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

[Elysant at aol.com]

- -Poster: <Elysant at aol.com>

Brandu wrote:
>>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".
 
then Cariadoc wrote:
>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?
 
Some, I'd venture to say....  I worked in a kitchen a couple of months back 
in the East where the feast was put together by two cooks who admitted they 
know nothing of Period sources or recipes, but had worked "in the kitchen of 
a cook who cooked Period" which appeared to be all that was necessary in 
their eyes.  The main dish (it was a one remove feast) was Beef Stew with all 
sorts of vegetables including beans and potatoes in it.  The dessert was 
decided upon on the spot when one of them saw a recipe they thought looked 
good on the side of a box of dates they had in the kitchen (they had intended 
to serve baked apples with cinnamon and lots of sugar but had overbaked them 
into mush).    

I don't know which was scarier, that they liked the date dish so much they 
vowed to make it a "regular" at their feasts in the future, or that when I 
stated as diplomatically as I could, that what they were doing wasn't even 
remotely Period, the answer I recieved was "we're only playing at being 
Period today" and a big wink. :-(
 
Elysant 
Sorry, I don't mean to sound snotty, but it was very discouraging.