Ah, the Ren Fest: The perfect time for larping, drinking beer, and violently ripping apart deep-fried turkey legs with your teeth.
Starting last weekend, the Florida Renaissance Festival is back for the 22nd year at Deerfield Beach's Quiet Waters Park.
While there's one food item the festival is best known for, the turkey leg, which was introduced to England during the Elizabethan era, there are a number of other historical dishes that aren't on the menu.
We consulted the internet to find three recipes we would like to see at the Renaissance Festival.
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Boiled Duck
We love duck around here: duck confit, duck prosciutto, duck l'orange, duck fat fries, whatever. However, boiled duck, we'd have to try. (It doesn't sound appealing). This old method of preparation calls for parboiling and half-roasting the bird, then adding onions, parsley, ginger, pepper, mace, wine, and spices. It might be great, or it could be terrible; either way, we'd eat it.
Pudding of Goose Blood
Blood pudding is nothing new, but it's not exactly mainstream in the modern day United States. This recipe, however, doesn't sound terrible -- minus, of course, the whole blood thing. Goose blood is strained and combined with oatmeal, warm milk, nutmeg, pepper, herbs, sugar, salt, rosewater, coriander seeds, and eggs. Aside from the main ingredient, it sounds like it could be rather tasty.
Calves Heads with Oisters
Pig head is becoming an increasingly common dish -- in snout-to-tail establishments, anyway. Calves head, though, we've never seen. The recipe calls for boiled calves heads with minced brains and tongue combined with sage, oisters (we're not sure if this is the bivalve or testes), marrow, eggs, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, grated bread and salt. Everything is stuffed back into the head, roasted, and served on a tray. For those of you afraid of whole fish, this dish is sure to scare you away.
For more information about Elizabethan recipes, visit elizabethan-era.org.uk.
The Florida Renaissance Festival is taking place through March 16 at Quiet Waters Park, 401 S. Powerline Road, in Deerfield Beach.
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