SC - Sabina Welserin Cookbook

[Varju@aol.com]

Being of a naturally evil and mischievous disposition (check with
'Lainie if you don't believe me....;-> ), one of my first visceral
reaction to a Crown giving such a decree is to serve a nicely period
(and tasty) feast, with a couple of fastfood burger meals for the Crown,
probably Burger King so I could include the little paper crowns. And as
has been noted, such would probably garner the wrath of many a Crowned
person, resulting in the same boycott of events as suggested, if not so
voluntary.

The next response was to proceed cooking as usual, sadly being a
defiance of Royal wishes.

The more thoughtful response I've come up with, that still satisfies the
Loki in me, is to cook a simple and tasteful period feast, served to
Crown and populace alike, and avoid any period references to the food.
Then pray the Crown askes for you to give you their thanks. At this
point, you offer yourself up unto their Mercy for your treasonous act.
Let them figure out whether they should punish you for cooking food they
enjoyed, or rescind their request for not period cookery.

On to a separate, but related topic that's been tossed about lately, and
I would assume long before I showed up. Specifically, the conception by
many of medieval and Renaissance cooking (and of other contemporary
cultures) as bad, tasteless, inedible, unpalatable, etc. It occurred to
me that most modern cooks are so used to following recipes that include
exact measurements and instructions, and are geared for stoves and ovens
that are highly standardized. I would make a fair bet that most of us
here are competent enough cooks to safely venture away from exact
measurements, and specific cooking times for modern appliances (we can
take an indoor recipe and adapt it ably to fires, propane stoves, etc.).
Perchance it is the cooks who are used to modern directions that have
difficulty adapting to unredacted period recipes, coupled with
inexperience cooking for large quantities of people (I've seen many a
mundane cook blow a mundane feast trying to cook for 100 like it was 10)
that results in poor quality 'period' feasts? I think most of us here
have had success cooking a feast for a large number of guests based on
historical recipes, so it's not as if it can't be done and well. I'm
trying to analyze why historical cookery is perceived as bad by so many,
as those here don't seem to be the ones cooking it badly. I can
understand a percentage of the population who just expect a modern menu
and don't eat healthy food to begin with (diets of fastfood and food
from a box), but shouldn't that percentage be lower in the SCA? Does
anyone think there is a significant number of people who eat a poorly
cooked feast, then later attempt to cook a period feast _expecting_ it
to be bad, so they don't attempt to cook it well? Thoughts? Experiences?

Seumas