unfamiliar food at feast was Re: SC - Pot Luck

[Bonne of Traquair]

>What a nice idea..."introducing people to barley".  I like that.  Many 
>people
>are adventurous and will jump right in with a strange dish.  Others are 
>cautious
>or even "scared" and only eat at feast that which is familiar.  I served
>artichokes at a feast.  Just one per table for people to try.  It was a 
>large
>feast and I still had a few untouched chokes come back.

thats a pretty picky populace you got there!

the only unusual foods at my feast were asparagus and a goat cheese.

As for asparagus, while pre-cooking many veg so that at feast they only need 
re-heating is good, it is a BAD plan for asparagus.  Made all the bitterness 
develop.  Even I didn't think it was good, this during prime asparagus 
season and I'm usually bad about taking more than my fair share of this 
particular vegetable. It was cut into peices and a number of people ate it 
anyway thinking it was merely badly prepared green beans!

At any table there seemed to be a balance of people who turned their nose up 
at the goat cheese on principle and people who graciously offered to eat the 
picky eaters serving as well as their own. At this point, I'd been pushed to 
a seat at the table outside the kitchen door.  A group of newbies were there 
and happily trying everything that came by, including the violets when the 
murmer pointing out their edibleness reached our table.  That was very 
satisfying. We had the equivalent of one serving dish leftover, and the 
cooks and kitchen staff took care of that in short order, after having 
already eaten their own dishful and scraped the mixing bowl very clean.

Bonne





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