Glass Butter Demo Day

That's right, I've learned how to make butter from glass.

No, not really.

Last weekend was our kingdom's Fall Academy event.

I had it marked down for crossing off a few different goals, and for once, I was totally successful!

It was a beautiful fall day in one of the most mountainous regions of my state, which meant that we had to drive up an extremely steep angle in order to get to the site, and then there was almost no parking left by the time we got there. However, we found somewhere to be, and unloaded all the ridiculous amounts of things I needed for my two classes.
I made it to the room just in time.

My first class was on the ADEPT Demo, which is a wonderful program for putting on historical demonstrations for schools.
The SCA is not (as I may have mentioned before) a straight reenactment group. However, we do study history, and we do specialize in the Medieval Period, so it makes some sense that we are sometimes called upon to present the Medieval Period to schools.
We are also a group of (mostly) amateurs, so it is helpful in the extreme to have an outline, some ideas, and a general plan for how to create an engaging, helpful, and accurate presentation for students.

(disclaimer: this is not from an ADEPT demo. It is from a demo, though)

Some years ago, a few ladies from my local area, one of whom is an Adult ESL teacher, put together such a plan, and when I became a Chatelaine (the local outreach officer), I found it all on a handy-dandy floppy disc. I fell madly in love with it, because I am a huge sucker for living history, and this draws a lot on the living history experience.


There are a lot of components, in a mix-and-match sort of way, but my favorite, and the largest component, is the In Persona Q&A Session.
You sit yourselves down in front of the kids, in order of persona time-period, and then stay in persona the whole time, while they ask whatever they want to ask. Teachers are strongly discouraged from "helping", so that the control is in the hands of the students. It's a lot of fun, and I think it really helps the students get an idea that these were real people, not just facts on a page.

You can find all the materials here.

Les Tres Riches Heures

I will stress that it is important to put together a group of people with different enough personas to be interesting (or they can create an alternate persona, if there are too many 14th Century French Noblewomen, for instance), and practice ahead of time. Be familiar with your persona. Be confident that you can answer all the questions with as much accuracy as possible. Be sure that your persona is pretty likely to have existed, which is to say, not a Welshwoman married to a Mongol, or a Norse Japanese man. If it isn't, again, create an alternate one just for this demo.


In our state, Medieval History is often taught in 6th grade, and then again in 9th or 10th grade depending on the school. Get to know your state curriculum, and send letters to the schools in your area, announcing your availability. Know your team's availability, and work within it.
My class went very well, and we filled up the second half-hour with questions, and chatting about options and techniques.

Next, I ran out to the car to get all my dairy equipment, but the class ahead of mine in the room had run into a snag, and ran a few minutes late.

Once we got into the room (the beautifully decorated Art Room, covered in murals, much like the rest of the school), I set up, and discovered that I had brought just enough supplies for everyone, which was great. I hadn't anticipated the popularity, since typically my turn out at Academy has been under 5. I brought a dozen kits, and all but one was used. The last one was used to store extra buttermilk.

This was a different class than usual, because I decided to combine it with a Cheesemaking class.
I have yet to accomplish my hard-cheese goal, but I make a mean Roman Soft Cheese, so that's what I went with.
Thus far, I had only made the Roman Soft Cheese (from Bassus' Melca, redaction from Katja Orlova) found in the Coronation Feast of Robin and Isabeau. This time, I looked again at the actual reference, and discovered that Bassus actually says to warm up the vinegar, and add the cream to that. I decided to try it that way.
I warmed up about a half cup of apple cider vinegar in a crock pot, and when it was hot, added my usual half pint cream and half pint milk. It didn't curdle as visibly right away as it usually does the other way around, but I left it overnight, and it was quite nice by the morning.
I let it drain all day, and then spiced it up with salt and Penzey's Northwood Spice (a brief unsolicited plug: I love this stuff!).
Having proven that it was possible in a crock pot with a reversed method, I decided to do it this way at class.
The only major snag, besides it being my first time combining the two, and therefore I forgot to mention a few things, was that my butter churn leaked like a sieve. Luckily, we had abundant paper towels, so we stanched the flow until I was able to make butter with it.

cheese we made in class, drained.

The cheese part went very nicely. By the end of class I was able to show the students the curdled milk quite clearly.
Of course, the butter took about an hour and a half in the churn, but the gallant class-coordinator, Muirenn, was kind enough to spend the lunch hour trading churning-places with me until we finally got it done.
Then she helped me clean up the mess. She was awesome, and I sent her home with 1/3 of the butter (because that's what fit in her container).

Finally, it turned out that the next class in the room was that of my friend Artemius, and was a class I'd been hoping to get to for ages: Beginner Glass Beadmaking.
Muirenn and I both took the class, along with a newcomer to the area, and a few others wandered in and out throughout the three hours. It was just the three of us actually making beads, though.
Artemius is a great teacher--very patient, very knowledgeable, and he does beautiful work.
He had a torch, and a wide variety of glass rods, and we were able to make three different styles of bead. He interspersed the hands-on work with some demonstrations of the more complicated methods, such as attaching two smaller glass rods together to make one which is easier to work with, and adding an air-bubble to a bead (which was amazing).

the beads I made

 All in all, it was a great day. The only downside for me was that, being in glass for six hours straight, I didn't drink...anything. I ended up with a raging headache. Still, it was a lot of fun.
The boy entertained himself with the regional fight practice held in the gym, and the older kid took care of the younger one all day, which was very kind.


Next up: more fiber arts. Hopefully another update will follow shortly.
I am also only two classes (and one schola) away from finishing my class quota. Yay!