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.

So I pulled some pictures off of http://www.calontirtrim.com as modern examples of Roman/Romanish trim. Most of them come in multiple colors.

( cut because image heavy like whoa )

I talked with a number of people about Roman costuming- boy-type tunics were the rule of the day, both for boys and girls who want to ride a horse like a boy. I promised that I'd give examples of trim you can buy that would good for Roman, and what better way than to make a public post?

Anyway, this post will have extant examples (primarily Byzantine/Late Roman).

Fragment of a scarf, Egypt, Byzantine Period (4th-5th Century). Cleveland Museum of art.



Sleeve band from a tunic, Egypt, Byzantine Period (5th-6th Century). Cleveland Museum of art.



Neck and Shoulder Decoration from a Tunic, Egypt, Byzantine period, late 5th - 6th century



Decorative band, Coptic period, Global egyptian museum. http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/detail.aspx?id=7428



Roman tunic, 4th-7th century Global Egyptian Museum http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=34


Coptic tunic decorations, Global egyptian Museum
http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=15

Because I'm me, I am of course making life difficult for myself. There's an event coming up in a couple weeks that is a Chaucer themed event, and while I have no desire to make or wear anything English for that time period, I thought... wouldn't it be fun to make a late period Byzantine and be my own descendant?

(Then, also because I'm me, the ramifications of being my own genetically identical descendant and all the trouble that causes in genre fiction start spinning through my head and the next thing I know I've saved the world. Or ended it. Or something.)

So I got Byzantium: Faith and Power (the book from a Met exhibit a few years ago) from the librarylast night. I've gone through the online catalog, but they don't put everything up. The problem with Byzantine art as it relates to wmoen is that mostly, you're getting icons. Of saints. And it's a tricky thing, because saints don't alwasy dress like normal people. I could make something based off of numerous icons of St. Catherine, but she is often protrayed as a queen, and is dressed like one. It's very important (to me, at least) to not be accidently indicating that I am a queen or saint when (as anyone can tell you) I am neither.

However, there were a couple of burial frescos in the book. They are faded and in bad condition, but there's one that gives just enough definition of one of the wives that I can see how her sleeves are made (and it'll be easy enough to make and get them out of the way when I am in the kitchen). So that's one major thing worked out.

The other issue is the late period cloaks. They seem to hve no shape that exists in the real world. They have random ends that drape over the head.

Until I got to some later icons. Where the woman is wearing a cloak, and a veil (but honestly seems like some sort of doily) that are two different fabrics. Then, if you go back and look at the earlier icons, and try to imagine the cloak that cannot exist in 3 dimensions as those two seperate peices but made out of the same fabric... it works. Wahoo.

Tomorrow is fabric shopping.

Hello, there. Again I resurface. If you are a reader of my regular life LJ, you'll know that the grad school wiped me out completely, and I haven't been doing much of...well, anything... lately. Catching up on TV shows I never watched before, mostly (Farscape? AWESOME)

Anyway, I taught a class on Roman Women's underwear at Pennsic. I had over 20 people, and I know, because I only brought 20 handouts. I suspect that a decent handful of those came i because it was thunderstorming and the tent was dry(ish), but everyone seemed to have fun (including my very own peanut gallery).

I started off by talking about panties, and how I didn't think it was de reguer wear for women during the roman periods. There are a handful of images of women in the process of getting undressed and they are not wearing underpants. It is the opinion of jduac that underpants for women is a recent development, and while there might be a strap/loincloth method for menstruation, as a rule, they were not worn. (as a practical experiment I went without one night, and was perfectly comfortable.)

Someone asked about chaffing and honestly, modern panties don't help with the thigh chaffing thing, so you either use powder, or just get used to it.

We talked about the Museum of London bikini briefs (and honestly, that's what the MoL calls them, and who am i to argue with them? Nobody, that's who.) and how I (and the MoL think they are acrobatic wear, and used to cover up bits when nothing else (like clothing) was covering them.

So that took like, five minutes.

And then we got to the meat of the class- how to make and wear a strophium. I wore a chiton that I could uunclasp at the shoulder, and tied a linen stropium over a tank top so they could see it on without compromising my modesty (ha). so mostly I stood there and talked with my dress hanging off my waist. it was awesome.

Before I went to Pennsic, most of my strophia were made with muslin, because it was cheap and I am poor. HOWEVER: you get what you pay for in bras and shoes, and this is true in strophia as well. I made a couple of linen, and one in summer weight wool and wool flannel. And I gotta tell you, the wool ones? MOST COMFORTABLE EVER. (Wool is by far the most common fabric found in the Roman world. It is not even a stretch to say that the majority of women wearing a strophium would be wearing one made of wool.)

The wool is not itchy, because it's tied tightly, and doesn't move (or shouldn't). It stretches, and holds things in, and it wicks away sweat (the linen ones do not do this much, and the muslin ones NOT AT ALL). I did not have any problems with brusing on my ribs. For a cold Crown tourney, this is gonna be a good thing.

i demonstrated how I tied them (In the front) and how I'd arrived at that (I tried tying them in the back, and that was a fail, tucking the ends in, and that was an epic fail, and pinning, but that places a lot of stress on a few points in the fabric, and didn't hold well). Someone asked about the center seaming I had in the one I was wearing and that's simply because the fabric was too short to go around.

Someone asked me how active I could be while wearing a strophium. I told them I'd helped set up camp wearing one. then they asked me to jump. They didn't move. :D

At that point it was 23 minutes past noon, and I was done. But we hung around anyway, because it was storming really badly. It let up just in time for the next class.

The hand out (which was written before the experiments with the wool strophia happened) will go up tomorrow- it's on my work computer.

I worked on the trim mock up/sampler last night, and... well I'm learning a lot.

I'm mostly using the "look at period examples, and modern technique books, try to synthesize that into something...and then play around and guess" method.

I relaize that I haven't explained ehre what I am doing. So I will. The person who inspired me to become Roman is getting knighted in April, so I am making Coptic style trim, using tapestry weaving. The only minor problem is that I've never done that- but it's not like that's ever stopped me before, right?

So a common motif in Byz/Roman/Coptic clavii is "circles with stuff in them." My original plan was to alternate compass roses with laying down rottweillers. However, I can't actually draw, so the rottweillers (main charge on his arms) on the graph paper looked like deformed animals of some kind. Instead I altered the pattern to be double bladed axes, whihc is the main charge on the household arms. This has the advantage of being a lot easier to weave.

I think.

Anyway, right now I am using some string I had on hand (mercerized cotton for the warm, wool from White Wolf and Pheonix for the weft) to work out the kinks in the pattern and to have a mock up to present in april. The clavii themselves will not be done in time- I have this thesis that needs finishing.

Last night's plan was to work on the compass rose motif, and that quickly turned into, "huh. That looks more like an ax handle. I guess I'm doing the ax first." I have the handle and about half of the blade done. It *might* look like an ax... sorta... someday. If you squint. And believe.

Part of the problem, I think (I did say I was making this up as I go...) is that my weft is too thick. So there is a limit to the detail I can get in a small 1.75 inch in diameter circle. The material for the actual clavii is going to have a thinner weft, which means the warp can be spaced closer together, which means that there can be more detail.

So. I'm learning quite a lot. It's fun!

I made a pair of the Roman leather panties that are in the Museum of London. I made them at Pennsic, because honestly, what better place is there to make leather panties?

It's been a productive day. I started the sampler of the trim I'm making, and figured out the right spacing of the warp (not easy- it took four tries to get it right).

Or rather, an update about the lack of updates.

I'm in the last semester of my Master's degree program, so SCA stuff has pretty much taken a backseat until this little thing called my thesis is done. It should be done by the end of November, and I should be done with school by the middle of December, and I will hopefully be sobered up by Christmas. Or 12th Night.

So that's where we are. There's stuff perculating in the back of my head that will be here eventually- but please don't hold your breath.

See my loculus? isn't it pretty? more pictures in the flickr account. More coherent update tomorrow.

Original recipe (Cato 75):
Libum hoc modo facito. Casei P. II bene disterat in mortario. Ubi bene destriverit, farinae siligineae libram, aut, si voles tenerius esse, semilibram semilaginis eodem indito, permiscetoque cum caseo bene. Ovum unum addito et una permisceto bene. Inde panem facito, folia laurea subdito: in foco caldo sub testu coquito leniter.

Make a libum thus. Grind 2 librae cheese in mortar. When it is well ground, add 1 libra of fine flour or, if you want [the loaf to be] softer still, 1/2 libra of finest flour; mix well with the cheese. Add 1 egg and mix well. Then form a loaf, placing bay leaves beneath. Cook slowly under a testo on a hot hearth.

Ingredients:
Romano Cheese (2 parts)
Flour (1 part)
Eggs (Enough to bind)
Bay Leaves

Reconstruction:
Mix cheese, flour, and eggs, form into little loaves, place on top of bay leaves and bake in oven at 350° for 30 m. (used covered pan)

Notes & Comments:
It was gone within 10 minutes. Maybe flatten loaves, maybe turn at some point. \

I've made this both in little cakes and one big flat cake. it really cooks better as little cakes. Fresh bay leaves give more flavor, but my dried bay leaves really were quite old. Is yummy when cold, is perfectly wonderful right out of the oven.