SC - Re: New World Food Rant / Counter Rant

[Linda Peterson]

I have to agree with Lord Ras' position on this, although perhaps not for
the exact reasons. I see feasts as intended to enhance the experience of
historical re-creation. I would tend to reject perfectly tasty and period
recipes when designing a feast if I felt they were too familiar or
reminiscent of traditional American food, ie.turkey. We don't try to make
our food so weird that no one wants to try it, but something that's rather
exotic or different helps to jumpstart that mental twist that make you
feel afterwards that you've timewalked. There's so much out there to work
with (and the average American's diet is so plain) that it would be boring
to put all that work into just feeding people so they could get on to the
next "Medieval" event. 

Mirhaxa

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> In my personal experience the arguments along those lines are entirely 
> invalid for this area. I suppose I am lucky in having lived in 2 kingdoms 
> that encourage and expect period food prepared in a period manner to be 
> served at feasts. Relegating the feast to merely 'filling the bellies' of 
> hungry fighters certainly is never a criteria for menu planning but, rather, 
> it is encouraged that the feast become an integral part of the recreation 
> experience. Most, if not all of the fighters in several shires here would be 
> offended and very disappointed if the cooks did not make as much of an effort 
> to practice their craft within the guidelines of the SCA as any other 
> craftsman.
> 

  mirhaxa at morktorn.com