[Sca-cooks] RE: East's Burdened Tyger award

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Robert Newmyer:
>As a recipient, I'll try to field your questions. The award is, as far as I
>know and I could be way off on this, for direct service to the Crown at a
>kingdom level event.

It was my understanding that originally, the Burdened Tyger was for
cooks or autocrats of events at which the Crown was present (and not
necessarily kingdom-level), either for excellence or for quality
under duress, i.e. making it look easy, or at least functional, when
it wasn't. The award may not be given at the event for which it was
earned. Recently (about five reigns ago? Either by Balfar and Luna,
or Andreas and Isabella, I forget which) the award/order's definition
was changed to include the reference to "service to the Crown".

>There is often an element of 'disaster overcome'
>involved. In my case, the loss of kitchen and hall the day before cooking
>Crown Tourney feast. Never lived in any other kingdom, so this was just
>always there for me. It seems to be unigue to the East Kingdom and has been
>described as an award no one would freely, or is that sanely, choose to
>earn.

Yes, it's essentially like someone saying, "May you live in
interesting times!" and replying, "Please, no, anything but that!"

"No, Daddy, don't make me earn a Burdened Tyger! I'll be good! I promise!"

And Stefan wrote:

>  > Is there a similar but different award for doing the same thing when
>>  the Crown is not present at an event?

Well, the award is in the gift of the Crown (meaning there's no
polling or anything, unlike the East Kingdom's four Orders of High
Merit, which, BTW, are not grant-level awards, YHL Stefan...), so
that would probably explain the clause about the Crown being present.
They'd want to have firsthand experience with the quality and/or
adversity connected with the event.

>  > Why the requirement that the Crown be present? Is performing
>  > exceptional service of less importance when the Crown is not
>  > present?

No, just harder to document outside the polling mechanism that some
of our awards require by law, and of course the East Kingdom has the
Order of the Silver Crescent as the more traditional polled "service
to the kingdom" award. It's not like the provision doesn't exist.
It's just that this isn't it. ;-) The OBT is one of the "cookies" the
Crown can give without consulting other members/recipients, and it is
not armigerous (which the Silver Crescent is).

>  > Or is having the Crown present such an onerous addition that the
>  > same service is much more difficult when the Crown is present?

Nope. At least that's not The Party Line, anyway ;-)

>  > This just seems so strange to someone outside of the East Kingdom. I
>>  do however applaud the requirement that the award not be given at
>>  the same event as the occurrence since that allows time for reflection
>  > and avoids precipitous decisions.

Well, that's why it's there.

Adamantius, whose own OBT is for valorous and continued function in a
kitchen infested by nuns... very nice nuns, mind you, but no amount
of cleaning or spraying could dislodge them
--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER