds and tins of every size, along with pie dishes, weight scales, metal cutters, and wood stamping devices.

This area has been the center of much activity for the past week, while all the bread now piled up in the scullery was baked. This morning the oven has been heated one last time and the last—most delicate—dishes are being baked.

Baking always starts with waking up the yeast by dissolving the sourdough saved ...