SC - meat days and fast days - MIXED?

[Tara Sersen]

I beg your pardon, but vegetarians aren't trying to set an agenda for
anyone.  I've met a higher proportion of vegetarians in the SCA than in
any other segment of society.  When I cook for an SCA event, I do not
let my own dietary habits dictate what I choose to cook.  I take into
account that the majority of people want food that I won't eat myself,
and I accomodate them.  I consider that a feast wouldn't be very well
attended if there are no veg alternatives.  I could see a good 10% of
Eisental not going on-board if there were was very little for them to
eat, and another 20% going off-board so they can eat out with their
friends.  That is a disaster for the people paying to make that feast,
and it really sucks for that 30% who really wanted to participate in the
feast experience and the other 70% who wish their friends could
participate with them.  Providing for vegetarians is an economic concern
and a matter of courtesy, not some politically correct dictate from on
high.  

There is a huge, wonderful variety of food out there that isn't meat,
and most people never realize it.  Think of how many people go through
life eating little except burgers and french fries.  People have no idea
that vegetables can be anything more than some annoying side dish that
they have to eat to be polite.  Two weekends ago, Sarafina and Ras made
an awesome feast that had only one pork dish, a couple of things
involving chicken and an  awful lot of (dare I say it??) VEGETARIAN
dishes.  It recieved one of the best reviews from attendees that I've
ever heard.  It seems like the knee-jerk reaction to people asking for
vegetarian alternatives is 20 times louder, longer and more annoying
than the original requests.

Thank you,
Magdalena vander Brugghe
who's stepping off her soapbox now ;)

Gedney, Jeff wrote:
> 
> Allison opined:
> > Since there seems to be a negative reaction among a number of cooks in
> > regard to accomodating vegetarians, can we just forget that word?  We
> > have menus from period that list fast day type of food for church
> > members.  'Ecclesiastical' is a bit much to type constantly, and 'fast
> > food', while punny to most of us, may confuse newcomers.  What term might
> > people like?  Church food?  Priest dish?  Perhaps this would make this
> > preparation more 'palatable' to us, the Kitchen Stewards.
> >
> Unfortunately, fast day food is not always possible as a vegetarian
> alternative either. Much fast day food is really just the same meals with
> fish instead of meat, and almond milk instead of dairy. Some Vegetarians do
> not eat fish (to say nothing of the period use of porpoise and whale meat on
> "fish days"!!).
> Personally, I think that a few vegetarians trying to set the agenda for the
> rest of us is a bit arrogant, regardless of the purity of their motivations.
> If a vegetarian does not want to eat meat at a feast, they can always bring
> a bag of carrots, and munch "off board".
> It is just that, predominately, in period, there was a preponderance of
> meats in the feast menus, and the assumption is therefore made that on
> non-feast times, people ate very little meat. (if they ate like that at
> every meal, then they would have died of heart failure very early!!).
> Unfortunately, for Vegetarians, we are recreating feast menus, not everyday
> food. Anyway, feast food seems to be what survived in books which we can use
> as sources.
> See what I mean, in this menu from a 14th century manuscript at the Beineke
> Library at Yale:
> (idiomatic language translated to modern English)
> For the knights table, the first course: Venison with frumente, Viand Bruce,
> Boars Head, Swan Roasted, Pike in sauce, Custard Lumbard, and a soteltie,
> The second Course: a pottage called gelly, and pottage blanc de sore, Roast
> pig, Roast Kid, Chickens Endored, Bream in sauce, tartes, Brawn bruse,
> Roasted Coneys, and a soteltie. The third course: Bruet of almayne, Stewed
> Lumbard, Roast venison, roast peacocks, roast partridge, pidgeons, rabbits,
> Roast larks, Payne Puffe, Boiled partridge, a dish of jelly, Long Frittore.
> 
> --- 10 meats, 7 birds, 3 fish by my count and none without some kind of meat
> or fish product used in the preparation.
> (Not to mention the kings table which has even more meat dishes in it.)
> 
> The point of this is that there would be little place at our table for
> vegetarians if we were truly "in period". I think that vegetarians should
> just accept the fact that what we are recreating was not the Vegetarian
> Middle Ages, but the European Middle Ages, Where if it was alive, and did
> not talk back to you, you could eat it, and often did!!!
> 
> References:
> An Ordinance of Pottage     By Constance Heiatt
> Pleyn Delite                       By Constance Heiatt
> All Manners of Food           By Stephen Mennell
> 
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- -- 
Tara

tsersen at browser.net   lorax at tulgey.browser.net

soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
- -Catullus
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