First feasts was Re: SC - Diet Blues

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Gyric wrote:
>Well, Lords and Ladies...I don't have to stretch that far back to recount
>the tail of my first feastocrat duties...it was LAST NIGHT!!!
>
>And it was a smashing success...

Congratulations. I, too, just did my first feast a tad over a month 
ago, and as far as i can tell, it, too, was successful. Although i 
didn't get a standing ovation, i got asked to cook it again next 
year, people were fighting to take leftovers home, and many folks 
requested the recipes, which are now on my website.

http://witch.drak.net/lilinah/menu.html

>It wasn't exactly period, but then that
>wasn't what I was going for. I'm so tired of period nazi feasts, where
>everything is redacted from 5 centuries ago, and with it nothing edible or
>to the taste of modern palates.

FIRST:
Hmmm. I just did my first feast about one month ago and other than 
the hot spiced apple juice (as far as i can tell undocumented) and 
the faulx hypocras (fruit juice spiced authentically) everything was 
authentic, redacted from recipes from the 14th through mid-17th 
centuries, and everything was edible and seemed to suit the taste of 
modern palates.

Even the turnip haters said the turnips were good - thanks, 
Anne-Marie for the recipe.

I absolutely cannot understand why people thing that historically 
accurate food has to be inedible or not to the taste of modern 
palates. As far as i know human palates haven't changed over the last 
1300 years, although cultural expectations have. I've been making 
period food since i joined the SCA 2-2/3 years ago.

The only problem i can see is bad cooks or unfortunate incidents. I 
ate a feast not too long ago that had no period dishes and much of it 
was not very good. Does this means that all 20th century food is 
inedible?

I mean, what do the people you know eat mundanely? Here in 
California, besides "good old American food", whatever that means, we 
eat Mexican, Basque, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, Russian, 
Greek, North African, Ethiopian, Turkish, Persian, Indian and 
Pakistani, Tibetan, Burmese, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc., 
etc., etc. food. So just what is the status of the modern palate? 
What is there in Medieval food that makes it so impossible to eat 
compared with the food of the entire globe?

SECOND:
I have a REAL BIG PROBLEM with the frequent use of the term "Nazi" in 
the SCA. All too often I hear it used to refer to people who are 
sticklers for historical accuracy in the SCA. Or I hear it used to 
refer to people who have bad manners and confront people unasked on 
the nature of their clothing, food, etc.

If you cook good or bad, historically accurate or modern food in the 
SCA, the people you are complaining about will not destroy your house 
and business, they will not confiscate all your property, and they 
will not round up you and your family and your relatives and send you 
to a concentration camp or slave-labor camp or gas chambers where 
they will kill you and your family, etc., etc., etc.

Please find another word that better describes what you mean. Thank you.

Anahita al-shazhiyya