food and appearance...was Re: SC - quick important note

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hey all from Anne-Marie
Turning back to food :)

Seumas says:
>(mind starts to spin.....April 1 feast some year.....Spam
>Cormarye....heh, heh....and a roast and gilded chicken sitting on a
>gingerbread throne.....with crown)
>
>
>See what she has to put up with?
>

does anyone rembmer the illusion banquet done by the madrone Culinary guild
some years ago (it was before I moved here, so it must have been 10 years
ago at least)

see, the guild was feeling a bit frisky, so they prepared this menu....
nothing was as it seemed. The "cherry pies" were actually beet, where
someone made "cherries" with a melon baller. the custard was actually
garlic flavored. The "hardboiled eggs" were actually blown out and filled
with chocolate...except the one that was left raw. that kind of thing.

The food was all very good, but the poor diners were all freaked out by the
end becuase NOTHING tasted like what their eyes told them to expect. Some
of our more curmugeonly members want us to do it again. Those of us newer
folks want to play with period food, and we already have enough of an
uphill battle convincing people that period is approachable and tasty and
not wierd that we dont really want to go down that road....

so I think you guys would fit in just fine....

but the take home is just how imoprtant APPEARANCE is to food. What do
people do in their banquets to make food appetizing?

- --AM