SC - FW: Fields of Gold information

[JEANNE STAPLETON]

> > This Tasting is designed to bring out the Grandiose.
> 
> You can't have Grandiose without chocolate?
> 
I think the intended aim is in the spirit of some recent "decadent
picnics" that have happened in the area.  

> > Many would argue that Chocolate is not period,
> 
> Including most culinary historians.
> Chocolate is period but it certainly was not Grandiose.
> 
Again, there are a few not willing to be dissuaded by simple history and
facts.  I'm sure it was added "in the spirit of fun".  I'm cool with
the spirit of fun, but I continue to be annoyed at setting up fun and
authenticity as spiritual and intellectual antitheses.

> > This is a display
> > contest designed around the premise "To the most decadent (with a period
> > flair) go the Spoils"  Imagination definitely counts, and be not shy with
> > thy presentation......
> 
> Oh! Imagination! Now I get it! Basically we can go to an alternate dimension
> where milk chocolate was routinely eaten in London in the 1500's. Or is this
> the case of the SCA's usual disclaimer of "if they would have had it they
> would have used it"?
> 
No doubt.

> I'm sooooo eager to bring my period brownies and fudge!
> 
I hope you will!!!  :-)

> > In Service, Ld Random"
> 
> Please forgive me for being far more rude than I tend to be on line but there
> is just something that really gets to me about this. I think it's the cavalier
> attitude that "well chocolate was discovered in period so all of our chocolate
> tastes are covered" attitude. And the constant use of "chocolate" and "period"
> is just screaming the wrong message.
> 
This is our point.  Now you see why some of us continue to be downcast.

We *are* passing around some period approaches to this event; we were
kicking it around on the Northern Outlands Cooks list late last night,
and I think that several of us at least will be entering things that will
be not precisely what the good sponsor is expecting, but will certainly
fulfill what was said.

I just wish I could find a litter and a bunch of guys to dress up as
Jaguar knights to carry me in...some type of Aztec decadence...

> I truly have no real problem with chocolate at events. When we were Crown
> a group presented us with the most wonderful chocolate soltety of a chessboard
> and chess pieces made from dark and white chocolate. I've served chocolate at
> my feasts and I've even thrown the golden chocolate "coins".  But I've never
> pretended it to be period. This is making people think that the hershey bar
> is period.
> 
> Sorry for the rant.
> 
> Yers,
> 
> Gunthar
> (Calming down with a nice cup of period coffee. Hey, I declared it period so
> there!)
> 
I really don't mind the rant, I can't speak for anyone else on this list,
'cept maybe Elaina and Maredudd, but they can speak for themselves:  but
I'm right with you.

The thing is, I'm not normally a big believer in slippery slopes, but many
people don't seem to possess the critical weighing of "everything they
hear" that many on this list do.  They see something like this at an
event, nobody even mentions or indirectly enters something that perhaps
defies the 'decadent, imaginative" approach, but is period and documen-
table, nobody notices a boycott...and that silence is seen to give assent.
"See, it really *is* period after all, they just want to spoil our fun."

It's the same thing that has friends running up to me breathlessly
going, "Did you know that Walsingham *murdered* Mary de Guise?" after
seeing the "Elizabeth" video once.

Berengaria

============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================