SC - Fish at Feasts

[Phil & Susan Troy]

Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote:
> 
> You know its funny. here in the pacific NW, we have arguably the best and
> most diverse seafood available, and for dirt cheap if you're willing to go
> to the boat (Tuna anyone? Its going for a song now). We in the Madrone
> Culinary Guild very rarely if ever serve fish or the like, because
> "everyone" hates it (well, ok, a handful of people, but they're very vocal,
> very active in the guild and if there's fish they wont/cant come into the
> kitchen).

We're in a similar siuation where I live, having the Fulton Fish Market within
our Province's borders, which is one of the two large primary wholesale
markets on the East coast, the other being in Boston, whose market is somewhat
smaller.  And, in the same way, it seems  as the needs or tastes of a vocal 
minority have been able to shape the cooking practices of the kingdom. For
example, I was specifically asked not to cook any fish for the current Crown
of the East for their Crown Tourney last May. They said I could cook it for
everyone else if I cared to, but asked it not be placed before them. I decided
that the simplest solution was to simply look on this as a meat-day menu,
where the likelihood of fish being abundantly present would be low. I had
toyed with the idea of serving fish and making an illusion fish for High
Table, but eventually decided the menu was sufficiently complex without it.

There actually was a period of a few years when it was, for practical
purposes, illegal to serve fish at events in the East: we had a seneschale who
is violently allergic and extremely sensitive to seafood in all forms, which
would have been easy enough to accomodate if we had some idea what events the
lady was planning to attend, if she had called in advance with questions or a
warning as to her intentions, etc. As it happens, if we tried to cook or even
have any seafood on site, we ran the risk of being accused of "trying to
murder" our seneschale. Now, I can't and won't comment on the question of
whether the lady's claims of allergies are legitimate (I have seen other cases
as serious as the lady claims hers is), but I have also known people who will
claim to be allergic to foods they simply don't like, and I have also known
people who will go to extreme lengths to prevent others from enjoying foods to
which they are either allergic, or, as I say, simply don't like. I have a
friend who is a charming guy in many respects, but he simply cannot sit in a
restaurant at the same table as someone who has ordered chicken without
commenting endlessly on how horrible it is. He will quote the results of
experiments whose results link chicken consumption to Alzheimer's disease,
etc. This just seems to be some kind of compulsion, but I wouldn't be at all
surprised if some of the people claiming, uh, selective allergies (as in
claiming to have a reaction only when the person _knows_ the offending item is
on site) are under a similar compulsion.

But I digress. This situation no longer exists, for the most part, as the lady
is no longer our seneschale, tends to come to events for the day, and leaves
early. We just save the cooking of fish at events she is at for the very last
task before service.     
 
> The couple times we've served seafood its been inhaled with great relish.
> When we had the Council of Crowns, we asked our foriegn dignitaries what
> they wanted, and the answer was a resounding "seafood!" so we served salmon
> and steamed mussels. None left. We've also served salmon locally as well as
> May's Buttered Shrimps (shrimps in a butter, wine and citrus sauce), and
> both were made to disappear quickly (I made it known that I was willing to
> eat anyone elses shrimps, and so ended up with a very large plateful, which
> was fine by me).

Some fish dishes that I've served with success: hot-smoked whiting (which is
ridiculously cheap where I live) and pickled shrimp, both of which are good
sitting atop a sallet, egerdouce, fried fillets in a sweet-and-sour sauce with
dried fruit (children seem very fond of this one), saumon gentil, poached
chunks of extruded minced salmon (basically meatballs), sprinkled with cumin
and sitting atop a green sauce (this last prompting a diner to successfully
silence an entire feasthall while he told the tale of Fionn Mac Cumhal and the
Salmon of Wisdom -- _I_ thought that was pretty cool), steamed mussels in
white-wine-vinegar-butter sauce (very similar to your basic French moules
mariniere), Apician shrimp isicia, and my all-time favorite, the cuminade de
poissons from Le Menagier de Paris.  
> 
> At a small non-SCA 15th century re-enactment event I served poached halibut
> with Sauce Robert (mustard, butter, vinegar, etc) and again, there was non
> left, in spite of there being about 1/5 of the people who refused to eat
> it.
> 
> I'm starting to wonder what the percentage of anti-piscatory people are?
> 1/3? seems high. 1/5? that halibut dinner supports that. 1/10? hmmm.
> 
> what do people think? Fish could be served if you knew how many people
> wouldnt want it, and so just provide that much less.

I've had good rsults (as in having no significant leftovers) by using the
fairly standard reference works available for determining the typical portion
size and amounts needed for a given number of servings. Not that these are
always accurate, but in the case of a medieval feast with several dishes in
multiple courses, they tend to work quite well, on the premise that while some
will eat more than the reference book recommends as a portion, some will eat
none. I guess it might be pretty hard to measure the percentage of
icthiophobes ;  ) in a given population. Maybe some kind of survey? 


Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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