SC - Late-period is NOT Medieval

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 97-10-24 00:32:05 EDT, you write:

<< So potatoes are within period for the SCA.
 
                             Jon >>

Technically, perhaps. Although I am more inclined to view sweet potatoes as
the more accurate potato. Be that as it may, I for one, would prefer to send
out for pizza rather than sit down to a feast which included New World foods
unless the feast were an authentic Aztec feast or something similar. I can
and do eat those on a daily basis negating any need on my part to spend good
money on an SCA feast which included them.

>From my own and others research it is clearly to be seen that New World foods
were NOT consumed with any regularity by the nobility and even when they
possibly can be connected to noble eating habits , they were  used only as a
novelty and not served in large enough quantities to justify their status as
"feast" food.

Also I would be more than a little hesitant to serve stock food to a
gathering of nobles. Maize comes specifically to mind. As recently as
pre-World War II maize was considered a stock food. Granted cornmeal may have
been used by a small number of people early after it's introduction late
period in Italy. But, once again, the customs of a few locals do not make
 its listing as a "feast" food valid unless you were to recreate a feast
suitable for service only in that particular small geographic area. Even
today sugar beets when not processed into sugar are considered stock food.
Peanuts upon their post period introduction were considered food fit only for
pigs and slaves.

The point I'm trying to make here is that in the SCA we are all considered to
be of noble birth, therefore even if we can questionably document peasant
food that does not give us carte blanche to serve it to nobles who would not
have eaten it at a public feast.

Ras
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