SC - Re: saffron

[Laura C. Minnick]

Gunthar, this post was some of the best writing I've ever seen you post!
I hope you keep it up! And I have a couple of comments of my own...

"Michael F. Gunter" wrote:

> > I think you forget one very important thing about this
> > Society, and that is the "Creative" portion of the name.
> Too many people use the "Creative" aspect of our name as a camoflage
> to do non-period things. I like to think of the "Creative" aspect as using
> creativity to figure out how they did stuff and how we can recreate it
> using our limited means.

This is by far the best answer to that statement that I have ever seen!
Thank you, Papa! Can we add it to Corpora? Pretty Please?

> > We are to re-create
> > how the middle ages "should" have been.

No we aren't. Note how that statement was an imperative? That is a
problem. But my real problem is with the word _should_. That implies (in
fact mandates) a judgement that we have no right or qualification to
make. Maybe you think that no one 'should' have been Roman Catholic. But
they were. Many of them. People 'should' have been better off, had
fulfilling jobs, decent homes, adequate health care. (As they should
now!) But they didn't. Those are facts, they cannot be changed, and who
are we to say what should or shouldn't? Should Elizabeth have executed
her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots? I don't know- historians have been
arguing that one for many years. But unless we can roll back time and be
there and have all of the information (not to mention pressures) that
she had, we can't answer that question.

I prefer (if I must say something of that nature) to say that it is the
'Middle Ages 
as it _could_ have been'.(A parallel universe of sorts, I suppose.)
Could have been cleaner. Could have been friendlier, etc. But we are
still looking towards a perfected 'self' that never existed, which makes
our internal justifications difficult. And any Coulds or Shoulds are
still subject to the same basis- which is the Middle Ages as They Were.
Unless you start from there, it is immaterial. It is very hard to make a
copy of a painting that you have no familiarity with. And any writing
professor can tell you that parody and satire are some of the most
difficult of arts- you have to know your subject as well as the
originator before you can skewer it. And we have to know the Middle Ages
very well before we can 'improve' it. Frankly, I know an awful lot of
very knowledgeable people, and not a soul would presume to 'improve'
upon it. It is what it is. We can choose as re-creationists to leave
death and illness and cruelty out of the picture to suit our modern
needs, but to say that our way is 'better', an 'improvement', or the way
it _should_ have been is the worst sort of chauvinism.
 
> To serve a peanut butter and jelly
> sandwich without peanut butter but with regular butter instead does not
> make it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I love this analogy! Thank you!
 
> > This is a re-creation society...NOT a re-enactment society.

True. But to re-create something, you must work from the original model.
If I am to re-create a building on my block, I must use the same floor
plan, or it is not the recreation of that building, but is some other
building. If I say I am going to re-create a 15th c. houppelande, but
use a Simplcity pattern and some calico, saying that I don't have access
to a 15th c. pattern or fabric, so I will make these substitutions, it
will be a garment, but it will not be a 15th c. houppelande.

Quite frankly, the majority of what we in the SCA are re-creating looks
like nothing of the Middle Ages that I know of.
 
Sorry if I sound cranky but I've spent the past five days in an
intensive fundraising drive, I'm very tired, and hoestly I'm sick to
death to this thread and several others. I'm tired of deleting the
greatest majority of my mail, and I would really like to read/discuss
things pertaining to cookery, period if we could? Even cuskynoles would
be fine with me...

'Lainie