SC - Re: [Trimaris] Highnesses, Lownesses, and Period Cooking.
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Tue Feb 29 17:37:51 PST 2000
At 3:48 PM -0500 2/29/00, R.A. Duncan Cusdtom Made Knives Merc Swords wrote:
>If you make a period feast that less than half of the people in the
>hall can choke down, then why should they pay for it ?
If you make a non-period feast that less than half of the people in
the hall can choke down, why should they pay for it?
Suppose someone says "don't buy Duncan's knives. Who wants a knife
that can't cut." Wouldn't you interpret that as a comment about your
knives, not about dull knives? Yet you are taking a comment about
period cooking and treating it as if it were a comment about bad
cooking. That only makes sense if all period food is bad, just as my
hypothetical statement only makes sense if you only make dull knives.
> Neither I nor the Princesss suggested purely non-period feasts, and
>espacially not bugger king, what was suggested was that we be able to enjoy
>the food, whether period or not.
That isn't what was suggested. Perhaps it was what was intended. But
nowhere in Her Highnesses statement do I find either an attack on bad
OOP cooking or anything restricting her comments about period food to
bad period food.
> In short, lighten up. There are what some eight hundred or so years worth
>of recipes from about fifty different nations/cultures, surely a good cook
>can find a few dozen dishes of a less than fiery nature to serve for a few
>feasts.
As a practical matter, there are about four hundred years worth of
recipes from considerably fewer than fifty cultures. But that isn't
the point. Her Highness didn't say "during our reign, we want good
period food." She made it clear that she was opposed to *any* feast
that consisted entirely of period food.
Let me try again, with your craft:
""While I am on the subject of merchanting, let me address knives in
general. More
than anything, his Highness and I want our populace to have knives
that actually
cut. So when we step up, we request that merchants avoid selling only
handmade knives. We do not mind if they sell some handmade knives,
however, we wish them also to sell knives that ordinary people can actually
cut their food with! We understand the reason that people make
handmade knives,
but in some cases our populace is paying the price for
craftsmanship, and their
twentieth-century need for knives that actually work makes them
unable to appreciate
the skill and effort that went into making a hand forged knife."
That is a fairly close copy of what Her Highness actually wrote, with
your craft substituted for mine. Read it and tell me that it doesn't
imply that handmade knives don't work well.
David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
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