SC - Courses - was: sign-on package?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:

> Since day one in the SCA I have always heard the word remove used
> as a marker for several courses (e.g., individual dishes).  One of the things
> I learned on this list is to not use the word "remove."

The word "remove" was apparently introduced to the SCA by people who
assumed they needed a more archaic term than course, which seemed to
them to be impossibly modern. Archaic, yes, but not archaic enough,
since "remove", meaning a full table setting of dishes, seems to have
entered the English language in the eighteenth century.  
 
> Apparently a "course" at a feast is a part of the feast that may include
> several courses but are recognized as a UNIT by adding a numerical term in
> front of the title (e.g., 1st Course consists of 4 courses, 2nd Course
> consists of 3 courses, etc.).  To the modern eye the difference between a
> Course and a course is the capitalization.  Apparently there is no term in any
> language dating from the Middle Ages that differentiates between a number of
> dishes being served at one time and a singular designation for an individual
> dish served in the course that was ever fully explained by anyone on the list
> that has educational background in linguistics either. Seems particularly
> strange to me but again all I can say is "Go figure. ". :-)

Hmmm. I'm not sure where the idea of a course of courses comes from,
unless perhaps it has to do with separate seatings, as might be the case
in feasts for a festival meal lasting one or more days, with dining,
entertainment, sports, dancing, and sleep interspersed.

Be that as it may, generally speaking, a course is a sequence of loosely
similar items (as in a college course, which is a series of classes
which are themselves different, but connected in their subject matter).
There are more specific definitions, but that seems to be the one that
unifies them all. Golf course, race course, undergraduate course, food
course. etc. Of course.

It's my understanding that a course of a feast is a sequence of dishes,
not necessarily all served at once (although it could be). You know a
given course has ended when the servers clear or "remove" the table
setting. There may or may not be a substantial wait (suitably occupied,
I assume) before the beginning of the next course, at which time new
trenchers and/or plates and bowls might be issued, possibly with
handwashing paraphernalia, etc.

Records exist of feasts consisting of quite a few courses (maybe a dozen
or more), and there seem to have been numerous cases where feasts got to
four or five courses, but I'd say the surviving menus seem to suggest
two or three courses as being the most common, and there seems little to
suggest that a two-course feast might be significantly less opulent or
showy than a twelve-courser. Chiquart seems to have felt (and I'm
inclined to agree) that a meal in two or three courses is best for the
cooks to concentrate on doing a limited number of things _perfectly_,
and that feasts of many more courses might be looked on as vulgar.  

Adamantius
- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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