Bad period Feasts (was SC - Re: Distress in Trimaris)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:58:50 -0600
> From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
> Subject: Re: Bad period Feasts (was SC - Re: Distress in Trimaris)
> 
> At 4:10 PM -0500 2/28/00, Jeff Gedney wrote:
> >  >  They were often done by artsy types who
> >  > tried to show how artsy they were instead of cooks wanting to feed
> >  > people.
> >  > I'll never forget the "raisin feast" ugh.
> 
> And Brandu replied:
> 
> >This sounds very much like out here in the East.
> >I'll never forget the Twelfth Night feast which was done entirely of
> >pickled foods, some of them rather poorly done. The rationale was "in the
> >winter that would be the only type of food available".
> 
> How many of these are done by people who haven't actually cooked from 
> period cookbooks, and are simply inventing period food on one or 
> another poorly informed theory of what they must have eaten?
> 
> David Friedman
> Professor of Law
> Santa Clara University
> ddfr at best.com
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

I can't really answer that one, but I was actually in the kitchen for
the much-and-not-unjustly-maligned "Vinegar Feast". 12th Night in the
reign of Horic and Leah, about eleven years ago. Essentially, what was
done (or what was attempted) was tight focus. Not just medieval food,
not just medieval French food, but early fifteenth-century Savoyard in
winter, in short, Chiquart with a little Taillevent stuff thrown in.
Yes, it was a bit much for there to be something like four pickled
vegetables in the first course, two in the second, and a salad in a
vinegared dressing at some point. Several of the other dishes were
somewhat flawed; pork loins that were supposed to be seared on a grill
were witnessed actually in flames, or at least engulfed in the flames
from flaring grease. Rillettes that would have been lovely at the right
temperature were stored and served at approximately blood temperature,
acquiring the texture of dog food. 

On the other hand, in defense of the guy in charge, he had his menu
changed several times by the autocrat in the last week before the event,
he had 100 people added to the on-board troll list about two days before
the event, and at least another 50-100 added on the day of the event.
The person who was supposed to coordinate the serving bailed out on the
morning of the event, and was replaced by somebody who simply didn't do
the job. The head cook's decision to serve several cold dishes in the
first course as a traffic expedient backfired when people arrived to
discover the hall was unheated (outdoor temperature in northern New
Jersey was a nice, brisk 22 degrees F or so at the time) because it
seems nobody on the autocrat team had thought to ask about heat.

Oh, and there was (I think) either a Court of Chivalry or some kind of
Court of Inquiry held in connection with everybody's least favorite Duke.

Consequently moods were not good, and I doubt ambrosia would have been
sufficient to raise people's spirits as they shivered. Oh, and to top it
all, the approximately 30 whole, unchined pork loins carefully butchered
single-handedly by yours truly, the one dish that might have saved
things had they not been incinerated on the outside by a cook who didn't
know the difference between roasting and an auto-da-fe, were the subject
of loud complaints because I insisted on cooking them to the point where
they still had some juice in them. Yes, after taking the internal
temperature of each one separately and pronouncing each one safe to eat
but still juicy, I discovered we were being accused of serving raw pork.
Seems it wasn't the dull grey plywood some people had been expecting.
Move over, deadly chickens! 

But yes, that will probably go down in Eastern history as one of the
more disastrous feasts: a lot of things were done in ways I would have
done differently had they been my decision, and there were a lot of
things the person in charge would not do again, too. On the other hand,
as I recall not absolutely _everything_ was pickled ;  ), but perhaps in
misplaced zeal to introduce vegetables out of season, the kitchener was
a bit overenthused. (The thought process was described by a friend of
mine as mental masturbation.) Add to that the fact that some of the
other dishes were sufficiently traumatic as to be wiped from the memory,
it could easily be remembered as being a very vinegary feast indeed.

Adamantius  
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com