A Meal for Captain Aubrey and friends

Cafe Society
1

I’m planning to cook a meal for some friends - fans of the Aubrey & Maturin books - this Saturday. I have the quite wonderful Lobscouse and Spotted Dog recipe book as my guide. I have my pound of suet and I have typed up a recipe but I have some questions and a hope that someone else has done this before me and can advise me.

Here’s my tentative recipe. I welcome advice!

Kickshaws: I am interpreting this liberally to mean: whatever finger foods I can think of. Olives, anchovies, salami, pastizzi…the kind of things that the not-yet-captain and the doctor may have eaten in Port Mahon at their first meeting.

Strasbourg Pie: The recipe calls for a pound of Foie Gras and serves 20 (!). I have a hunch that my guests may object to torturing geese (I think it might even be banned in California) so I plan to substitute a regular pate. Maybe duck or something equally rich. Travesty?

Spotted Dog with Custard Sauce: The recipe book has 5 or 6 recipes for suet pudding and this one sounds the most appealing. It also takes me back to my childhood - my mum used to make spotted dick (she even had some advice for me about the appropriate flour to suet ratio). I would have liked to make figgy-dowdy or drowned baby as they sound more exotic but the recipes sound really bland. It’s also Jack’s most favourite pudding - high recommendation indeed.

Syllabub: I am really looking forward to this. It’s the only thing on my menu that sounds genuinely delicious (as opposed to “interesting”). My wife has a cream maker and everythign tastes good with freshly-made cream.

Marchepane: Jack and Stephen had this in Malta. My wife is Maltese. It just so happens that she has a bunch of leftover (homemade!) marzipan from her christmas cake. I plan to make little anchors and dolphins and bake them.

The menu that I am cribbing from has a few additional courses - sea pie, lobscouse, frumenty - but it feels like I already have a TON of food. This brings me to my first question…

Am I going to kill my guests?

Between suet in the pudding and lard in the pastizzis and half a pound of pate and cream in the syllabub… my heart already wants to dial 911 to reserve a bed in the cardio ward.

Next question… where the hell are the vegetables???

I understand they were on a ship and vegetables were hard to come by - but didn’t they at least eat vegetables close to home? Would I be violating Aubrey’s memory if I served vegetables? What would I serve?

Anyone had lobscouse? The recipe looks tasty, but I think I could already feed a whole ship without the lobscouse. Mistake? I am I missing out?

Has anyone done something like this before? Any tips for me to make it special? I have a fancy menu typed up on fancy paper. I have my iPod loaded up with Hearts of Oak and Spanish Ladies and the like. What else can I do to make it nautical?

Last question. Where can I get some weevils? No Master and Commander meal would be complete without a the “lesser of two weevils” joke. Ideas for simulated weevils?

2

I think you can still get foie gras. The ban doesn’t start until 2012, IIRC.

Make boiled peas, from dried field peas if you can find them. If you can get/beg/borrow a copy of The Jane Austen Cookbook it has some excellent recipes from the right time period in a modern format.

Make marzipan weevils, if you’re really feeling creative.

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Sounds good! Just remember to provide two bottle of claret and one of port per person…

Oh, and a seaman servant to carry them home :smiley:

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Congratulations and good luck for doing this. I’ve done some individual recipes, but haven’t had the courage to try an entire dinner. God and Mary and Patrick be with you.

Trim meat scraps off the suet, then put in the freezer for 30-60 minutes before trying to grate it. Much easier than grating room temperature suet.

Lots of wine, and a servant (preferably drunk) for each diner. Don’t forget to yell out “The bottle stands by you sir!” frequently.

You’re about a year too late. You’ve got to make and store the hardtack well ahead of time to get a good crop of bargemen.

5

Grog.

That is all I have to say :slight_smile:

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I recall that Jack liked parsnips cooked in butter.

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Wish I could be there. I’d love to help with the menu, as well as eat it. I’m a fan of the series as well!

Themed dinners for fans are fun. I once had one based on foods mentioned in the TV series Babylon 5. I still have a fondness for bagna cauda, which I’d never heard of until Mr. Garibaldi was making it. It sounds as if it would go well with your menu, because when Dr. Franklin eyed it he said “I can feel my arteries hardening just being in the same room with it.”

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Remember they were always having toasted cheese brought in while they were playing music.

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Well we have grog every time we get together so that wouldn’t be special now, would it? :slight_smile:

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Ooh! That’s a good one. I actually have some parsnips in the fridge.

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I considered that. But then considered that some one might call the artery police on me during dinner.:eek:

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My friends are from Santa Cruz. If their neighbours found that they had eaten foie gras (thanks for helping me spell it), they’d never be allowed to return to their homes.

Of course! I was going to do anchors and dolphins and such but … Weevils! That’s perfect!

13

When I went to the butcher’s and asked for suet, the lady at the counter said she didn’t think they had any but the butcher was right behind her carving up a cow. “Here you go!” he shouted as he carved off a pound of glistening fat from the carcass.

I might not tell my friends that story. My wife thinks it should be illegal to make puddings from pieces of cow.

14

Digby’s Savory Cheese [aka cheesy spoo] would be a good recipe for that.

15

I’d substitute some rice. Cook the rice then mix it into some biscuit batter. Bake and serve. Don’t warn your guests. Hope they have a really good sense of humor.

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Weevils?
From this site: http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/mealworms.htm

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For real authenticity, don’t forget the weevils! :smiley:

Edit: gahhh, ninja’d.

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Brown rice. :slight_smile:

19

What a brilliant idea !

You could wear period costume and also douse the electric lights and eat by lamp/candle light.

And how about having the music loved by Jack and Steven playing in the background.

20

Perfect! Probably just what Killick did to get some suet for the Captain’s cook.

Just refer to it as sebi confectio discolor when you bring it to the table. Nothing like some Latin to plug her capers.