[Sca-cooks] Pennsic Iron Chef Results

[Philip W. Troy & Susan Troy]

Dunbar, Debra wrote:

> Edward Long-hair writes:
>
> 	" I suspect you may be making the mistake of viewing people in
>
>>period as 20th century Americans wearing funny clothes. They
>>aren't -- they came from cultures which are very different to the
>>ones we live in today. Just because it's obvious _now_ that rival
>>cooks can have a cooking contest doesn't mean it occurred to
>>anyone in period."
>>
>>
> 	Wow!  I'm amazingly thick skinned and not sure if I should take
> offense at this or not.  Do I know you?  If not, is this the way people
> normally converse on this list?


If you are referring to pointing out the possibility that someone may
have made a bad call, yes, by all means. One of the great things about
this list is that we are all human, we all make mistakes, and we deal
very nicely with each other as equals with virtually no pretense or
patronization. Okay, sometimes _I_ sound a little pompous, but that's
'cause I'm kewl, and also because I haven't yet recovered from learning
to communicate in Catholic school..

Every so often someone will misspeak, and I believe that this was a case
of, literally, that. Perhaps Edward might have said something like,
"Don't fall into the trap of automatically applying modern personality
traits and logical patterns to period people." I think that might have
made more or less the same point without perhaps less chance of sounding
patronizing or insulting. Not that I thought what he said was either of
those, but then this medium was never intended to replace the nuances of
face-to-face communication, or even a genuine print medium in which
people take plenty of time to frame their words.

I've always been treated with the greatest respect on this list,
probably more so than I deserve, but I don't think anybody is too shy
about disagreeing with me and saying so.


> 	Just in case you were doubting my intelligence or background, I have
> a BA in Medieval Literature, with graduate level work in Northern European
> Folklore.  Our department Chair, who received his Doctorate at the
> University of Michigan in Medieval Studies, personally taught me West Saxon,
> and under his tutelage I translated some of the Exeter Book for an
> undergraduate class.
> 	That was a long time ago, though.  I'm not an expert; I certainly
> have a lot to learn, but I am a grown woman, and a professional, not some
> ignorant child who wants to put on elf ears and run around in rayon hot
> pants.


As I say, I don't believe the suggestion that you may have made an
insupportable assumption was necessarily such a bad thing. (I'm not
commenting on that aspect; if I took emotional note of every suggestion
that something be rethought, it would become clear to me that I need a
new hobby.) Perhaps the suggestion was made somewhat less expertly than
it could have been, but I don't think any ill was intended, nor would I,
in that position, have taken offense. This is one of the most likely
communities for the cliché, "We're all friends here," to be literally
true, out of any I have encountered.



> 	Yep, I have no idea if cooking contests happened in the Middle Ages.
> I haven't researched it and frankly would rather spend my scant free time
> researching other things. (Like use of a particular spice)  As an
> organization, we have contests to educate members and inspire people - both
> the entrants and the "audience".  It's one of the things I love about the
> SCA - I get to see everyone's "stuff" and look at their research and learn.
> If cooking contests get people excited and interested in historical cooking,
> than I am all for it, regardless of whether the contest itself is
> documentable.


Sounds good to me. In my copious free time I am my kingdom's MoAS, and I
have to balance the fact that I, myself, hate competitions, versus the
fact that many in my kingdom love them. It's my job to support and
facilitate them even though I think their bad points outweigh their good
points, much of the time. As regards cooks' competitions in period, I
can see it as a very informal (and on the surface, friendly) competition
between hosts, more so than directly between cooks. One of those modern
life aspects we've been warned not to assume applied to period people to
the same extent is leisure time. Hosts might well have vied for the
reputation of having the best cooks, particularly when a monarch, say,
was well-known to enjoy a good meal. I suspect, though, that the
official line would be that all those cooks who aren't lazy
good-for-nothings strive to be the best they can because it pleases God
to see them serve their masters and know their proper place in the
world, as _everyone_ should.

And then, of course, there's the slightly post-period suicide of Vatel,
who both knew his place in the world, as well as the importance of it.
He would probably have laughed at the idea of a cooks' competition,
unless, of course, his master had made a bet, which would be an entirely
different matter.


> 	Wrynne
> 	(who has only had one cup of coffee this morning)

Adamantius, halfway through his first cup in his losing battle against
caffeine
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98