[Sca-cooks] Non-Europeans (mostly, but not completely, OT)

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
>>  I chose to be Near (not Middle) Eastern and i live in Europe (Cordova
>>  in southern Spain). I chose my time and place because women didn't
>>  have to wear veils (and European women do most of the time),

And Jadwiga Zajaczkowa blinked:
>*blink* where did this come from? European women are depicted wearing
>headgear a lot, but not necessarily veils. Am I misunderstanding what you
>mean by a veil?

And 'Lainie oozed:
>There certainly are different ideals of 'veils' depending on where you are,
>in time and place. To someone in Islamic lands, a veil frequently means
>that part if not all of the face is covered. And hair is always covered.
>OTOH, I know of no western European culture that covers the face. Covering
>the hair, yes, and sometime the neck (usually called a wimple). But not the
>face.
>
>Sooo, Anahita, what _did_ you mean by veils?

Well, European women did, too, wear veils over their heads. Certainly
not 100 per cent of "SCA period", but most of it...

These generally linen, sometimes silk, head veils - occasionally
quite long - are not much different than what many Muslim women wore
"in period" in public - a big piece of white cloth draped over their
head - in Persian paintings women are shown with a sheer veil over
their head held in place by a fillet - a head band (not a cut of meat
- you pronounce the "t").

The niqab is a different animal - that's the face covering - and
there are a number of variations, in time and place, but they are not
veils.

But high-class women in al-Andalus often just wore a cap on their
heads, if i'm interpreting what i'm reading correctly.

The idea that a "veil" is a face covering is a misunderstanding of
what women wore - and wear - in Muslim countries. What most women
wore most of the time is not greatly different from what Jewish,
Greek, and Roman women wore before them - and often Muslim women were
less encumbered than their predecessors.

The face covering is varied - and not a veil - although modern
Americans often speak of "the veil" and mean purdah - the recently
developed - 19th c. according to Yedida Stillmann's Arab Dress - full
body garment worn in Afghanistan. A burkah is ONLY a face mask.
Anyway, sorry this got so off topic for food.

Anyway, don't European women refer to those white linen clothes they
pin on their heads and in some period anchor to barbes, as veils, too?

OFC: I think i may be playing with sugar paste this weekend...

Anahita