SC - adults only feast serving idea / Dutch (NL) book

[Christina van Tets]

Greetings the list (and especially our friends in Adamastor),
     Cairistiona and I have been somewhat quiet on the list of late, mostly 
because she has rarely been near the computer and I have been lazy and rude. 
  However, we came across a beautiful picture the other day that we thought 
would amuse (perhaps even be useful to?) some members of the list.
    The picture that we discovered relates to an earlier list discussion on 
methods of serving/presenting feasts.  It is a late 14th early 15th century 
painting of a feast,  the mixed company (half male and half female) are 
seated at their dinner, a king and a nobleman are about to enter the room 
and they are being entertained by a musician accompanied by a small and 
presumably noisy dog.  The feasters are seated in hot tubs - two feasters 
per tub, seperated by a board laid over the top of the row of tubs on which 
the food has been served.  Presumably as a result of the unusual form of 
seating arrangement, the clothing of the guests is notable for its abscence. 
  However, to preserve decency the ladies and most of the men are still 
wearing the headgear and their jewellery (I presume the minstrel is playing 
"you can leave your hat on" or some mediaeval equivalent).  The feasters are 
very obviously enjoying both the company and the meal (read into that 
sentence whatever you like).
     This form of feast may be a little decadent for routine SCA use but I 
thought that the more debauched among you might find it useful and the 
remainder either informative or amusing.
     I cannot remember the artist or the exact date of hand (if you are 
interested I can send them to you).  We found it on the front cover of a 
recent publication by Raymond van Uytven who is a cultural history lecturer 
at the Catholic University of Leuven (De Zinnelijke Middeleeuwen, 50 Hfl in 
the northern marches of Polderslot, 900 BEF here in the decadent south).  
The book deals in detail with the way in which the affluent half of western 
european society enjoyed life in the 11th to 15th century - clothing tastes, 
food, drink, beauty, dance etc. all good SCA stuff.  However, it is in Dutch 
so this one is primarily for Polderslotians (Particularly brave 
Adamastorians who think they can handle this ridiculously over-complicated 
version of Afrikaans may also wish to give it a try. 900 BEF is about R 
180).  We bought it for ourselves as a reward for learning enough Flemish to 
battle our way through it (and also because it looked like a fun way to 
improve our vocab.).
     On other things Polderslotian, we are absolutely devastated but we will 
not be able to attend Polderslaughter.  We have had no luck getting to 
events in Polderslot so far (when they are close something always seems to 
happen and when they are not the logistics are unfortunately too difficult - 
the only SCA related event that we have been to so far was in Germany, 
albeit just over the border from Kerkrade in Herzogenrath).  As a result we 
(especially Cairistiona) had been looking forward to Polderslaughter 
enormously.  A huge event and so close.
    Alas my patron intervened and has ordered us to Paris, leaving this 
weekend.   My patron was mildly stunned by Cairistionas ambivalent response, 
as she thought that we would be madly grateful.  We were, of course, but the 
timing was disappointing.  However, all is not lost, we still have two 
months to go here in Hasselt, so, dear Polderslottenaars, have a good war, 
please do not think that we are deliberately avoiding you, hopefully we 
shall make it to something before we leave.

farewell for now dear list,
I remain, your humble servant
Jan van Seist (wickedly using Cairistiona's courier pigeons, heh heh)

Mev. C. J. van Tets
Bosstraat 195, B-3500 Hasselt, BELGIUM
(or: c/- Jhr. Dr. I. G. van Tets, Dept MBW,
Limburgs Universitair Centrum, Universitaire Campus,
B-3590 Diepenbeek, BELGIUM)



______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
============================================================================

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".

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