SC - creations and creativity

[Robyn Probert]

At 11:32 AM 22/06/98 -0600, Elaina wrote:

>the entry was irish soda bread served with commercial cottage cheese and
>strawberries.  what could i do but point out that any non-yeast leavening
>is 19th century?  i honestly don't think the entrant knew that, or why
>would they have entered it?  the documentation said that clotted cream was
>too difficult to make and that it seemed to them that commercial cottage
>cheese was about the same thing.  
>
>it was not my intention to cut someone to pieces for an honest effort, but
>at what point do we have to set and keep -some- level of standard?  i've
>made similar negative comments in my time, always with suggested readings
>for the entrant, on the use of chocolate, chili, tomato, potato, and
>maize.  am i really as evil as i seem?

Not evil at all. I certainly do not want to reinforce the idea that
non-period is just fine, but to make them feel good about trying. To use
your example, if the person was there, I would ask them lots of questions in
an interested friendly fashion, like "This takes nice - where did you get
the idea from?" "Did you base the recipie on anything in particular?" and
then go on from the naswers. Sometimes you find people know what they did
was not right but they didn't have the materials/time/whatever. Othertimes
they had no idea that baking soda/chili/etc was a modern invention and you
can impart some knowledge in the course of the discussion...

If the entrant isn't there, then I always write comments. In your example, I
guess it would be something like "Nice taste combination - where did you get
the idea? You might want to consider making the bread with yeast next time,
as soda was not actually used for raising in our period. The cottage cheese
and strawberries were nice and fresh. I can give you a recipie for making
your own pot cheese if you'd like it - give me a call"

Sometimes this is difficult! I recently judged an embroidered slip comp
where the entries ranged from a perfectly executed period design to
someone's first effort in dayglo synthetic yarn on waste canvas. Judging is
very hard work!

Rowan

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Robyn Probert				
Customer Service Manager		Phone +61 2 9239 4999
Services Development Manager		Fax   +61 2 9221 8671
Lawpoint Pty Limited			Sydney NSW  Australia
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