SC - OT - For Cooking Laurels/Pelicans

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"HICKS, MELISSA" wrote:
> 
> Why the geographic proximity?  Is it something to do with cross-Kingdom
> politics or is it simply that cooking is a hands-on activity?
> 
> Have any of you taken on a cooking apprentice that isn't in the same
> geographic area?

I may live to regret this, but here goes anyway:

I myself was apprenticed to a costume laurel, Master Geoffrey d'Ayr of
Montalban, a.k.a. Bish, who lived about fifty miles away from me.
However, neither of us drives or owns a car, and Bish has a wide
interest in various other outlets for the costumer's and needleworker's
art: sci-fi/fantasy conventions, various non-SCA living history type
endeavors, etc. As a result he would get to perhaps three or four events
a year, with, maybe, if we were lucky, one of those being an event we
could both get to. We communicated by mail and phone, e-mail still being
a bit unusual at the time. It probably made things more difficult than
they had to be in certain aspects, but overall I have no regrets.

I have pretty much decided that for the most part I won't take any
apprentices from too far from where I live, for a few reasons. Yes,
cooking is sometimes a hands-on art, and tasting is not something you
really can do via long-distance, at least not without difficulty. Then
there's the question of proper training in the English martial art of
cuskynole. Can't do that well long-distance. Tried it and people are
still talking about it. In addition, and equally practical, is the issue
of teaching the apprentice to be a peer, and persuading the other peers
and the Crown of the apprentice's kingdom to accept him/her as such. 

So, as an example of what I'm talking about, when it became time to
consider whether to accept a cook from another kingdom as an apprentice
a while back, I had to think not only about what I thought I could teach
him, but also what I could do to accomplish getting this person his
peerage. It seemed to me that I'd have a much more difficult time than
someone local, because I know maybe three laurels in the kingdom in
question, and I seriously doubted my ability to sway a roomful of
laurels (many kingdoms do poll their peers on candidates; in the
"Eastern Rite" kingdoms the king's word is not _necessarily_ law) from
not only another kingdom, but a kingdom which had recently split off
from my own under some tension. As a result I decided the best thing to
do was to offer to teach the gentleman as my student, until he could
make arrangements with a more local laurel to take him on as an
apprentice. This has since occurred, and all seems to be well.

If, on the other hand, he had been my apprentice, I suspect he might
have remained so for many, many years, and probably much less happy
about it than under his current circumstances.

I might still consider taking on an apprentice from another kingdom or
from far away, but for the most part only as a last resort -- if the
person simply has no other option for one reason or another.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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