[Sca-cooks] Acclaim

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Michael Gunter wrote:
>
> That reminds me of something I hate and now refuse to do.
> After a feast when they drag the cooks out for people to
> applaud them. I know it's a nice gesture and makes some folk
> feel good for all the work I've done. But I kind of hate making
> the audience have to applaud. They will applaud even if the
> feast was lousy because they have been told to.
>
> I prefer to stay in the kitchen or make the rounds to the diners
> during the feast to make sure things are going well. If people
> like the food, they'll tell me then. But I don't like "hostage
> dinner approval".
>
> Off my soapbox now.
>
> Gunthar

Around here I've noticed great skill in the ability of the populace to
offer what is usually termed "polite applause". It must come with being
primarily northern plains people--we won't embarrass you by *not*
applauding your efforts as cook, but we won't clap nearly as hard as we
would if we actually enjoyed the feast thoroughly. Some people call it
"Minnesota Nice".

It made for some really interesting crowd reactions during the tourney at
our last Coronet.

Margaret