Re(2): sca-cooks Cassia and ceylonica

[Sue Wensel]

At 06:35 PM 4/10/97 -0500, someone (Adamantius?)wrote:
>>> Should we be attempting to cook feasts that are *typical* of medieval
>>> feasts (or at least as typical of medieval foodstuffs as we have access
>>> to them today - I don't get to cook with swan, heron, etc very
>>> often...)?
>
>I believe we should be cooking typical feasts to the best of our 
>knowledge and budget.  I get plenty of potatoes and corn in my everyday 
>life. I can give it up for a feast on the weekend. Part of my enjoyment 
>in the SCA is doing things that are different from what I do normally.  
>That includes foods, how they were cooked and how they taste. 
>
>Clarrissa
>
>

Ah yes...what came first.....the personal interpretation (chicken), or the
recipe (egg). I get that a lot in our group. We have a set of truly
excellent cooks who almost never use redacted recipes, rather they use
modern recipes that are very similar to the period one. You can't keep folks
away from the feast table, even when the building's on fire. That's how good
the feasts are.

Then you have me. I force everyone to go through endless taste-tests for
recipes redacted exactly or as nearly as I can arrange. I drag the whole
shire out to test-cook my recipes, and they pay to eat the food afterwards.I
am sneakily winning over the group to *real* historical food. They think
they're getting to play with their food. I was once inducted into the order
of "Hey, this feast doesn't suck!?!" <<it's for real, folks>>So, I must be
doing all right.

The odd thing is, the longer I cook in the SCA (going on 13 years now), the
more picayne I want to be about historicity <<groan. THAT word again!>>, and
the more I realize that there are some poeple who will sit down to the table
who have no clue: We call these people diners. Give 'em edible food, and
they're happy. Most feast-attenders fall under this heading. Then you have
the folks who know there shouldn't be any tomato in the soup, and you can
put raisins and beef together without poisoning yourself. We call these
people food historians and gourmands. Then there's the folks who know when
you've used the out-of-period recipe just by the name of the author of the
original, and can spot allspice and vanilla in a dish at twenty yards. We
call them Good Historical Cooks, and it is their praise and criticism that
keeps me on the straight and narrow. But sometimes I wish I could bring
myself to just open up the Frugal Gourmet's Imigrant Ancestors and pass it
off as a historical and authentic feast. It would make life seem soooo much
simpler! Once apon a time, it was a common SCA practice to do such a thing.
Now we know a little more, and we have better resources. There's room for
all of us in the kitchen, regardless of how we plan the menu.

Aoife     
"Many things we need can wait. The child cannot."
				---Gabriela Mistral, Chilean Poet 1889-1957