SC - "Eat, Drink & Be Merry" (long)

[alysk@ix.netcom.com]

Lars, 
up to this point, we essentially agree, but here I must differ:

> but it shouldn't be something where you come running 
> at the person with a baseball bat screaming how unperiod it is. I guess what 
> I objected to was the lack of "approachable attitude"  in the instance. 
> Someone had come online to ask about running a first feast or some such, and 
> was immediately jumped for not using totally period receipes. 

Never happened.
and I would never use such a method.
I would not presume to be so rude.
the issue to me is whether a Feastcook should be encouraged to 
more period food, as they go along. 
You and others are, whether you know it or not, perpetuating several 
largely unproven stereo types about period food, which are implicit in 
our argument. 
I am objecting to that perpetuation.
among these are "period food is Yucky", "period food is unrecognizable",
"period food is expensive", "period food tastes different", and the 
biggest canard of all: "Modern palates are not used to period food"

Actually you should think of Period food, like one thinks of Indian, Chinese 
or French cuisine. (In fact, nearly every ingredient in the period corpus of 
recipes is used today in some "regional" cuisine. Ras or Adamantius, those  
eclectic omnivores, can tell you more about that than I can!) 

If you have had "period food" that was yucky, hideously overspiced, or 
ugly/unrecognizable, then the reason for that is the same if you recieved
an Indian, Chinese or French dish that was yucky, hideously overspiced, 
or ugly/unrecognizable. Bad cook, or bad interpretation of the recipe.
Bad interpretations are not that uncommon. Especially in books written
by supposed authorities. "Fabulous Feasts" comes immediately to mind.
A lot of the recipes are very strangely redacted in that book.

That is why we like to try to redact the recipes ourselves, from the original 
recipes. we usually do a series of cooking tests for each recipe, to to 
refine the spicing and preparation methods so that the food is palatable,
often pretty, and not that strange.


> However, if, per the original posts, I were to try on my budget to make a 
> fully period feast **here**  would be broke, and possibly not attended. Not 
<snip>
> paying to sit there and be experimented on. It had not been tried on any 
> other date, and consequently was not well received. 

That is why we emphasize trials of the recipes. 
("Fish Gely" is unusual, but not unknown in several modern cuisines.)
But presentation and complimentary flavors is all important. 
Designing a menu, whithout knowing in advance what these recipes 
actually TASTE like is always a bad idea.

Once again, there is no "bad" food, but cooks that prepare food "badly".
I think the error lies more in the fault of those cooks trying poorly 
interpreted recipes, put together in a very unprepared or haphazard 
fashion, just because they were "period". And not having pretrials of
new recipes is just not acceptable in my book!
 
> Before I can give 
>a fully period feast in the manner I would like to give, I will have to slog 
>through all this rumor and bad feeling. 

The best way to approach this is to make nummy period recipes, and 
bring them to Potlucks, and dont say they are "period" until they are 
eaten and enjoyed. You'll convert more when they have a happy 
feeling on the tongue and in the stomach than trying to get them to 
discuss it intellectually, cause people tend not to want to change their 
rather hardly won first impressions. 


>  Which leads me to my second point I was trying to make:
> 2.  New people are already nervous enough about being new. Responding to 
> their questions or requests for assistance without tact and diplomacy; 
> without finding out what they are actually trying to accomplish, is only 
> going to scare them away--perhaps for good. 

I dont advocate, and I never advocated, hitting them over the head with 
an "Authenticity Mallet"!!
Nobody has advocated that.
If you read the posts we put up when a newcomwer comes on the list, you'll
see time and time again where we have welcomed them, and referred them 
to collections of easy, and tasty, period recipes. We have offered to help 
them with research, and with menus, and offered sample feasts.

The only time there has been difficulties is when someone says something
like "What's wrong with white potatoes and conr on the cob at feasts?"
Then we tell the person why we think that is not appropriate.
We do NOT say, "you are forbidden to cook that".
we do say: "The SCA is about the middle ages, so perhaps, since you 
are cooking for a medieval group, you ought to consider using period 
recipes. If you do not, you ruin the risk of misleading other new people
in to thinking that 'white potoates and corn on the cob must be period, 
because why else woudl they be served at an event?'  or worse yet 
' I guess what we serve at feasts is not important, so this must just be 
a costumed dfressup society, and research and recreation are just
not important in the SCA scheme of things!'"

How pointing stuff like that out is interpreted as "putting the hammer" 
on a person is beyond me. Instead we get slapped with the 
"you stuffy authenticist, dont you know this is supposed to be 
'creative' and fun?" mallet.
(As if doing period recipes can't be fun!  harumph)

> And no, I don't lump all oldtimers into the same catagory or tar them all 
> with the same brush. But sometimes we need to think how our words and how it 
> is said will impact the other person. 

yes we should all think about the import of our words.
And _your_ words may have had the effect of preventing some other newbie 
from ever approaching a peer or old-timer for advice, because you did make it 
sound like all of us are going to ridicule and chastise them.

Watching what you say and how you say it goes both ways.

> As example, just this last week we had a "picnic midsummers" in the park. 
<Snip>
> about period ingredients. She felt better. She will continue to play. 
> 
I am glad she will stay. We are all increased by that.

My earlier post on rudeness stands.

Just because some oldtimer is rude does not make rudeness an attribute
of oldtimers.
Rudeness is an attribute of PEOPLE, not experience.

A rude person with a Funny Hat (tm) and a string of titles was probably 
a rude person to begin with, or had that as a suppressed attribute.

For every horror story about newbies you come up with, I could come 
up with a dozen where the opposite is true. 


brandu