SC - Re: Lucanian Sausage from Platina

[ChannonM@aol.com]

Morgan Cain wrote:

> The problems with period foods are (1) many of them are not appropriate to
> feed to hot, hungry, salt-deprived fighters, and (2) many of them are
> difficult to convey to a far distant war, especially in the quantities
> needed for a week, with refrigeration and preparation problems.  [For the
> record, from research I have done, except for the varieties the dried fruits
> are period (even the pineapple, so there!).]  And both jerky and dried fruit
> are easy for fighters to eat while in armor, important when there are long
> battles, multiple battles run end-on-end, and/or various long delays in the
> fighting.

I simply must make a brief remark about this- while the fighter support
kitchen is an admirable idea and appears to be providing a useful
service, it is not fullfilling one of our main objectives in the
Society- that of recreating the Middle Ages and Renaissance. And to that
end I must say this about your points above:

1) period foods most certainly ARE appropriate to feed to hot, hungry
fighters. The men at Agincourt didn't eat Twinkies, and I'm actually not
sure about jerky (certainly not jerky made with Worchestershire sauce
and red pepper flakes). Wouldn't it be more productive to find out what
they _did_ eat than to make excuses for modern food? Come to think of
it, when it comes to salt deprivation, I have seen fighters go through
olives a can at a time, and mow through pickled vegetables and eggs.
Those would travel well, and I wonder if Fluellen had some in his pouch
with his leek?

2) and if 'period foods' are so hard to convey to a war, then they are
the wrong period foods. Armies march on their stomachs, it is said, and
if a man's army has unhappy tummies, they won't fight well and
dissention will grow. Most armies begged, bought, or stole food
provisions from the locals, so they have some fresh things. But I
wouldn't send a banana cream pie into battle (except maybe as a
projectile!), and I suspect a cream-filled dariole would not be found in
the wagons with the baggage boys. I firmly believe that the period foods
that period soldiers carried around with them would be very appropriate
for our weekend warriors too. 

If we treat this as simply care and feeding of athletes, then that is
all that it will be. But if we think in terms of providing a medieval
army (or household, or whatever) with provisions, it can change our
perspective a little, and maybe give us a vision not only of the Middle
Ages as they 'could have been', but of the Current Middle Ages AS IT CAN
BE. 

Not so brief. Oh well.

'Lainie