The Impossible Feast: An idea

My SCA persona's motto is AT SPES INFRACTA (Yet, hope is unbroken) and I have a thing for flying pigs and the idea of making the impossible possible. I was looking through Facebook memories this morning and in 2014 I had seen an advertisement for Pig Wings, ribs that look like chicken wings. Rather than saying cool and moving one, my response was to go through a list of idioms of improbability and assign them dishes. This type of hyperbole taken to extreme lengths is called an adynata from the Greek ἀδύνατον  meaning both unable/ impossible and "to be powerful." It was a common Classical Period rhetorical device translated into Latin as impossibilia.  It fits well with my ancient Greek name of Praxilla which gives me further reasons to adore the idea. It would even make a fabulous conceit for a sixteenth century Venetian salon. Thus, I'm putting it here so I don't lose it.

An impossible feast to be served with blue moon cocktails and presented on the Greek kalends (Kalends are Roman. . .).

When pigs fly: pork ribs shaped like wings, or bacon wrapped poultry

When it snows red snowflakes: Strawberries in snow would be a very historical option

When grapes/pears grow on the willow tree: Willow catkins can be mashed and eaten. Willow honey is a thing. Perhaps baked pears drizzled in willow honey? Grapes could also be iced and served in a willow basket. Or wine is always a possibility

When fish climb the poplar tree: Salmon smoked on poplar. Poplar is also a popular paper wood, so paperwrapped fish of some kind might be tasty.

When the moon turns to green cheese: Mmm, cheese wheel

If the sky falls we shall catch larks: Plenty of Roman lark recipes. Adapt to use chicken or game hen

When the calves are dancing on the ice: Perhaps some variant of steak tartare?

When cows fly: Should be as straightforward as the winged pigs

When salt glows: There are lots of lovely pink Himilayan salt lamps and plates. Something served on those.

Cold Hell: No idea what to make, but its a fabulous name for a dish


More idioms to play with:

When the cow goes on pilgrimage on its horns
when the flagpole blossoms
When the reed plant blossoms
When the apricot blooms
When poplars grow pears and willows wallflowers
When the crawfish whistles on the mountain and fish sing
A week with three Thursdays
When horses grow horns
When a horned cat walks by
When a beard grows in the palm of my hand
When frogs grow hair
When the owl's tail blooms
When the crow will fly upside down
Sooner the cactus grow on my palm

And just because it is so very, very specific to my persona and personal likes, this Bulgarian phrase has to be included:  koga se pokači svinja s z´´lti čehli na krusa (when the pig in yellow slippers climbs the pear tree

Wool on Wool Applique: part 1.

I took a class on the subject of wool on wool applique at Estrella War taught by Bernadette de Costa Tempestad and when I posted the resulting make and take, I got mobbed with requests to share the handout. There was not a handout as such, so this is a compilation of notes. The instructor had some great references, and I have a few more I have from my own applique classes. Additionally, I took a class on intarsia applique taught Unna Hjalmirsdottir (I was the only attendee, so we mostly geeked out together.) Intarsia is also a wool technique that I find to be very similar to nomadic rug applique techniques and was mentioned by Bernadette in her class as well. I'm heavily interested in applique of all kinds as well as working with wool, so I'll be combining the various information. That said, it is obviously how I have interpreted the information, mixed and matched with what was swimming about in my head, so I'm sure I have missed a lot from the original class and added weird detours of my own.

Dalhem textile

Via

Lets start with the intarsia applique, as I have links to tutorials. The best known of the extant pieces are the inlaid woolen coverlets/ intarsia wallhangings/altar coverings from Dalhem, and Skepptuna which are held by the Historiska Museet in Sweden Inventory #23022 dated 1350-1499.




 A recent reconstruction of the Masku was done by a team of 16 headed by Elina Sojonen (blogging at http://www.neulakko.net/ )and Mervi Pasanen (blogging at http://hibernaatio.blogspot.se/ )  The original and the recreation were then exhibited together in Finland at the National Museum in Helsinki. There is quite a bit of analysis of this and a how to on doing this style of applique at https://historicaltextiles.org/category/embroidery/  It is a different style as it doesn't involve pieces being put on top of one another, but rather them being cut and fitted together like a puzzle and then whip stitched in place. Then strips of gilded leather are couched over the seams. The imagery is ridiculously fun and of the type we often see on SCA "Norse Coats." The actual time period it comes from is far outside the Viking age, but I can't help adoring it. Especially as there is a gryphon that I must, must do at some point. And a peacock. It screams to be Artemisian.

Skokloster Cushion

There are actually other pieces done in the same technique but with a different image style. This piece with poppies, called the Skokloster Cushion (inventory #24690 ) is medieval, but looks ridiculously modern .It is also held in the Historiska Museet, which is where most of the textiles of this type are.

The how to at Historical Textiles.org is pretty complete, as the technique isn't difficult so I'm not going to post a tutorial of my own unless someone needs further help.. You cut the pieces, which then create mirror images, as you can see from my in process pieces below and the poppies, So a grey background gets a red leaf and a red background gets a grey leaf. You tack it in a few places (or the teacher in my class used scotch tape) then whipstitch it into place. There is no backing fabric, so you end up with a single layer of wool. Then the leather strips are couched into place over the seams. You can see a small strip of gilded goatskin leather being couched down in my in process photo.

I'll get to working on assembling links for the next type of wool applique: wool on wool roundels like the ones we did in Bernadette's class and hopefully post that tomorrow.