[Sca-cooks] pre-Columbian foods

[Martin G. Diehl]

UlfR wrote:
> 
> Christine Seelye-King <kingstaste at mindspring.com> 
> [2003.11.03] wrote: 
> > These guys were on an episode of "Extreme History" with 
> > Roger Daltry that aired yesterday.  ... 

[snip]

> I get the impression that the "primitive skills" movement 
> is a bit like  the SCA: some few could actually sucessfully 
> impersonate their "original", but most would have serious 
> gaps in their skill-set. 
> 
> Think about it; how many SCA people are there that could 
> actually manage all that was needed by a medieval person? 
> I know for sure that I would have serious problems with 
> such basic things as farming if Dr Who dropped by in the 
> Tardis and gave me a lift 1050 years back (my persona is 
> a well off farmer in the year 953).

What if it was a 5,000 to 6,000 year trip to the the Orkneys 
at a time when the neolithic standing stone monuments were 
being erected?  

I'd like to know how much of the daylight hours were 
needed for food production in those distant times.  

As an example, 

    "It's believed to have taken as many as 200,000 
    [man] hours to build both the Brodgar ring and 
    the Standing Stones of Stenness, another nearby 
    ring of stones."

>From http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2002/09/14/f160.raw.html

If those 200,000 man hours came out of the food economy 
... how were those man hours replaced?  

Here are some images of Stenness 
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/389 

This reference estimates that 50,000 man hours effort was needed
to build the ditch at Stenness
http://intarch.ac.uk/antiquity/mackie.html

Another Stenness reference 
http://www.stonepages.com/scotland/stonesofstenness.html

Ring of Brodgar
http://www.stonepages.com/scotland/ringofbrodgar.html

I know ... you're thinking, "How is this relevant to 
serving wonderful period food at SCA events?"  

Maybe it isn't ... maybe this is not exactly the right 
forum to ask these questions.  

Here, we do a lot of thinking, planning, and worrying about 
how to minimize the event cost and still produce a wonderful 
food experience.  

In that sense, perhaps when those neolithic monuments were
constructed, the equation was reversed to become, "How can 
we build something wonderful instead of gathering food?"  

[snip]

> UlfR
> 
> --
> UlfR Ketilson  ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org
> It is company policy to discriminate against all 
> employees equally.

Hmmmmmmmm ... 

Vincenzo

-- 
Martin G. Diehl