[Sca-cooks] Seasonal Feasts

[johnna holloway]

I rather think that it used to be more a matter of what was
available in local markets (ie. apples in the fall because we
can locally go to the orchard, fresh cider, etc., possible venison
if someone got a deer on a hunting trip.) This was all tied to
costs and keeping feast budgets as low as possible. Feast budgets
often were fronted by the cook, and if the feast didn't draw or
went overbudget, it was often the cook as well as the group who
had to make up the difference. Then the next aspect of feast cookery
was the celebration aspects of events tied to holidays or named
feast days where the "traditional" dishes associated with that
day are served (be they exactly prior to 1600 or not). Only when
you get to the point of supplies being available as they are
through mail-order catalogs or the internet or local ethnic
markets, sufficient funds to purchase those supplies and incorporate
them into a feast, and the bibliographic resources in recipes and
sources that have exploded in the past 20 years do you get all
the elements necessary to start addressing a feast that might have
been served in the winter of 1520 or a spring feast of 1400. (Nor do
we address fully the aspects of feast and fast days as they were
actually practised within medieval Catholic Europe, but that's
just part of recreating the past through twelve hour events held on
weekends.) After thirty-five years as an organization, we do much
better now than we did twenty or twenty-five years ago.

I hope this helps to answer part of your query.

Johnnae llyn Lewis
Johnna Holloway


Kayah wrote:
> I was browsing through a whole bunch of food sites today and one question popped into my mind...
> When cooking feasts and such, do any of you consider the seasonal availability of fruits and meat as it would have been done in the past? I'd like to get feedback and your thoughts on it.
> Kay