SC - questions

[Ron Rispoli]

At 3:40 PM -0400 6/15/00, KallipygosRed at aol.com wrote:

>If you know you are from a small barony, or a shire,
>and the people you are serving are limited; and the goal of the feast is to
>at least break even...then you need to keep in mind what people will **eat**.

An entirely period concern, and one that period cooks had even more 
reason than we do to take account of, since their jobs depended onit. 
Fortunately, there is a wide range of period food in the surviving 
recipes, so no conflict between making recipes that are period and 
recipes that people will eat.

>It doesn't do any good, as I've said before, to serve fish in our locality.
>It doesn't go over. We have tried salmon, trout, and various other wonderful
>fish to have it returned practically uneaten and at great cost for a small
>limited budget.

A mistake that can be made equally easily if you are doing a period 
or a non-period feast.

...

>The point is, when you know that most
>folks will eat fowl, some will eat meat, that the attending king is a
>vegetarian, and the queen has an allergy to wheat based products...it can put
>a damper on the feast staying truly period.

Being vegetarian is entirely period--Chiquart provides a whole 
alternate menu to cover that possibility. If the queen (or anyone 
else) has an allergy to wheat based products, that is a good reason 
not to include wheat in everything you serve.

>  In that case, making receipes
>with period ingredients without a menu to have based them on is just about
>your only fallback. I don't know if Soy was a period ingredient, but for the
>sake of the queen, I would make soy breads. Having her sit through an eight
>course meal and not eat would be humiliating to me; and probably not real
>condusive to her coming to another feast **I** offer in the near future.

You seem to be assuming that if she doesn't have bread, she can't 
eat. You also seem to be assuming that soy flour (not available in 
Europe in our period, to the best of my knowledge) is the only 
substitute for wheat flour--when in fact there were a variety of 
grains other than wheat used to make bread in period.

Or in other words, aren't you deliberately and unrealistically 
rigging your example--jumping from the existence of a problem that 
the cook ought to take account of to the assumption that the only 
solution is to introduce an out of period ingredient?

>  Do
>you see what I'm getting at here? I'm not saying that everyone who attempts a
>feast can go into it on the perfect aspect of having a period feast in all
>respects.

So far as I know, not a single person on this list has argued for 
having a perfectly period feast in all respects. Here and elsewhere, 
that is not doable. Many people on this list argue for having feasts 
be more period than they usually are, and some argue that there is a 
lower limit--roughly defined by corn on the cob and roast 
potatoes--which no SCA feasts ought to fall to.

>  For kitchen wear I will "costume" myself in
>something that easily throws together and has the right look. It may not be
>totally authentic because I'm not gonna wear something that has eight layers
>around hot ovens; and has to be dry cleaned to boot. In court, now that may
>require the full dress.

Period people cooked. I doubt that they did it in eight layers of court garb.

My point here is not that one has to be perfectly period all of the 
time--that isn't a practical option for anyone. What I am taking 
issue with is a particular argument for not being authentic--one 
which identifies "authentic" with "very fancy, elaborate, and 
expensive," thus ignoring the existence of everything in the Middle 
Ages outside of royal courts.

>Yes, when I talk to people who are interested in
>sewing period I tell them how they can do it period.  They come to my house,
>or I to them, and we research the garment they would like to have--together.
>They learn as they go. When I talk to them and they have a specific use for
>the garment, I try to give them advice on how to make it as period as
>possible for the instance. I use a serger; on one of my other lists they have
>been talking about how Guilds require you to finish your seams in period
>style by period methods. Sorry, for this reason I will **never** join a
>guild. In our neck of the woods, it is not a requirement for A&S Competition
>to do your seams this way, just to **know** that the seams would have been
>finished that way and document it for the judges. I'm not gonna sit for hours
>and French seam a piece  by hand. To me that is a waste of my valuable time.

1.  Presumably the people on that list are describing some guild or 
guilds they happen to know about--and they may or may not be 
describing them accurately. In any case, guilds are not all 
identical, since different guilds are started and run by different 
people.

2. You are putting the arguments in terms of "requirement for" and 
"require to." In my view, that is  the wrong way to think about all 
of these issues, whether A&S contests or anything else.  There isn't 
a single level of authenticity such that everything below it is 
worthless and there is no value to doing anything above it.

The proper categories are not "right" and "wrong" but "better" and 
"worse." Garments in the form of period garments are better than ones 
based on a vague idea out of memories of Prince Valiant. They are 
better still if they are of period fabrics. Better still if the 
fabrics were handwoven on period looms. Better still if died with 
period dyes. Better still ...  . There isn't any upper limit, hence 
"yes/no" categories are inappropriate.

>I know how they were constructed, and if it becomes a requirement to
>construct it that way to enter the item; then I will consider it.

If the reason to construct it that way is to enter a contest, I 
suggest you should instead be spending your time doing garments in 
the way you think they should be done--being authentic in the 
dimensions you regard as most important, not the dimensions someone 
writing rules for a contest regards as important. That's not to knock 
period construction of garments, which strikes me as a good and 
interesting thing--merely doing it in order to be permitted to enter 
contests.

All of which is related to my general distaste for A&S contests and 
the culture they foster--the idea that authenticity is something we 
do because other people tell us to do it and will reward us with 
prizes if we do what they say, instead of something we do because it 
is fun, interesting, and makes the Society a better game.

>Or if I
>have a hankering to prove to myself that I can do it by hand, I might attempt
>it.

That's a good reason--entering a contest isn't, in my view.

>The same will hold for feasting, for me.
>If I know that flour and baking powder were used in a receipe for some sort
>of bread, then I have no aversion to using mixtures to cut out a step.

As it happens, baking powder wasn't used at all--it appears to be 
long out of period.

>But in
>the event of a truly full period feast, I will **know** the difference.

Except that there isn't such a thing as a "truly full period feast," 
only feasts that are more or less period in various ways.

[long passage about people being rude about authenticity snipped. I 
agree that people can be rude about authenticity, just as they can be 
rude in attacking authenticity--but that is an argument for being 
courteous, not an argument for or against being authentic or 
encouraging other people to be.]

David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/