[Sca-cooks] weird idea... medieval restaurant

[Stefan li Rous]

David/Cariadoc commented in response to the idea of a modern restuarant
serving medieval food. In general I agree with him, however there are
a few points where I don't.
> >I would also tend to present the
> >food in a more modern manner, ie instead of a pottage or stew, serving it
> >as meat with a sauce; but that's just a personal thing that I feel would be
> >more attractive to modern diners. I would probably also need to substitute
> >some ingredients in various dishes in order to make the menu "healthier" ie
> >lower in cholesterol and fat, but not at the expense of taste.
>
> At this point, you seem to be moving away from actual period food.
> Given the wide variety of period recipes, and the range of possible
> interpretations of any given recipe, I cannot see any good reason to
> deliberately change things.

Yes where he is actually changing a stew into something else. However,
he did say later that there would be an attempt to not make changes
that would alter the taste. Some folks may say any change affects
the taste. However, you can't have everything completely authentic.
You have to make some compromises. You may be able to substitute
low-fat commercial sour cream for sour cream made on the premises
for example.

 <snip>

> At which point not only are you mixing wildly unrelated cuisines, you
> are serving at least one thing (coffee) that wasn't in use (at least
> outside of Abyssinia) until after the medieval period was over.

And here we have the problem of what is a "medieval" cuisine? Is it
possible to have "a wide variety of period recipes" that is wide
enough yet not serve "wildly unrelated cuisine"? Is there any
single culture (or cultures) that would fit the bill? and at that
point is it a "Medieval" resturant or simply a resturant serving
one type of medieval cuisine?

> >  A range of period drinks would ideally
> >be available, as well as mundane beer, wines, soft drinks, tea and coffee.
>
> At which point you are introducing striking unmedieval things to the menu.

Correct. However, if you restricted yourself to strictly medieval
drinks, some of us would have problems. At least with soft drinks
I can have a diet version. If you bring in the jalab drinks from
the elsewhere to the "standard" medieval dinner are you not now,
"mixing wildly unrelated cuisines"? And generally those have too
much sugar for me, also. I guess I could drink water, but as others
have mentioned here, that is hardly what would be appropriate at
a medieval feast. As I wouldn't serve drinks in transparent glass
glasses anyway, I think these could be disguised well enough.

> While you obviously want to serve people things they will like, I
> don't think that requires offering a mix of modern, medieval, and
> medievalish, which is what you seem to be describing. The experience
> of many of us is that you can do your best to stick to period recipes
> and still make things many people will like.

In general I agree. However, where do you draw the line between
"medieval" and "medievalish"? Setting this line will have a large
impact on the profitablilty of your resturant.

> It's worth noting that the problem of exotic foods is almost
> certainly less for a restaurant than for an SCA feast. People at the
> latter may have some interest in the middle ages, but their tastes in
> food represent something close to a random selection from the
> population. A specialty restaurant only has to appeal to a small
> fraction of the population of a big city. Consider Ethiopian food,
> for example, which is a good deal more bizarre than medieval
> European--yet there are Ethiopian restaurants, and at least some of
> them draw customers from the non-Ethiopian population.

Good point. However, don't those Ethiopean resturants still serve
soft drinks or wine with their meals? Niether would seem to really
fit in with the culture of Ethiopia.

A friend has mentioned that there is an Ethiopian resturant, that
he has been to, up in the Dallas area. Someday I would like to try
that place. However, it will be an uphill fight to convince my wife
to come along. Sometimes you have to offer non-ethnic food (ie:
hamburgers) to feed the spouse that is willing to come along, but
doesn't wish to try an entire meal of the unusual food.

The concept of medieval food resturant is interesting. I wish those,
such as Vladimir, who have such dreams to consider practical, useful
training to further their dreams. For instance, consider some business
training as well as culinary. The culinary portion is only one part
of running a successful resturant IMHO. Training in logistics, running
a waitstaff, finance etc are just a few things I can think of, that
would be nice to have. Your food could be wonderful and draw rave
reviews, but screw up the others and you're not likely to succeed.

However, perhaps these are things the culinary schools teach or
maybe others such as Balthazar or Adamantius with real experience
in the food industry would say they are less important.
--
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 ****