SC - A question of concern
Decker, Margaret
margaret at Health.State.OK.US
Tue Aug 25 08:58:45 PDT 1998
My dear apprentice-sister Micaylah wrote:
> The first thing I would like to know is whether or not this is a common
> practise in other groups. We have in this Canton a box of spices and herbs,
> flours, other dried goods and various snippets and hoeys kept in a rough
> tote for kitchen stewards to use at their disposal for events and other
> requirements. It gets brought to light, oh probably, three times a year max.
> It lives in an old basement for the remainder of the time. I have a real,
> real problem with this. Am I the only one who does?
EWWWW! Do we really do this? I honestly had no idea (Siglinde did
all of the acquisitions for our last feast).
<Good stuff about questionable quality and safety snipped>
> Since I am not the only one who uses this box I cannot just arbitrarily
> throw it out (although I did go through it the other day and throw out
> several unidentified bags of crap and other old sorry looking things). What
> I would like to do is get a general opinion of the List, some guidance and
> perhaps some emphatic replys and present it at a meeting and TRY to dispose
> of this box and stop this practise.
TOSS THE BOX! TOSS THE BOX! As the next person who should receive
it --- TOSS THE BOX! Can you guess how I feel about this? I'll back
you up all the way at the next meeting we're both at.
> I know that when I sit down at a feast that I haven't done, I always wonder
> if "the scary box" was used in preparation of this meal, no matter how good
> it tastes I have this thought in the back of my mind. When I am cooking, my
> rule of thumb is to purchase exactly what I need, (yes I take measuring cups
> to the bulk food store) and if there is anything left I keep it. I don't
> feel like I am cheating the sca, nor do I feel like I am stealing. Usually
> there may be, say, a bottle of corn syrup, a cup of flour etc. when I am
> done. I have never had the problem of needing to do an emergency
> subsitution, and even if I did, I highly doubt it would be found in the "box".
I definitely agree with everything you said here.
> As well, another opinion on using these commodities, is that you may end up
> with a cakload of substandard foodstuffs because the baking powder you used
> got damp, or the raisins were just too old and tired, the cinnamon
> tasteless, etc. etc. etc.
Yup! The second last time I tried to bake bread, it turned out the
yeast was too old, and it just didn't rise. What a waste of time,
energy and ingredients.
As someone with several (non-fatal) allergies / sensitivities (both,
but to different things -- let's not go through this discussion
again) and who has friends with fatal allergies, I want to know
EXACTLY what is in what I cook. I don't care who's footing the bill,
I won't be using the legacy box.
The cooking guild has a similar box. It's not quite the same thing,
though. We use it monthly, and I can vouch personally for everything
in the box (I better be able to -- it's in my kitchen). It doesn't
get stored in a basement, and I'm working on having everything that
we actually keep in airtight containers with dates on them so that if
we don't use them for a while we get rid of them. We may have bought
a new jar of honey last month, so it's fine, but if the cinnamon is a
year old it's gotta go (but why punish the honey for the cinnamon's
age).
As a side note: the big thing I have a struggle with in my kitchen
is getting people to change utensils (or wash them between dishes).
I don't like my veggie stew stirred with a spoon that was just in
meat broth -- it kind of misses the point. I'm less concerned about
the vegetarians (because we're not talking about a lot of meat here)
than I am about allergies. My sister-in-law was deathly allergic to
eggs (man was that a scary reaction to watch), so I got used to
making sure that nothing she would have could possibly be TOUCHED by
egg. How does everyone else out there get around this / enforce it?
Claricia Nyetgale
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