SC - Digest 1914 - Trimaris Distress

[Marian Deborah Rosenberg]

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:41:49 -0800
From: "James F. Johnson" <seumas at mind.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Distress in Trimaris

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?

- ---
I discovered this January that my Mom spent some time on a commune in New
Mexico.  That was where she learned how to cook for 40.  "But mom," I said, "I
thought you learned to cook for 40 on the kibbutz in Israel."  "No, in Israel I
learned to cook for 400."

Techniques for cooking large amounts of food are completely different from
cooking small amounts of food, ranging from spicing to times, to scorching the
bottom of the really large tureen.  I've yet to get a chance to go to a feast,
period or not, but from the negative stuff I have heard about feasts from some
people coupled with the stuff I have read on this list I would say that it is
definitely inexperience in cooking for large numbers.