Goodbye (RANT) (Was: Re: SC - Is Arrowroot Period?)

[Lee-Gwen Booth]

I do have some understanding of how you feel, and feel very sad that you are
leaving - I am only new here myself and thus I barely know you, but I hate
to see the sort of anger and hurt you expressed.  In a lot of ways you are
right, I noticed that when I plowed into the "Lady Seton's Project" debate!

I actually do enjoy the give and take of the discussions on the list -
although some of the arrogance (including mine on "feastocrat") is very hard
to take.  I am sure that no-one on the list wanted to make you feel this way
and I hope that they are, as I am, hanging their heads for allowing this
situation to occur.

Regretfully,
Gwynydd of Culloden
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "B. M. Crumb" <kerelsen at ptd.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 5:51 AM
Subject: Goodbye (RANT) (Was: Re: SC - Is Arrowroot Period?)


> LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
>
> SNIP
> >
> > Personally, common sense regarding the recreation of period recipes is a
> > focused attempt to follow any given recipe as exactly as is possible
whatever
> > measures are needed to accomplish that.
> >
> > Ras
>
> I'm giving up my attempts to do medieval cooking.  More and more
> I've gotten the sense from the posts on this list that if I'm not
> willing to bankrupt myself to buy ingredients that are not easily
> or affordably obtainable near me, and continue to follow my
> decision that I will not ingest wine or beer or ale as an
> ingredient in my food and will therefore leave that out or
> substitute for it, I cannot consider myself a medievalist cook.
>
> I don't have access to primary sources, and only have ready
> access to the Miscellany or the Florilegium to get recipes that I
> can use.  No one I know actually owns an Apicus or even a copy of
> Pleyn Delit, and my budget constraints mean that I can't order
> them from internet bookstores.
>
> I hear people say "don't substitute," "don't leave out
> ingredients," implying that if I don't do it perfectly EXACTLY
> according to the written original, that I'm a failure as a
> cooking re-enactor.
>
> Have any of you people who keep harping about "periodness" really
> looked at what you are saying to those of us with less
> experience?  To me, it sounds a whole lot like, "If you aren't
> going to do it right (IOW, exactly as the original source
> documentation--or as "I"--say), don't even bother to do it."
>
> In the months I've been on this list, I've seen new folks appear,
> and then rapidly disappear when we get a thread like the "period"
> ingredients one going.  I have enough problems with self esteem
> in my "Real Life (tm)" without having to feel slammed because I'm
> not in a position to do everything in an exact "period" manner.
>
> The whole response on the "Period Ingredient List" was a great
> example of what I'm talking about. Someone came up with an idea,
> meant to be truly helpful to beginning cooks, and then all the
> people who are adamant about only doing feasts set in one
> particular place and time period started going on and on and on
> about how it was a bad idea unless the author of the list was
> going to specify just when each type of food was used and so on.
> Good grief!  Not all of us are ready to cook an perfect
> Andalusian Muslim wedding feast circa 1239.... some of us just
> want to get started doing things that aren't too complicated.  We
> want to feed our patrons tasty foods that didn't break the bank
> nor our sanity in cooking them.  We need our confidence built up,
> not smashed down because we are doing a "generic" feast with
> ingredients and recipes from throughout the "official timeline."
>
> I'm sorry if I've offended anyone with this post, but I'm tired
> of feeling like I'm worthless as a cook because I can't come up
> to someone else's standards of what makes a successful SCA feast
> menu and presentation.  Not all of us have been active in the SCA
> for as many years as many on this list, and not all of us have
> had an opportunity to get to have hands on training from the
> "professional SCA cooks" who appear to be the ones we are
> measured against.  Many of us have to work alone with no input
> from experienced "kitchen stewards" or whatever the politically
> correct term is today.
>
> If you people who are ranting on about feasts that use a variety
> of recipes from a variety of eras in the SCA period aren't right
> would quit griping about how your perfection isn't being reached
> and insisting that we do it "your way," would instead do
> something like come up with a recipe and procedure primer for the
> beginners to feastocratting (yes, I used THAT word), with simple
> but effective recipes that individually would teach the basic
> methods of food preparation, and still make a tasty meal for the
> populace being served--that's the sort of support I was hoping
> for when I joined this list.  Instead, I've become less and less
> enthused about doing medieval cooking.  Why should I be excited
> about getting a frumenty made that my kids will eat, when I'm
> going to see a post on the list saying that I should have done it
> another way--implying that my accomplishment is worthless?
>
> Oh, I've been able to post a thing here or there about purchasing
> sources for odd things like the golden syrup, but just about
> anything else I've posted here about my experiences in the
> "medieval kitchen" has been ripped apart, ignored, or damned with
> faint praise.  I was going to simply unsubscribe quietly and
> forget about all this, but I decided that my feelings are valid
> and that I had a right to present them.
>
> Farewell. Maybe I'll come back someday... but if it's just more
> of the same, then I won't be sticking around then either.
>
> Bernadette
>
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