Rufinia's Brag Book

A list of what you can see here:

Stola Tutorial
Strophium pictures
Roman leather bikinis
Tapestry weaving
Libum
Roman Shoes
Tablet woven garters
Diary of the loculus
Marizan experiments
Roman Stola
Stuffed Dates
Moretum (Cheese goo)
Another recipe for mushrooms (Mushroom goo)

This is how I make a V-neck stola, with the two different methods I use for pleating the shoulders. I will try to explain how I make a boat-neck stola, but I have no pictures of that.

( Cut because imagae heavy like whoa )

Finally got some pictures of how I wear a strophium and OH HEY LOOK IT'S MY BOOBS ON THE INTERNET.

Ahem.

( Pictoral (and pectoral) demo here )

Linen tunic, wool lacerna.

Boiled Beets With Mustard Sauce
Apicius



Aliter betas elixas: Ex sinapi oleo modico et aceto bene inferuntur.

Another recipe for boiled beets: they are served nicely in a sauce of mustard, a little oil, and vinegar. (Grocock and Grainger, 2006)

Swiss chard leaves OR beet leaves OR beet roots.
¼ cup of organic Dijon mustard
1 spash of oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

I treated the two greens like spinach- just a very quick dip in the boiling water. I didn’t want them to get too limp or overcooked. The beet was boiled for about half an hour (according to the Joy of Cooking, beets should be boiled for 20-30 minutes).

The sauce was a largeish glop of mustard, a small splash of oil and a larger splash of vinegar, slowly brought to a simmer. This mustard is organic Dijon. The ingredients match up to Apicius’ instruction for making mustard, with the exception of an addition of cloves. I chose not to go with yellow mustard because all the organic yellow mustards contained turmeric.
The question of what, really, does betas mean is a complicted one. Giacosa translates it as beet roots, but the mordern red beet is a 16th century development. The Brothwells and Andrew Dalby both think that what is now called Swiss Chard is what the Romans called beta. The beet was developed from Swiss chard, and both have the same scientific name.

There is a reference in Catullus 67 that refers to a man’s genitals as beta, which does imply the root, but Apicius often lists betas among the greens in his recipes. I was not able to find any Swiss Chard root, so the root portion of this experiment is a modern beet root.

Results:
The mustard could use a little more vinegar. I think the taste of the swiss chard works best with the flavor of the mustard sauce. The beet greens don’t have much taste, and the beet root doesn’t really mesh well with the mustard. I would go with the swiss chard in the future.

References:

Brothwell, Dan and Patricia Brothwell. Food in Antiquity ISBN 0801857406

Giacosa Ilaria Gozzini. A Taste of Ancient Rome ISBN: 0226290328

Grocock, Christopher and Sally Grainger Apicius: A Critical Edition with an Introduction and English Translation IBSN: 1903018137

Master Broom posted his pictures from Mudthaw, and while I haven't DLed all of them, I wanted to show off the handsewn (with linen thread and a Roman Needle) stola I made.



Also at Carolingian cooks guild a week or so ago, I made the beets with mustard sauce recipe again, this time with the mustard I made based off of Columella's instructions. the week between the making of the mustard and Cooks Guild did mellow out the mustard quite a bit (I wasn't swearing after I tried some).

Speaking of Mudthaw, I showed the shoes, the Equestrian tunics and lacernae, the stola and the beets with mustard sauce. Pictures to follwo.

Last night I made roman mustard, based (mostly) on Columella's instructions. One thing if I need a proper mortar, and no one seems to make Roman mortars for sale. But the Apicius list (more or less) agrees that a Mexican molcajete is pretty close.

Anyway, you take mustard seed, soak it for two hours, then grind it up, pat it into a lump, put a coal on it, and dump some water with natron over it, dump that, and mix with vinegar.

I took mustard seed and soaked it for two hours, couldn't find my modern mortar and pestle, ran it through the coffee grinder, which sort of worked, didn't feel like dealing with coals at ten pm at night, poured a bit of water with baking soda and salt over the stuff and rinsed it, and mixed in some vinegar.

HOLY SHIT THIS STUFF IS SHARP.

So I have an iteration of Roman mustard.

The coal and water and natron thing is supposed to leech out the sharpness of the mustard. And it;s very, very coarse, because the coffee grinder was not feeling the soggy mustard seed thing. I am going to get myself a molcajete in the next couple weeks and try again. This particular recipe is for common, every day mustard, and Columella has further instructions on how to make banqueting mustard (mixing in ground almonds and pine nuts, I believe).

I spent the weekend working on riding tunics based on Roman hunting mosaics in Africa.


This one is linen with trim from Calontir Trim.




And this one is wool. The trim is backed with green wool.



The wool one suffered from a cutting error that made it too narrow for walking, so it is slit up the sides. There are some examples of riding tunics like this.

I still need to finish the neckholes on both of these.

I need one of these. VERY BADLY.

I am in the process of making garb for Equestrian activities, and in the process, I am collecting images of Greek, Roman and Etruscan (and Byzantine, though that is less ancient) art involving horses, horsemanship, and riding.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aureliarufinia/sets/72157604047817633/ Some of them I took, and museum info is in the descriptions if I have it.