SC: whats important was Re: SC - Re: Period Feasts

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

HI all from Anne-Marie
Alys sez:> 
> I just don't understand why we expect period cloths, armor, tapestries,
> feast gear, riding livery, weapons (at least the carry around ones),
> carvings, scrolls, banners, heraldry (okay, there are those that will
argue
> the heraldry thing, but lets not go there on this list), etc...etc....but
> you mention period food or bardic and everyone runs for the hills.
> 

I have a theory on this. In my non-SCA 15th century reenactment group,
everyone has a stated mission statment to stick to the documentably period
and shun the inappropriate. But we've noticed that everyone has one thing
that they are really really really focussed on.

Costume fanatics will spend months working on a garment, using only
appropriate fabrics with appropriate weaves. Some will weave the fabric
themselves from yarn with the proper twist. We have music fanatics who
carefully find and teach us songs and stories and dances appropriate to our
time period and would go running screaming away if we started to try and
sing something 50 years too late. Me, I go all twitchy if somone wants to
use a cream sauce or serve meat on a Friday or do something perioide just
cuz it would be tasty. But costume is just a way that I have something to
wear while I cook see? 

We all ahve things that are important to us. Its important to me to create
food that no one has had for four hundred years, and to stick as close as
possible to the original source. (If someone wants me to do a feast with
spagetti-os and garlic bread, I will likely suggest thta maybe someone else
could best serve them (after attempting to change their mind, of course).
If circumstances are such that it needs to be done, I can bite the bullet
and make the best dang spagetti-os they ever had, but it wouldnt be much
fun, so what's the point?) But I digress.

The point is that we all have things that are important to us. For some,
its important to just feed people and they dont really care if its medieval
or not. I mean, really, doing reconstructions, even testing recipes from
books like Pleyn Delite is WAY more work than just making what you would
make for yourself for dinner in a bigger pot. We cant really say that
they're wrong, all we can do is stick to our own guns for our own areas.
Eventually, the rumor of wonderful medieval food will spread and maybe
horizons can get broadened. But its a philosophical difference, and you
really cant knock someone for their philosophy.

- --AM, with a 16th century German reconstruction party tonight! woo hoo!
Madrone/An Tir
Seattle/WA
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