SC - questions

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hello! all from Anne-Marie
Merceds sez:
>I'm and aspiring feastacrat.

good for you! being a cuisinier/feast autocrate/steward/pick your favorite
term :) is a very fun job. Its a lot of work, but it will be very satisfying!

One caveat before I address your questions...each area is different and
each branch is different. SOme groups tend towards "nothing blatently out
of period" menus, with a running theme only as far as what folks dress in,
etc. Some groups tends towrads every recipe coming out of a specific body
of work and everything...food, service, entertainments, etc all matching.
SOme groups couldnt care less and just provide tasty modern food to feed
the masses so they can go do other things. Nothing is wrong with ANY of
these, you need to decide what YOU want and what would make your branch happy.

In our branch in Seattle, a potential feast autocrate would stand up and
say "I want to do a period feast. I want to do foods that Columbus might
have brought back with him, ie showing off new exciting things. [please
note that this would likely have been 16th-17th century, as columbus didnt
even leave till 1492, so there are no influences on cuisine until after he
gets back, in the 16th century, right?]

people would hem and haw and say "but I dont LIKE food! I want rocks!" and
"you will of course make arrangements for us people who need to sacrifice
live chickens" and "but last year someone did a feast and it was ookie!"
and you play cheerleader and promise them that your feast will be tasty,
include plenty of rocks (both igneous and sedimentary) and there will be a
special off board area for folks who need to sacrifice live chickens :). If
your vision of the event is what the populace, and more importantly, the
baron/barones want, ta daa! you get the bid! If your event is NOT what they
want, they thank you and move on :).

If you are being asked by the autocrate to do a feast "I'm doing a new
world event, and I want food that matches that", you should work with that
autocrate to make sure that what you want and what she wants are the same
thing :). If they say "whatever you want is fine", then you can do whatever
you want and it will be fine :).

There are NO limitations in the SCA on food. The incorporating documents
only say you need make an attempt at medieval DRESS. Nothing is mentioned
about food. Some of us think its WAY more fun to document everything on the
talbe within an inch of its life, translating medieval manuscripts for
original reconstructions of dishes no one has seen for hundreds of years.
You say that your'e into doing a period feast (hooray!). You can take
already reconstructed recipes from your period of interest (there are tons
in printed books as well as in the files of the folks on this list), or you
can do your own reconstructions from the many primary source cookbooks out
there. Even amazon.com carries lots, and your local library can get
anything you want through inter library loan (if they dont ahve it already).

for ME (not neccessarily what you have to do, mind you  :)), if I say I'm
doing a 15th century flemish feast, say, all my recipes will be drawn from
the 14/15th century corpus (there's not a lot of difference between them)
and from cultures that had strong ties to Flanders, ie Germany, France and
England. Maybe a bit of Italian. What makes it a feast in my mind as
opposed to a dinner is the number of dishes and the ways its presented , ie
with servers, garnish, etc. Every bit of food I serve will be documented,
most of them from my own translation and reconstruction from primary sources.

as a general rule I run at least two or three courses at a feast. Each
course could serve as a meal on its own, ie its got a main dish object, a
couple veggies, a starch and a sweet. Sometimes I add a course at the front
with nibbly things to keep the restless natives placated :) and a course at
the end of desserty things that are good finger foods so folks can wander
around or dance, etc.

again, please realise that you are free to do ANYTHING you want, upto and
including a spagetti feed (I've seen it done). Check with the autocrate
and/or branch and see what they want, squish it together with what you
want, and you're set! :)

good luck,
- --Anne-Marie d'Ailleurs