SC - Regional cooking

[ND Wederstrandt]

ND Wederstrandt wrote:
> 
>         I think part of what's going on is partly due to regionalism in the
> SCA. For the most part in Ansteorra and at least some of Atenveldt's
> history, doing feasts totally period is not the norm.
<snip> 
> From what I understand the East normally
> cooks only medieval cuisine or mostly period food.

Regionalism does appear to be a factor, but perhaps we could see it as a
sort of relative evolution.  Old habits die harder in some places than
in others. Where I live there may be a leaning toward the more authentic
feast than in Ansteorra, but this has to be looked at on a case-by-case
basis. There seems, generally, to be a rise in the level of authenticity
in the food served, and now we seem to be beginning to try to serve the
food in what might have been considered the correct order: "What? A
Stondyng Pottage served AFTER the Gross Char? Shocking! Take the
barbarian out and hang him, damn his impudence!"

Ten years ago in most parts of the East, this was less of an issue. Then
again, I remember fourteen years ago when we used to have pretty much
the same feast, with minor changes, at every one of our local events.
Everything was edible and sort of periodish, and it wasn't so much that
people didn't wan't period food, but rather that thay were willing to
accept the traditional methods that worked, in spite of the fact that
the food wasn't especially period. It wasn't broke, etc. It wasn't until
some Known Culinary Insurrectionists and Lunatics began to cook feasts
that this began to change. Again, this wasn't met with opposition. It
was more of a "Knock yerself out!" attitude. Now such cooks seem to be
considered essential. I think that where I live the art has become more
acceptable as a form of medieval expression, if you will, rather than
just as something that has to be done for events.

>         I found it fascinating that in the East people are served
> differently than here.  We seat feast-eaters with non-feast eaters.  We
> have a lot of feast served in the field since many of our events are
> camping events with no available kitchens.  So for me the regionalism is
> somewhat interesting, especially in Lochac which is on the other side of
> somewhere else for me.  (Would love to visit)

Yep, it's always interesting to hear how things are done elsewhere, but
then this is no different from some of the things that are recorded from
various period travellers and diplomats. Anybody read Liudprand of
Cremona's description of the cuisine of the Byzantine Empire?  It's all
in your point of view.

>         We should view this list as a chance to share our differences.

Agreed. Another thing we should be doing is accepting the fact that
other people's standards are not our own, and that it's O.K. to do
things differently. Not everyone wishes to devote all his/her SCA time
to the pursuit of the perfect mawmenny. Those who do, while that is
certainly a fine and admirable thing, might do well to remember that.

As for me, it's those durned cuskynoles that I'm losing sleep over!

Adamantius