[Sca-cooks] My first Aten event

[Katheline van Weye]

--- Michael Gunter <countgunthar at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I must admit that Atenveldt will take some getting
> used
> to. The baronial feast that night was chili dogs,
> Fritos
> and green jello. I hear this was a bit of a joke but
> it
> wasn't deemed too far from the norm.

<snip>

> The dessert competition was a bit of a
> disappointment to me.
> I had researched and redacted a Lombardy Custard
> with documentation
> and presentation. But it was in competition with
> such delights
> as Guiness Ice Cream, chocolate cherry cheesecake,
> even a mint
> chocolate cake that was still in the store
> container. At least
> the judges seemed impressed with the period dish.
> I'm not sure
> what dish won the contest since they only announced
> the winner
> but not what she did. I was also a bit disappointed
> in that
> I found very few people willing to even try the
> Custard. I
> thought it tasted wonderful though. One ray of hope
> was that
> one of the judges, the Baroness in fact, recognized
> the custard
> from her book "Take a Thousand Eggs or More".
>

<snip>

I have only been in the SCA/Atenveldt for a year so I
can't comment on any history in the Kingdom that might
make period food uncommon here.  And I have never
visited any of the other Kingdoms so I don't know if
the average people elsewhere participate in the period
arts and sciences more than Atenveldt does.

However, with all of that said, I can come up with one
possible reason that period food might be more
uncommon here (not that I'm saying it's uncommon).
Our weather.  The main concentration of the members of
the Kingdom are in the hotter areas.  In areas that
for about half the year have temperatures over 90
degrees.  So no one wants to deal with any hot food at
that time and refrigeration is a must.  Unfortunately,
a lot of the recipes in the more common period
cookbooks that people use (Take a Thousand Eggs, Early
French Cookery) are for hot food.  Stews, soups,
meats, etc.  It's too hot to cook over a fire, it's
too hot to be slaving over a stove in a poorly
air-conditioned kitchen, and it's easier to use some
modern, colder food recipes.  So I suppose it's
possible for people to get out of the habit of making
period food.  If only our ancestors had found
refrigeration earlier. ;)

Anyway, that's a possible explanation.

Or it could be that the green meatballs that I served
at the last Baronial Brainstorm scared people off of
period food. ;)



Katheline van Weye








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