[Sca-cooks] SCA Slaughtering

[Diamond Randall]

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We just packed away our fourth deer into the freezer here at Cumberland Centre
yesterday.  Looks like we should get 10 to 16 this year for spring and summer
feasting.  I am particularly hoping to blast the big 10 pointer who has been
damaging
the orchard so badly this fall.  In butchering the two deer yesterday, Jon,
our
site caretaker, mentioned that he had been asked to teach classes on
butchering
animals (in a period manner rather than modern cuts) on several ocassions and
that he
had refused.  Curious, I asked why, as he always was teaching one classs or
another.
It seems that he had insisted that he teach the whole process from live animal
to
butchered product.  The particular unnamed laurels (and other folks as well)
who
had repeatedly asked for classes could not apparently handle the actual
(humane) slaughter,
gutting and skinning process and only wanted to see the cutting up of a
cleaned
and headless carcass.  Not to say all of our laurels and cooks here are
faint-hearted, but
is this the case in other kingdoms too?  Is the realism of slaughter and
processing (and
a lot more neatly done  than real mundane processing practices) just too much
to
expect to be acceptable, no matter how period the practice?  I know
that similar objections have been brought up for such classes at Pennsics too.
Are there mostly a bunch of wimps out there for the main part cooking for the
SCA?
I know several on this list who wouldn't hesitate for a minute, but are we the
far end
of the curve?  As the Centre is a working farm, we thought nothing of shooting a
fat
piglet right outside the kitchen and serving it up hours later at feast with
no complaints.
How does the list feel..... should we prefer the sanitized packaged meats from
the
supermarket (and I really don't trust just how fresh it really is) or go
agressively to
promote our own processing of animals (getting a superior product IMO)?
Wimps or not?

Akim

--- Diamond Randall
--- ringofkings at mindspring.com[1]
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