SC - IT'S A YES!!!!

[Bonne of Traquair]

Well worded! After all, think of it in these terms for today:
I have been to these stupid political functions all my life with my dad.
We have gone to them in banquet facilities, hotel ball rooms and fancy
resteraunts. I have had the ubiquitous groups of dishes so often that I
have come to hate them.

column 1- chicken cordon bleu, fillet of sole au gratin, a slice of
'prime rib', beef tips and shrooms in red wine sauce

column 2- tossed salad with various veggies and croutons, tossed salad
with assorted veggies and no croutons, artistic tossed salad of assorted
foliage found in the woods somewhere

column 3- baked potato, mashed potato, baby potatoes with herbed garlic
sauce, rice pilaf

column 4- baby carrots, green beans almandine, peas and pearled onions,
that horrid spring veggie blend with zucchini, green beans, baby carrots
and red pepper rings

column 5- apple pie a la mode, chocolate cake a la mode, fruit compote
with funky shortbread-y cookies

All of these tend to be made from industry standard recipes. I have had
them all over the east coast, and they all taste the same. I know I
learned in my time in the kitchen how to make all of the standard
garniture, prep veggies and salad prep, and make sauces. A bearnaise
sauce can be wonderful, but if made by rote from a mix, and i have seen
the mix in a lot of kitchens[as if it is so damned hard to make it for
real!] it can take a mearly adequate slice of prepackaged already cooked
in a retort pouch slab of 'prime rib' and make it truly [ick] memorable
as one of the worst meals you can ever remember eating. I have seen
places using the same recipes and menus turn out good food, but they
arent changing the recipes production, just in the care used in making
it.

It was probably much the same ni period- As Ras pointed out, their
banquets were probably much the same as ours. The eaters would come to
expect the minced meat things, the pies, the joints of meat with the
common sauces, which is why we keep running across the same manuscript
being copied and sent everywhere. What a thought-the ubiquitous medieval
version of chicken cordon bleu-icelandic chicken! Instead of our little
herbed potatos-loseyns, and instead of the beef tips in wine-wait what
am i thinking of-boeuf bourguinon! I guess some things never change!
margali
[and yes, in most of the midrange and lower range resteraunts today they
do use precooked and individually packaged slabs of prime rib, in its
own sort of jus. pop it onto a plate and nuke!]