[Sca-cooks] Medieval restaurant, a few more thoughts... (and an > introduction)

[Stefan li Rous]

Muiredach se=F2lta mac Loloig said:
> I was just pointed in the direction of this mailing list, and as I was
> browsing the archive, came accross the thread about opening a restaurant
> with a medieval theme.  I do have a few ideas about this, and feel
> compelled to present them.  But first, a brief introduction of who I am :-)

Muiredach, welcome to this SCA-Cooks list!

(By the way, what is the second part of your name? Something, perhaps
the digestifer for this list now insists on changing any unusual
characters into hexadecimal equivalents. So if you can tell me what is
supposed to be in place of the "=F2", I can update my chart.

> I did work in holiday camps for kids (feeding 450 children, 3
> times a day, on wood burning ovens), on a live aboard 65' sailship, in a
> bistro, and a couple inns, etc.

We have had various conversations here on single chamber wood burning
ovens. Your experience with these will probably be of interest to
some on this list.

Some of the discussions and most of the period recipes that have
been discussed on this list have found there way into my Florilegium
files. I have tried to organise the files there into a semblance of
order. You might want to browse through some of the various food
sections and see if any of the topics there are of interest.

Although if you've been doing much browsing through the SCA-Cooks
archives, you may already have heard more than you wish to about
the Florilegium. Some of us can be rather long winded. :-)

> I am a baby in the SCA, having been around only a couple months.  I have
> "taken" to it whole heartedly though, as it is something that has always
> interested me, I just never realized there was such a thing as the SCA.

Along this line you might find some of the articles and messages in the
NEWCOMERS section in the Florilegium to be of interest.
>
> I must say, I am not overly familiar with medieval cooking, though I
> suspect my knowledge of it is superior than that of the common mundane
> folk.  I did a research paper while in school on the topic of "Cooking in
> Nouvelle-France before the English occupation", which admitedly is much
> after the timeline the SCA concerns itself with.

Some of us joined this list with only a minimal amount of knowledge about
regular cooking, much less medieval cooking, so you are starting ahead
of where many of us started. On the other hand, I have learned a tremendous
amount about both from this list in the several years since it started.

> It is interesting that a lot of restaurants with *great* food fail, because
> the people who opened it can cook your socks off, yet didn't understand
> that cooking in a restaurant involves many, many different things than
> cooking at home, or even preparing Feast once in a while.

Thank you. This is similar to a comment I made on this subject. However,
I've got no experience in a food service enviornment or even a fast-food
"resturant".

> Nicolas Steenhout

Stefan
--
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****