[Sca-cooks] Authentic travel, was Beverages

[AEllin Olafs dotter]

I basically agree with the approach - but I don't have a pack mule. I 
must be able to personally carry all my gear, or at least pull it on a 
luggage cart... up and down stairs, moreover...  Remember, I'm in 
Manhattan. I go to local events by taking the subway to MetroNorth (and 
have done so twice in the last month.)  Even when I have a ride, which I 
usually need if I am going farther, that sometimes involves taking a 
subway to meet the driver. Sometimes I can combine with a fellow 
traveler - she brings the tent, I bring the chair, I bring the stove, 
she brings the pans... but I can't count on that. Sometimes the site has 
cabins, but I can't count on that, either. Actually, I have yet to need 
to bring everything, I've always combined with someone for something, 
and I already have as much as I can carry - I'm not really sure how I 
would strip it down further. Though I was remembering Adamantius talking 
long ago about little butane stoves - I'm going to look for one of them. 
I definitely can't carry fuel for a "real" fire... and I can't usually 
get it there...

In period, I would have traveled with a pack mule and a manservant, or 
else as part of a train. And I would have expected to stay in inns and 
the like, as a relatively unassuming woman like myself wouldn't be 
likely to have a whole camp... but I'm too middle class (not to mention 
middle-aged)  to sleep in hedgerows.

My dress weighs about as much as my dome tent... this is one of those 
tiny one-person deals I can't stand up in. If I had room for a cot, I'd 
do the rope bed... but I just have an air mattress. Now, for Pennsic, I 
might try making a ticking for a straw bed, I've heard good things about 
that, but it's impractical for a weekend where I can't get straw. (See 
above reference to being too middle-aged to sleep without something...)

Oiled silk? Parachute silk? Fiber artist, rather than researcher, 
kicking in, here... only fabric I can think of that's light enough... 
did anyone make pavilions of that? What would support it? I did get to 
stay in (someone else's) canvas pavilion the one time I did go to 
Pennsic, and it is much more comfortable than nylon, as well as more 
medieval, but... there's some limit to how much space I can take in 
someone else's car.

Now, the positive side of this (which brings it back to cooking) is that 
I'm going to seriously look into the "camping without a cooler" side of 
things - as I also can't carry a cooler! Dried or salt meat and 
vegetables (and cod... *G*) are lighter than fresh. Norway is now famous 
for its flatbreads - I'll have to see when that began. Surely someone in 
a major port city would know about them... they were used on shipboard. 
I'm watching the answers to your questions about easy to prepare things 
with interest... I can do bread and cheese and sausage for a weekend 
without feeling limited.

So... I do what I can. We all have to decide, sometimes for each event, 
if it is more important to us to re-create the way the persona would 
have traveled, or the way she would have lived at home... bringing fresh 
things out of a cellar (mka "cooler").  What compromises are we willing 
to make, which do we feel we have to, which do we refuse to, at all 
costs? Interesting questions.

AEllin

david friedman wrote:

>> I don't know how far I'll take this. I'll never be completely 
>> authentic in my kit, for a variety of reasons (many having to do with 
>> transportation - if I'm traveling on the train, or getting rides from 
>> friends, I'm doing it with a dome tent - space and weight are 
>> important considerations.)
>
>
> Space and weight were important considerations in period, too--I 
> expect a pack mule carries a lot less weight than an automobile. 
> Wouldn't it be an interesting project to figure out a period tent 
> design that was comparable in weight to your dome tent? It wouldn't be 
> a pavillion with a diameter of twenty feet--but it might be a small 
> gjeteld.
>
> Obviously we can't all do everything--but most of the time "I haven't 
> gotten around to figuring out how to do that in a period way" is a 
> better reason than "of course there isn't  a period way of doing it." 
> I do, for example, have a period rope bed design that's comparable in 
> weight and bulk to a modern folding cot.