SC - questions/kinda long, sorry

[KallipygosRed at aol.com]

Brandu, 

Okay. Somehow my personal opinon has upset you. Sorry about that. I thought 
my points were clearly written, evidentally not. I apologize if you didn't 
follow. I'll try this way:

1. Each feast should be as period as possible for the enjoyment of all. Each 
subsequent feast should try to be more period than the precurser in order for 
the learner to be making "progress" in his knowledge and actually growing in 
his chosen discipline. And, it is my personal belief, that really unusual 
receipes should be kept to "trial" feasts, and not depended on for full 
feasts because of the unknown outcome of acceptance. It is for this reason 
that the people's tastes and limist you are preparing the feast for should be 
considered while planning a menu. In any event, when a learner is holding a 
feast, or seeking guidence from someone regarding their feast menu, it should 
be encouraged to the person to drop unperiod foods or ingredients in favor  
of more period ones, as was said earlier as in "That is a lovely moon pie, 
but why not try....".; 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. 

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 
because it is not possible, but because of the previous feelings toward cooks 
here and the "period" feasts that have gone before. Food feast that were 
considered "period" in this barony have had various outcomes due to the cooks 
wanting to present period foods flavored in unusual ways. I'm thinking of 
fish sauce on beef and fish jello and unusual unidentifiable bits that 
floated in pools of goo that no one ever managed to decide if they were fruit 
or flesh; and I thought were seaweed.  Sour/sweet/acidic combos that caused 
me to believe the cream had curdled in a dessert dish. But were considered 
period sourced and the cook wanted to "try them out" on the audience who were 
paying to sit there and be experimented on. It had not been tried on any 
other date, and consequently was not well received. Many of the people at my 
table at these feasts decided they would not attend another given. Because of 
those feasts where the hungry audience was not given anything "recognizable"  
very few attend the "period" feasts as I would desire now. 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. This is what I meant by building up a 
clientele and also what I meant by period becoming too strident and rigid. 
Because these cooks were so entrenched in the receipe and menus of period, 
they failed to realize that the taste variations of the menu they chose would 
not go over well on an uninformed, unenlighted audience. Some of these cooks 
have grown since this incident and they create wonderful, attended feasts 
now; but even they say they had to learn from these mistakes. Unfortunately, 
some of the cooks continue in a way that can only be compared to snobbery, 
and they are not attended. Their knowledge is very, very good. When I 
approach these particular cooks for knowledge or help with translations, I'm 
always made to feel beneath them. When I approach the ones who are more 
attended, I am usually asked what it is I hope to accomplish, and then we go 
from there. I guess it goes back to the old axiom of you can get more flies 
with honey than with vinagar. 

 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. 

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. Even if we don't always want to be, we 
should be, but especially when speaking with people we know to be new. People 
who approach this list saying, "I'm brand new and....": can be assumed to be 
new to the SCA as well as to cooking period, perhaps even cooking in general. 

As example, just this last week we had a "picnic midsummers" in the park. 
Everyone brought their own baskets. Someone who has been encouraged to come 
out, and was **born** in Outlands, played as a child, and hasn't played since 
a teenager, came out for the first time. She had no garb, but borrowed from 
the hospitlier. She got there early and set up the baronial tent, she made a 
dessert to trade, she brought her own basket of goodies. She was getting 
involved to meet and know people. At a point in the day she asked our Baron, 
a known good cook of period dishes, to share some of her meal if he desired, 
humble though it was with just sliced potatoes and bacon. He replied, "Oh, 
new world pig fodder."  She was not aware that he had served a peasants meal 
just the year before made up of "pig fodder and low food" to eat like the 
hungry masses. To him, this was a joke. Later, someone made the overheard 
comment that her trifle was delicious, but not period because of the 
ingredients and shouldn't have been included in the dessert swap selection. 

Well, you can imagine the effect of all this. She was in tears over it. And 
both comments were said off hand as if they were secondary comments with no 
attempt at tact or explanation. Later I had a long conversation with her, and 
she felt better. I gave her names of people to talk to, and names of classes 
held throughout the month that she might want to sit in on to learn more 
about period ingredients. She felt better. She will continue to play. 

The point is, the SCA as a being doesn't exist if we lose new blood and 
incoming people because we are rude, even if we are rude simply because we 
are less than tactful.

And, Brandu, no I was not saying that period feasts need to be made using 
period technology and methods. I was saying the height of my being 
**personally** will be accomplished when I can present a totally period feast 
created in a period kitchen with period technology and with period 
entertainment. Of course, this would also happen in a period castle or 
manor..... This is just my own desire for my future, not everyones. I wasn't 
trying to say it was.

Does that make it clearer what I was trying to say?

Lars

I mention the foregoing as example. Everything I mention an opinon on is from 
my own experiences, and not necessarily reign true in other kingdoms or 
baronies. But what we feel is just an off hand comment to educate, may in 
fact be considered