SC - OOP - Black Food

[grizly@mindspring.com]

Besides being in the SCA, i'm in a guild that works mostly in 
Northern California at small Renaissance Fairs that occur between 
March and the end of October. We are the Pack in Black - the 
Puritans, who we play as nutty buffoons - and why the heck not, fairs 
need clowns, even if we aren't colorful - ok, so we're verbally very 
colorful, but we don't look too colorful...

Two weekends ago at the Age of Chivalry Festival in Las Vegas i took 
out a plate with about a dozen "black wafers", nasty commercial black 
frosting on icky 'Nilla Wafers (tm/©/marca registrada/whatever), to 
foist on a few actors. By the end of the fair, i had served almost 5 
dozen to various actors at the fair and even a few "visiting" 
children (with their parents' permission - boy, are they trusting), 
including the entire Queen's Guard - the Queen being a local radio 
personality - she wouldn't eat them, though.

This coming weekend is the last fair of the season. I'd like to have 
a meal of all black food as a gig, a sort of black Sabbath feast. I 
hope we can have some actors from other guilds, too, because i want 
to see their reaction when the food comes out and they realize they 
have to eat it.

As a gig it will not last all that long, probably around 10 minutes 
or so, so it's nothing like an SCA feast. We aren't doing historic 
recreation, we're doing theater.

And i don't want to go to a lot of trouble over the food, since most 
of these people are very far from being gourmets and this is not the 
time to try to "awaken" their sensibilities.

So far i have black olives, black sesame seed paste, black mustard 
spread, black olive tapenade, and black bread - although it's really 
dark brown. And i will cook some black seaweed (either hijiki or 
wakame). And also i bought some mini-Chips Ahoy (yuck) to put the 
last can of black frosting on - i figure it'll be a new gig to actors 
at this fair.

I was wondering if anyone can suggest some other black foods and 
beverages. Several key guild members are vegetarians, so no meat or 
gelatin, although eggs and dairy are ok. And i really really really 
dislike licorice, so none of that (heck, i never even ate one of 
those "black wafers", the frosting smelled so unpleasant to me)

Thanks for any more black ideas,

Anahita al-shazhiyya
aka
Sister Modesty Thorneycrofte