SC - meat days and fast days - MIXED?

[Gedney, Jeff]

My dear Magdelena, 


	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 do appreciate your opinions, but I was merely expressing my vexation at
the notion that if some individual has a problem with a food, that we must
therefore plan around it.  If there are 20% vegetarians in your area, then
maybe this is needed for you, but I have found no such numbers in the East.
However, we have a Lot of allergies, and some people lobby very hard around
here on account of the allergies of a few persons with those allergies. I
have less problem with that than those who are vegetarians out of personal
moral choice.
Any time a small percentage of persons try to skew the feast for the rest of
the people, for no other reason than their personal moral convictions, then
that is certainly arrogance.  If a person were to say to me, "You cannot
read any more books, because I believe that they harm trees, and I do not
want us to support that practice", I'd probably laugh in their face.  So,
probably, would you. If a person makes a personal moral choice affecting
their diet, I am under no obligation to support THEIR PERSONAL choice. 
Moral vegetarians are definitely not period at events, particularly
ovo-lacto vegetarians and what I consider radical vegans, who will not eat
anything that possessed the property of autolocomotion.  An "Ecclesiastical"
Vegetarian would probably a temporary vegetarian (a penitent, or fasting),
or a hermit. It is unlikely that they would have sat at the same feast table
as secular carnivores (at least in 13-16th century England). They would
probably have been provided with a special table or region of the table,
instead. They would definitely have not had the same service as the rest of
the populace. Most of the meal would have been segregated by rank, anyway,
with the royalty, nobility, and chivalry, and below the salt, sitting at
separate tables, or at least in separate sections, as rank determined. If
fasting clergy were to be provided for, they would have certainly have a
separate area, with separate dishes, and separate servers.
Which sounds like "off board", as far as I am concerned. 
I am certainly not going to provide a full and entirely separate feast just
for the three or four vegetarians who might come to my feast. But that would
be the period way of handling it. Providing a mixture of fast day and
nonfast day feasts, just to accommodate the conscientious objectors, would
not have been period, from everything I have read. If I were trying to
recreate a period feast, I would not do this. If I were merely trying to
feed the people who come to the event with period like food, that would be
different.  In any case, it is up to me as the cook to provide this benefit,
as a courtesy. For a guest to require the benefit is rude.
Courtesy is only "courtesy" when it is offered, it is never "courtesy" when
it is compelled.  

>   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.  
> 
In what way is there an economic impact? If I cook for an event, and
seventy-five percent of the attendees do not eat on board, then I buy for,
and cook for the 25% that eats on board. Costs that are not covered in the
feast fee, such as hall rental and other expenses are covered in the off
board fee, so how is it such a problem? If they choose not to eat my feast,
then too bad. 
If your area only has reservations "at the door", I can see this as a
problem. Then in this case, do what is necessary to break even.
However there is little problem in my kingdom requiring feasters to
prereserve. With the Internet and telephones and the mail services, anyone
who wants to eat can find a way to tell the autocrat a week or two before
the event, and you can get your expected feast attendance from him in time
to shop for the event. If you ask for the simple expedient of pre-reserving
for the feast, the economics of an event is a non-issue.

We have done it this way in the East for 20 years or so, now, and have had
no problems of nonattendance. It is a simple thing to implement.

> 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.
> 
Perhaps that is because they CHOSE to do this feast, not because they were
compelled to do it. 
I cook as a volunteer, and am not therefore paid to listen to people who are
too rude to realize that I am not being paid to listen to them.
If I volunteer to cook a vegetarian feast, fine, then that is what I'll do.
If I volunteer to cook a feast, and other people try to modify my menu for
THEIR reasons, then expect me to howl about it.

Brandu


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