SC - Re: bird or bay

[Dottie Elliott]

Uduido at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 97-09-22 12:29:33 EDT, you write:
> 
> << May I add to the above list of questions, how many of you who are
> regularly
>  feast cooks and who rank above 'altar-boy' on the heirarchy were competant
>  cooks before SCA?  I mean did you learn because you were into the SCA, or
> did
>  you have a cooking backround before? >>
> 
> I was a professional cook for 13 years before joining the SCA.
> 
> Lord Ras

 I haven't had the time to get to the various "survey" questions until
now, and of course can't find the original questions, so I will
piggyback with Lord Ras, if he doesn't mind.

I am the youngest of eight kids whose mom cooked one meal a day. I
learned to cook in self defense, and I cooked anything that could be put
into a frying pan, primarily frankfurters and fried (burned) eggs,
starting around age five or six. I probably didn't start cooking
anything really interesting until age twelve or thirteen. What my "first
dish" that is worth speaking of, was, I have no idea. A few years later,
though, I determined that girls love guys who can cook!

Around my third or fourth SCA feast, I was looking for a new career, as
I had philosophical problems with Wall Street, it being a little too
much like playing Monopoly with other people's real money, and several
people suggested that I go into cooking professionally, so I did. After
six years in three-and-four-star restaurants in New York City (by which
I really mean Manhattan) I decided that the way to a long and happy life
was to find a way to sell my theoretical skills, rather than my
physical, practical ones. So, in the pursuit of virtual cookery, I am
writing a book about the foods of New York State, with a strong
historical bent. Surprised?

As for campfire cookery, probably the best thing I have ever done was
roll chicken cutlets and monkfish fillets in chopped fresh tarragon,
Kosher salt, and fresh black pepper, wrap them in caul fat, impale them
on sharp green sticks, and roast them over a fire. 

I have a Maunche (the East Kingdom arts award) and a Laurel in cookery,
for feasts, research, teaching, and published articles. To me there is
no way to draw the line between the "art" of redaction or research and
the "service" of feasts at events. A feast should show some evidence of
artistic endeavor, except perhaps under some special circumstances, like
dealing with five or six hundred or more people at a huge Crown Tourney
or something like that. The temptation to use old, tested recipes from
your file is certainly valid in that case, but certainly no one should
be aiming at doing less than their best at any time. That is neither an
art nor much of a service, to my mind.

Next questions?

Adamantius     
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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