[Sca-cooks] Question to the group....

[Laura C. Minnick]

david friedman wrote:
>
> >Peasant
> >customs change very little as a whole, so why should food be any much
> >different?
>
> >Kay
>
> I don't know much about the particular case of Polish cooking, but I
> find this argument unpersuasive.
<snip>
> I'm also curious as to how you know that "peasant customs change very
> little"--when we are talking about centuries rather than decades.
> Peasants adopted the horsecollar, the moldboard plow, the mantle and
> chimney fireplace, ...  . Peasants changed from Catholic to
> Protestant in some parts of Europe, and from Christian to Muslim or
> vice versa in others.

I must weigh in with His Grace here. It is my observation that the idea
that peasants and peasant customs don't change is utterly fallacious. I
am reminded when Lawrence, speaking of the Arabs, says they are a
"Little people, a silly people; greedy, barbarous, and cruel..." It
seems to me that things like this are most frequently said about people
and cultures foreign from our own. And in the SCA we are most likely to
claim that 'traditional' or 'peasant custom' is good enough because of
course they didn't change... especially if they were Arab/Turk/Eastern
European/Tatar/Mongol/Chinese/Japanese, etc.

What were your anscestors wearing two centuries ago? According to the
family records, some of my ancestors were barely above peasant status,
while others were quite well off, with livestock, large barns, and huge
tracts of... oh well. <G> Their lives were quite different from what
they were the century before, and even more so a century later. And if I
read the records back (to late 15th c.) their lives changed a great deal
in every generation.

Coming to the conclusion that a people (usually peasants, usually
ethnic) is simple and that thier lives haven't changed simply indicates
to me that the research process halted prematurely.

'Lainie