SC - Cilantro and Pine Nuts Salad

[Brian L. Rygg or Laura Barbee-Rygg]

In a message dated 6/16/00 12:25:16 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
ddfr at best.com writes:

> 1. I suspect you are giving the cooks in question too much credit.

Quite possibly. I have no proof, other than what has been told to me by 
peerage for this area as their qualifications; takiing Kingdom Championships 
and the like for cooking. Again, that goes back to the whole A&S scenario. 
What I was trying to say is that at the time I was too new to even question 
the authority involved; I went to them because they were the long playing 
professionals who should know. I never questioned it till much later when I 
was exposed to other feasts by other individuals that seemed more **right** 
somehow. Then I began my own research and found that I was not the only one 
that felt that way; and the history for **why**. Now, I have other 
individuals whose taste in these matters, and expertise I rely on with total 
trust. I've learned. Like I said, its a process that I can only base on my 
own experience. And I've since made lots of great friends of oldtimers who 
were neither stuffy, nor abusive, nor rude or anything but wonderful. I have 
fond memories of one such Vicount scrubbing my kitchen floor on hands and 
knees... -sigh-

>  2.  We (Elizabeth and I) always work out recipes in advance (snip)
>  >  If possible, we do the whole feast for one table worth of people in 
>  advance, both to see how things go together, to check whether we have 
>  serious problems with quantities, and to see if there are any kitchen 
>  bottlenecks we have missed.

I like this idea. Very similiar to what we do here now, in my own house, 
which is try it out on a relaxed weekend at home with guests who are trying 
theirs out. Sorta an impromptu "workshop".

>  
>  >The point I was trying to stress about all this was that because
>  >of the inability in my research to locate receipes that I could pull from,
>  >two of the courses were **my** receipes made up from period ingredients 
> which
>  >was my only fallback at the time.
>  
>  That's fine. There is nothing wrong with making compromises dictated 
>  by the limitations in what you know and what you can get hold of at 
>  the moment. What I was arguing against was the idea that such 
>  situations are unavoidable, given what is available to be known.

I may have said they were unavoidable, in which case I used wrong 
terminology. What I was trying to say was be prepared to work with the 
unavoidable. In this case, I had massive restrictions; and it still worked 
out okay. So we agree.
  
>  In other words, the conclusion of your story is not "you shouldn't 
>  have done it" but "you should now learn the things necessary not to 
>  have to do it again."

True. Or that, based on my experience I would like to save some poor sod 
attempting their first feast from duplicating my errors....

> >So, if we're both trying to make the same point, what are we debating? :)
 
>  What I am debating (against) is the tendency of people, on this list 
>  and more often elsewhere, to attribute to people who are in favor of 
>  authenticity wholly unreasonable views, which makes it easier to 
>  dismiss them.

Like basically saying all of one culture of people were against all of one 
other culture of people? I see that. Too wide a generality. We all adore our 
hobby and are passionate about it. I was told once we all have our own 
version of The Dream, and we hate having that questioned. Possibly. That 
might be why the verbage comes on so strong. I tend to think the verbage 
comes on strong not because it is intended to be strident, but because we 
have all forgotten how to write to be read by most folks. I used to work for 
an English Dean who had problems with the same thing, his pet peeve. I guess 
it carried over. Meaning what you say and saying what you mean can get 
confusing. And I proved that to myself. I would never have thought I was 
capable of that kind of miscommunication. Ah, English. 

>  It is a choice you are entitled to make--but let me try to persuade 
>  you to make the opposite choice. People in period had to worry about 
>  most of the same practical constraints we do. Wouldn't it be more 
>  interesting to try to do it the way they did, and then figure out how 
>  they solved the practical problems? That, like working out recipes 
>  from period sources, is an opportunity for experimental 
>  archaology--figuring out how things were done by actually trying to 
>  do them.

Currently doing that with research elsewhere. I would love to be more period 
in the dress; I'm sure I will. I adopted this mode when the period linen 
gowns I wore went up in a firestorm one camping event. I'm incredibly 
nearsighted...and somewhat absent minded when cooking as I concentrate on 
what I'm doing and nothing else. I wasn't wearing long sleeves or anything. 
Just a simple dress with fitted sleeves. Unfortunately, one moment I was 
slicing above a cauldron and the next I was Mrs Doubtfire and had no 
eyebrows....

I learned. A lot of other folk I know have not. Fire extinquishers 
good...fire bad. But I'm hoping with research into some peasant wear to come 
up with something a little more useful for the future.
  
>  One advantage of layers is that you can strip down to adjust to 
>  temperature; if your chemise is only sleeves, there is a serious 
>  problem with talking off the overdress in order to get cool. 

Hmmm. Are you sure this wouldn't be...entertaining too?
 
And that is why I'm talking about education and
>  >approachable attitude. If someone is told, "I'm trying my first feast" and
>  >has a time period they have not a cursory look to the idea of a feast. 
But 
> if
>  >we don't ask, "Is it an outside feast...(snip). 

>  The following is the first paragraph of the article "To Make a Feast" 
>  from the Miscellany (snip)

Yes! Exactly. And perhaps my first run in with "experts" was not with "great" 
experts at all. But they were what I relied on at the time. I was never shown 
this; I was told cook nothing from Fabulous Feasts and a few other sources. 
Then I was turned loose. My hope is to be able to teach others without them 
being done to the same way. But first I have to learn, too. 

>  I think you are confusing two different questions: "Does one have to 
>  be perfectly authentic" (answer--no) and "Is more authentic better" 
>  (answer--yes). If someone goes to the trouble of building a quern and 
>  grinding their own flour in order to get more nearly authentic bread, 
>  the rest of us ought to recognize that they are doing a better job 
>  than we are in that particular dimension, and praise them for it.
>  
>  By doing so, we are conceding that our version is inferior to theirs 
>  in that respect, so why do you object to saying that our rendition 
>  was "less valid?" It was. That doesn't mean we are wicked 
>  people--nobody has the time and knowledge to do everything perfectly. 
>  It merely means that someone else did better in this particular 
>  respect than we did, and deserves the credit for doing so.

Alright. I see your point on this. What I was attempting to clarify was that 
yes, I agree, more period is always better, total authenticity methods is not 
always required. But from where I come from--and this is the only state I've 
ever played in, so I only have here to example from--I have always felt that 
the emphasis was on doing it **completely** authentic or it is considered to 
have been **wasting** my time and the teachers.  This is why I said my using 
shortcuts does not make my version less valid an attempt. Perhaps not as 
authentic, but not less valid. Perhaps this is because when I first got 
involved in the SCA I was in an Arts and Sciences dedicated household; they 
were looking toward prizes and awards for their efforts. I didn't start 
relaxing and feeling more confident about it all until I started approaching 
other cooks of other households and attending other feasts. Perhaps that is 
not the way it is where you are; and I would love to attend a feast under 
those parameters for the comparison. I have attended several here, just in 
the last year, that I thought were fun, period, tasty, and smaller than I 
would have assumed to be so that they had this wonderful intimate feeling 
about them. At those I've approached the cook and complimented her/him, asked 
about receipes and sources. One well remembered feast cook even printed the 
original source receipe and the redaction on a separate pamphlet to give to 
interested individuals. I thought that wonderful. I believe that certain 
regions/kingdoms might expect different things from their A&S people, their 
Guilds (as was previously pointed out) and their populace. Its a matter of 
fine tuning what the "authenticity" of the matter is to me and hunting down 
that aspect of it. Which is why I turned to these lists for further 
illumination.

>  >What I've heard from newbies is that sometimes they are
>  >led to believe that to have "fun" in the SCA they must disregard the
>  >authenticity of it, because the authenticty takes the "fun" out of it. 
>  
>  Could be. Most of what I have observed in recent years has been 
>  online conversation, since aside from Pennsic we don't go to many 
>  events, the events we go to are geographically concentrated,and not 
>  much of our time is spent listening to other people's conversation.

The same holds here, as well. Geographically, I'm southwest. But I've tried 
to get as far away as New Mexico and California. Still pretty regional, 
although I have seen some differences. I think mostly I hear this stuff 
because my house holds a "Period Cocktail Hour" at our camp at least one 
night at every event. People when drinking tend to talk as a side effect, 
unchecked. This is why I believe bartenders run the world....
  
>  Judged by the online discussions, the attitude that fun is 
>  inconsisent with authenticity is about 98% due to people who are 
>  arguing against authenticity, and perhaps 2% to people who are 
>  arguing for it in a tactless fashion.
>  David/Cariadoc

Unfortunate. I can see that the would be the ratio, but I think there are 
some people who voice more than others naturally. I'm not usually one of 
those. I usually lurk for months and come out of hiding once or twice on most 
lists; when I really have something to contribute. So, this has been unusal 
for me. I have no idea what the ratio is for people I've heard make comments. 
I wouldn't guess. But I suspect it has a lot to do with newness and 
nervousness; which is why I suggested quiet tact and gentle encouragement 
with them.

Lars