sca-cooks Geographical issues

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here.  Lord Ras responds to me:

><<  Likewise, we
> have geographic issues to contend with (this dish is German, this one
>Italian,
> etc.), or even temporally (this was 12th century, this was 15th...). >>
>
>Perhaps this is a plus rather than a negative. :-) Since the gusets at an
>event are of many time periods and nations, a lot of exciting menus can be
>built around a combination of textures, times, countries and styles. What are
>anybody elses tho'ts?

I see it as a difficulty for three separate reasons.  The first is that 
people who aim at a notion of "period style" without differentiating 
among the different cuisines of the time are likely to come up with
very odd ideas indeed -- as would someone today who tried to develop
a notion of "Asiatic style" without distinguising among the various 
areas of China, Korea, Japan, Viet Nam, Thailand, India, and so on.
If one developes a "period style" recipe based on grabbing one feature
of German cuisine in the 14th century, one of Northern France in the
15th, and one of Italy in the 16th, the result is likely to be something
that would be foreign to anyone who ever lived.

Second, the temptation -- to which I have in the past succumbed -- to
mix dishes from wildly different cuisines in a single meal, without
concern for how meals were structured in any time or place or how
dishes were combined (points on which we have substantial evidence),
results in a *meal* that would have been foreign to anyone who ever
lived.

Third, I have discovered that feasts (at least mine) work better --
people enjoy the meal more -- if I structure them around a single
time and place, respecting order of presentation and combinations
for that time and place. I don't mean, culinary historians like them
better (though they may).  I mean, people whose knowledge of period
cuisine begins and ends with the general intuition that a MacDonalds
meal probably isn't period enjoy them more.  This makes a certain
amount of sense to me.  The people in any general time and place
eat the food available to them every day.  They have a lot of
opportunity to find out what sorts of meals work within their
cuisine and what sorts don't.

I've been working on medieval cuisine for more than a decade, and I
don't think I know anywhere near enough to talk with any authority
about anywhere but England from the 13th to 15th centuries -- and
only limited authority there and then.  There's enough work involved
in learning a single corner of this field well to absorb many 
lifetimes.  It doesn't follow from this that nobody should play
with varied recipes from across the spectrum; and of course my
understanding of English cuisine is informed by what I know of
French, Italian, German, and other northern European.  But I often
get the feeling that people in the SCA decide that doing a "normal"
English feast would be boring -- without ever having done or
eaten one.

For myself, I find it pretty exciting.

All of this, of course, would apply equally to a northern French
feast, an Italian one, a Catalan, or what-have-you.  Any of those 
would, of course, be foreign to many of our personas.  But it 
would have been native to *someone*, *sometime* -- and to someone
who had a lot of experience making dinner interesting.

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry