SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #199

[Donna J. White]

On Thu, 17 Jul 97 11:55:25 CST,  Lady Morgan MacBride wrote:

[snip]
>     In Meridies, having both entered and judged cooking for Kingdom A&S, 
>     the full meal spread many of you have described is strongly 
>     DISCOURAGED.  
>     
>     I wonder of this is just a regional thing?  I know in Meridies Cooking 
>     is one of the biggest categories at A&S, and one reason they strongly 
>     discourage bringing an entire meal is due to space considerations.

[snip]
>     What are the norms in some of the other kingdoms?  Is Meridies the 
>     only one that discourages the meal entry?

Wow, cooking is a BIG category there? From what I have seen here in
Ansteorra cooking is rarely entered into competition and when it is,
it is usually set-up as a small tabletop layout. Most use only about
as much room as a side-table for your couch, only a little more than
most other displays.

I've also noticed that it is expected that to even survive in a
competition with elaborately hand-sewn Elizabethan gowns, hand-forged
and polished daggers and lovely wool tunics entirely woven and dyed by
hand from scratch, not to mention the stained glass, is to show off an
entire place setting as well as possible. I've only been in the SCA
for two years, but most of the competitions I have seen have been
extremely tough. (I should note that I have only entered three A&S
competitions.) 

Besides, a setting like that allows one to show off more of their
knowledge. I'm not in this just to make good food, (although that is a
biggie ;-)) I'm in this to become knowledgeable about the foods and
meals people of the Italian Renaissance would have eaten and prepared.
That includes how they viewed the healthiness of foods, which foods
went together and when, etc.... Did you know that in the late 1400s
Italians only ate two meals a day, not the three we are used to
recognizing as the "norm". (Although I know a great deal of people who
usually skip breakfast anyways giving them only two meals a day as
well.)

I like to put what knowledge I can into my display, else what's the
point. It sure wouldn't be easy getting all of that into a single
dish. Hmmm... now if I move back to Louisiana one of these days I'll
have to figure out a way to enter competitions with only a single
dish. 

Honos Servio,
Lionardo Acquistapace, Barony of Bjornsborg, Ansteorra
(mka Lenny Zimmermann, San Antonio, TX)
zarlor at acm.org

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
SCA-Cooks-Request with the message body of unsubscribe.

============================================================================