Pennsic Eating When You Are Me

Gingered Pottage

I experimented with pressure cooking at Pennsic this year, and I can say with certainty that it is a partial success. The pressure cooker would come close to hitting standard pressure, but it never succeeded; I presume this is related to the fact that the prevailing winds cooled the pot in exactly the right ratio to the flames heating the pot to perfectly balance the heat on the edge of pressure. Foods cooked more nicely, as the lid reduces steam and heat loss even if it did not hit pressure. It would be worth dedicating a pressure cooker to the camping stuff if I can find a better cooker for home use.

We tried several things--a cooked turkey breast for Michael that was very delicious, and various "period in principle" vegetable pottages, where the idea is that you prepare a vegetable pottage comprised of period (or period like) ingredients and enjoy an easy lunch. The above pictured is the most successful, comprised of fresh garlic bulbs, a huge chunk of peeled and diced fresh ginger, carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and a rutabaga. Oh, and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Potatoes are barely period, arriving in the occasional euro cook pot in the 16th century, but I'm not sure about the swede. The earliest reliable reference I can find is a vague description of a seventeenth century record that implies the possibility of unrecorded earlier use.

However, it was very good, and a very reasonable vegetable pottage for a Renaissance persona. If you include the gray area in your time frame, you can eat it without feeling like your place in the space-time continuum is too wretchedly disturbed. And if you can't, sub in one sweet potato and one turnip for a similar flavor and all pre-1601 edible roots.

I generally cooked meat separately for Michael, and he would add it to whatever I made. The primary problem I faced: keeping the meat. If one leaves home with rock solid frozen meat, what one brings has to be cooked within 2 or three days, depending on your cooler. Once cooked, it's only good for 2 or three days. Thus, you can only be sure of having decent meat in the cooler for 4 days, with the expectation that you might get to 6. I am seriously considering for next year precooking meats and keeping a dry-ice cooler, a fresh foods cooler, and a small defrost cooler. As bad as that might sound in terms of gear, it's only the addition of one six-pack sized cooler. I already carry 2 medium coolers to Pennsic and have done so for years.

Most years, I just shop at Giant Eagle for food when I get there, but I did pantry shopping this year--I looked at what I had on hand and just brought food from home. This worked out fine, as well--better, in some ways, as much of what was in the fridge would have had to be thrown out upon my arrival home. This fact also makes me think that the dry ice/wet ice/defrost system is going to be a better idea.

The food court at Pennsic is always something of a challenge. There is very little there for strictly vegan fare, but you can do okay if you allow eggs, dairy, or both into your vegetarianism or your piscetarianism. I did find myself in the position of "eat dairy or starve" a couple of times, so I tried the spinach wrap at Once Again/Nobleman's Inn and the Spinach Pie at Fruity Cobbler. These are the things I ate and can recommend as edible that can fit with a picetarian + dairy food style:

*French Fries from various vendors: I found I liked the ones at Nobleman/Once Again's best.

*Spinach Wrap from the same tent.

*Falafel from Fruity Cobbler. Spinach Pie was okay, but I preferred the Spinach Wrap, above.

*Shrimp and Vegetable stir fries from Delights of Cathy--be aware, however, that they do cook everything in the same woks. Their portion sizes have also gone down.

*Vegetable dishes from Cock & Bull (sauce may be butter or margarine, I didn't ask. Having already had feta cheese by that time, it hardly mattered which was used when faced by my huge-o-matic hunger).

There were other dishes I could have tried, but generally, if I was up in the food court and faced with uncontrollable hunger, I gravitated to the french fries, being the best way to control the hunger and not have to fret about how it was cooked.

Meals when you're on wheels: Fred's Drive In, Milwaukee

One of the most shocking realizations that I had when I became firmly committed to a piscetarian dietary style was this: Road Food Is Hard To Find.

We were standing in front of a Subway, my beloved and I, and I was In Need of Protein. The one thing I can get in nearly any town, iceberg lettuce and some bread that probably was not made with eggs and possibly was not made with milk, was not going to cut it. He, however, had thought that Subway would be fine--tuna sandwiches, you know? But I stood there and starved, so hungry that I actually cried, because the tuna salad is mayo-based. Eggs. Even if the mayo was vegan (and why Subway would use veganaise on a tuna sandwich, I dunno), I couldn't eat it--the soy would move it out of my dietary range.

He learned that day that when I said no animal products but sea creatures, I meant it. It was a long ride to the family home that morning. Ever since that day, I have learned to pay attention to Road Restaurants that we can all eat at.

Fred's Drive-in is one of those places I will go to when I am jonesing for the bad foods of my home town. Fred's is one of several Milwaukee area restaurants that is devoted to a style of artery-clogging eating that is immensely pleasurable and insufficiently available away from the southwest corner of the Third Coast. Fred's specializes in Chicago dogs and Italian Beef and Polish and Italian sausages like you'd find at a vendor outside Wrigley Field. MMM, giardinara!! MMM fried onions!!! MMMM lots of other stuff I don't eat anymore!

Fred's, however, has something that the other good Chicago-style beef joints in the Milwaukee area don't have: the Flynn Fin.

The origin of the sandwich, in short: The police chief saw the restaurant across the street from his brand-spankin' new police station and gasped at the beauty of the menu... and then realized that it would not have the best health effect on his officers. Really, you want the police officers to be healthy. Flynn certainly does. And so he asked the owner for a sandwich a little less overwhelming and just as tasty. The Flynn Fin was born shortly thereafter.*

It's a salmon fillet on your choice of roll, bun, or rye, with options for additional condiments and lettuce or tomato. I got mine on rye, with the lettuce and tomato, and brown mustard. Since I was having a bad-eats day, I had fries as well.

I have to say, I was happy. Here in the land of the Friday Fish Fry, you would think that most chefs can do simple fish like salmon. I assure you, there are many who can not. Fred's Drive-in can. The salmon was cooked appropriately, the lettuce was real leaf lettuce, the tomato was ripe rather than pink cardboard, and the amount of mustard was just right--mustard can overwhelm a sandwich. This didn't.

The fries were the fat, crinkle cut sort. Not my favorite--again, because they are so often cooked poorly--but these were fine. And Hot. And excellent conveyors of rich and tasty ketchup. MMMM.

There is also a breaded fish fillet on the menu, more like the sort of fish sandwich you'd get at a fast food chain. I presume it's good, as I've never had anything I don't like there-hell, even the Decider likes Fred's--but I won't be trying it anytime soon, as the Flynn Fin tasted so very fine.






*A longer version of the story is here.