SC - munchies or side dish

[Catherine Deville]

> Can I ask a stupid question: why is it so offensive that at a gathering
> where people are not expected to wear period clothing, period food might
> not be the only thing served? I'm sure that the people on this list would
> not be saying to newbies "well, you KNOW this isn't period food, don't
> expect modern food at SCA events" in such a way as to come across as
> authenticity snobs, but it seems to me (with my chatelaine hat on) that
> there is no harm in an informational meeting/cookout, especially if
> someone brings a sampling of GOOD period nibblies for people to try.
> I can see why having non-period food at an SCA event, or even a revel,
> might be a problem. But at a party?

hmmm...

o.k... from my perspective (and acknowledging as someone else said that the
standards around fighter practice can vary greatly), my hopes, if not my
expectations as a newby was that I would be exposed to a medieval
experience.  if my first activity has been a meeting, of any type, devoid
of any medieval experience I would have been very disappointed and I would
have had very little reason to return.  luckily for me, the custom in
Glaedenfeld at the time was to encourage as much medieval activity at
*every* meeting as possible.  at fighter practices costume is not
"required" but it is encouraged and most people *choose* to wear it.
non-fighters often attend fighter practice as a social activity and bring
their current projects and sit around working on their projects and make
themselves available to answer questions.  in other words, possibly because
we have our fighter practices in a private park, we used ever fighter
practice as an opportunity to serve partly as a "demo" in that we had
medieval activities besides fighting going on and folks would come up and
ask questions and we had people in garb and in persona to respond to those
questions.  no one frowned if people got hungry and ran over to McDs for
hamburgers, but it was also appreciated if someone happened to pack meat
pies and share them.  if we had a pot luck afterwords we might not
*require* that everyone bring period food, but people certainly enjoyed it
if someone did and it was not unusual.  so newbies attending a fighter
practice might get a good sampling of what the SCA was about and that was
encouraged.

so while I don't frown on the idea that a group has chosen to hold an
activity where they have chosen to feed everyone with a non-period food, it
seems odd to me that it would be *unacceptable* or even undesirable to
present some period foods as part of the activity.  it seems to me that
having some contributions to the meal which were period or peri-oid should
be appreciated, as long as it is appropriate to the activity (i.e., easily
served in a BBQ/cook out setting) and *good*.  it only seems natural to me
that if you ask for ideas from a list which is centered around period
foods, that the recommendations that folks would give you would more often
be things which would be period or peri-oid than not.

I remain, in service to Meridies,
Lady Celia des L'archier