SC - questions

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Jeanne Stapleton wrote:
> 
> In a kingdom I
> dwelt in, I heard the circulated "wisdom" that "one
> can't expect people to stay sitting, you have to rush
> the food out with no breaks or they'll get up and
> wander around and start talking to people".

And we can't have THAT kind of anarchy, can we??? I've heard this in my
kingdom, or a variant of it in which the cooks and servers play their
feast hall like an instrument, setting a pace which is both leisurely
and yet not excessively slow. Someone in my group started clocking
feasts around the kingdom, and came to the conclusion that ninety
minutes was about the average for a well-attended, unrushed,
unabandoned, feast. To me this seems rather short, but then I am told I
hold some kind of record in my kingdom for an evening feast lasting
three and a half hours with nobody getting up for any reason other than
health/hygiene maintenance and smokes.
 
> Huh?  My first thought was, ungraciously, "Were they
> raised in a barn?"  :-/  I was brought up, and I felt
> that in the SCA if anywhere it should be even more so,
> that at a feast you sat for the evening and made your
> table your little world; you talked with your fellow
> diners, you got to know people at the table you didn't
> previously know, you enjoyed something that we really
> come close to re-creating (save the true above and
> below the salt for the most part, which I think is
> better--the chance to meet and mingle with newcomers
> and old-timers alike) the true crossroads of medieval
> manors:  the feast table, where all met and
> socialized.

Ah, you mean dinner as a social occasion, where guests and hosts have
defined roles, and have pleasant conversation in which an effort is made
to include everyone? The feast of reason and the flow of soul, I believe
the expression is?
 
> I do not like the idea that cooks are there to be
> caterers, to serve a Denny's roast turkey and mashed
> potato special fit in between the "more important
> things"; a feast event should be just that, and the
> diners should focus on enjoying the good company and
> conversation, savoring the food that should be the
> height of the cooks' performance art, and *not*
> getting
> up and standing around blocking the way for the
> servers, the people who *need* to get up (privies,
> smokes, whatever), and the entertainers, if an option.

If that were the case, why not simply give them their feast to go? They
can either eat it on the road, or in the parking lot at an organized
tailgate party, and don't invite anybody you don't like. Hey, those
paper White Castle wrappers and Burger King crowns are almost certainly
available commercially if you know where to look. Maybe a free toy with
the feast? Say, a service award polling letter?
 
> And that's another tiny peeve of mine:  I don't think
> there should be back-to-back entertainment all evening
> that completely usurps any opportunity for conversa-
> tion.  I particularly dislike people yelling "Please
> pray [sic] silence for the [entertainer]"; the enter-
> tainment itself should command attention.  Entertain-
> ment at feast should be used like seasoning in the
> food:  sparingly, for flavor.

I know what you mean, but it's hard. I'd love for there to be both
enough entertainers and enough time for anybody to talk about anything
they want to, when they want to. But it also makes me crazy when people
will not make any attempt to quiet down when someone is trying to give
something of him/herself in this way. One could argue that a good
entertainer can command silence effectively simply by performing, but I
have met perhaps two such people in my almost nineteen years in the SCA.
Probably the best thing for our purposes is to allow some entertainment,
and call for silence, but not to overdo it, either. 
 
> Berengaria, who loves good feasts

Me, too. This from me as I wake up after a fairly standard
four-hours-plus dinner with friends-- not an especially fine meal in
food terms, or anything special socially, but simply an eminently
enjoyable evening, which is what a good feast is. When it is in the
evening, anyway. No entertainers to speak of, either, other than perhaps
the Story of My Grandmother's Neighbor, Mrs. Matthews, Who Had a Gas
Pocket in Her Big Toe, the relative merits (or lack thereof) of Mssrs.
Liebermann and Cheney, my accidental but strategically sound choice to
wear a black shirt when sitting next to a friend who always seems to
spill red wine on me. The Usual. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com