SC - Getting people to eat period food

[Siegfried Heydrich]

    Hi, I'm new to the list, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Baron
Siegfried Heydrich, OP, and have been feastcratting for about 18 years in
Trimaris. I've never done a bad feast, but some have been better than others
. . .
    The single greatest hurdle to overcome in getting people to eat 'period'
foods is 'common knowledge'. Everyone KNOWS that medieval foods are
overspiced to cover up the bad meats (which was bought last night at the
local Publix), and that weird ingredients like eel and larks' tongues are
used (like we even have sources for them), and the food has all got strange
names (Bouef Bourgononne, aka pot roast with wine, is just SO exotic!) so
you never really know what you're eating . . . you get the idea.
    It's amusing that even though almost all of the ingredients that go into
a period feast are exactly the same as what is used at your local HoJo's,
the fact that 'it's period' implies arcane ingredients more commonly found
in a witch's cauldron. And cooking techniques that involve blood rituals and
similar weirdnesses.
    When I do a feast, the menu for the populace is posted in english, and
is as generic as possible (roast beef in gravy, braised beans and almonds).
I may have ANOTHER menu, this time with the proper names for the dishes (as
well as historical notes), that I will hand out to those cognoscenti who can
appreciate what I'm doing and won't get all in a lather because it's written
in a furrin tongue. But if I'm talking to Joe Stickjock about dinner, it's
'yeah, we're having beef and chicken and some 'taters and a fruit cobbler
for dessert' type conversation, because then he'll go back and tell his SO
buddies that we're eating REAL food, and none of that fancy-schmancy stuff.
    I have found that in general, period feasts are better prepared and
tastier than generic 'murrican feasts - someone who's willing to undertake
an authentic feast has more experience, confidence, and expertise than
someone doing the blue plate special at Waffle House type feast. Sometimes
they bomb, but you'll have that in any genre. Undercooked chicken is
undercooked chicken whether it's in a honey-saffron glaze or shake 'n bake.
    But for people to blow off feast because it's 'period' is like saying
you're never going to wear anything but a T-tunic because you've seen so
many bad Elizabethan and Ren costumes.

    Sieggy