[Sca-cooks] Re: Mario Nebbits. New topics for discussion...

[Michael Gunter]

>So, for each post that arrived at the person's account, the
>cook's list got a separate auto-reply telling us to contact
>Mario Nebbits.

And I was away at Pennsic as well. That is why I now have
an alternate list administrator as well as a closed list
filter in order to greatly minimize such interruptions.

>Some people will do anything to keep a list going during Pennsic ;-).

Well, twinkies are a litt more on topic than Everquest.

Here's something, last weekend I had the great honor to judge
the cooking competition at Kingdom A&S. It was wonderful to
see the dishes and some of the ideas. I have a real problem
with the documentation on most entries. The majority of the
entries had "Pleyn Delit" and "Take 1000 Eggs" as their
sources. Great books, but the recipes and even commentary
were lifted straight out of the books. I guess the presenters
felt the judges either didn't have copies of these books or
didn't read documentation. Then the recipes were followed
straight from the books. Even in cases where there were
mistakes in the redaction. It was rather depressing. And I
have heard from several entrants that they never read the
judges' comments because they don't want the criticism. Sigh.

Another interesting discussion I got into with the other judges
was over a mincemeat pie. I usually hate mincemeat but this
person did a wonderful job and a perfect proportion of period
spicing. The pie was very good in all but one way. The recipe
said to cook the meat and then shred it. The meat was shredded
but in such large chunks that even cutting the pie pulled out
large hunks of stringy meat. The meat was chewy and a bit
tough. The judges felt that the meat should have been minced
more and the dish should be more delicate. I decided that I
liked the way it was because the pie was meant for celebration
and richness. You got a big bite of nice chewy meat and felt
it was a beef pie and not a fruit pie. The recipe was dated
1507 so I think it was meant as a main course and should be
hearty. The other judges felt it would be too difficult to
chew with bad Medieval teeth. Looking at archieological
evidence the people of this period actually had pretty decent
teeth. It wasn't until a bit later that everyone ate sugar
and had rotted teeth.

I suggested on the judges' sheet that the presenter explain
where this dish would have been presented so to decide
whether the dish should be delicate or hearty.

What is your thoughts on a 16c mincemeat pie?

>Adamantius

Yers,

Gunthar

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