[Sca-cooks] merchants as Laurels

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:
>Eirene commented:
>>I, too have heard that those who make a living (or at least support
>>their SCA habit) with the proceeds of their craft won't get a Laurel -
>>that somehow selling the goods cheapens the skills and PLQs.
>I suspect in general this is true, but there are exceptions. It may 
>well be that, as with the general population of SCA players, that 
>there are a number that meet all the requirements for peerage, but 
>for one reason or another, visibility, personality, their circle of 
>friends or lack of the right people in the right places etc, just do 
>not end up in the pool that candidates are drawn from.

A variation on this is the assumption that cooks in the SCA who have 
attended culinary school and are professional cooks are displaying 
skills acquired somehow unfairly, or maybe showing an unfair 
advantage might be the better term, and are getting paid to do what 
they do in the SCA, probably leading to an approach similar to that 
some people have about SCA merchants. I gather I was a big test case 
for the Order of the Laurel in my kingdom, when I demonstrated a 
consistent approach that said, "I'm going to show you how this was 
done by period cooks, and then I'm going to show you how it's done 
today, only because I have 400 hungry people out there, a much 
smaller staff than I would have had in period, and a two, maybe 
three-hour window of opportunity before they walk out on me, if I'm 
lucky. And while the technologies used for the two methods have some 
basic similarities, here are all the areas where they differ..."

Most of us on this list are acquainted with a merchant who is pretty 
consistently passed over for awards because he's a merchant. I once 
had a conversation with a recent King of the East (Yes, Gunthar, 
_that_ one) which consisted of:

"But he's a merchant. We don't give awards for merchanting."
"Why, if I may ask?"
"Because he earns his living by merchanting."
"With respect, Your Majesty, no, he doesn't. He sells all his wares 
at just above cost and puts the pennies he earns back into the 
business to keep prices down. He works at a job unrelated to the SCA 
to support his invalid mother the rest of the time."
"Nevertheless, he's a merchant."
"But your Majesty, the service he performs is to the Known World. 
Cooks around the _entire_ Known World depend on him for hard-to-find 
ingredients, so they can pursue their art in a more period manner. He 
himself makes no profit. He even runs his stall in a period manner, 
with ceramic jars and balance scales, and scads of lore about his 
products. He's studied period alchemy, medicine, cookery, and trade, 
and shares his knowledge freely with everyone."
"Yeah, but he's a merchant."
"If you define a merchant simply as someone running a business, yes, 
he is, but he's doing considerably more than that, Your Majesty, and 
all of that 'more' is a gift, gratis, to Your people, and the people 
of the SCA. It has become a joke around the Known World that we don't 
recognize the service of some of our finest. It is an embarrassment, 
and to this realm's ongoing shame, that we have not recognized this 
man's service to the Known World, his service to the Arts and 
Sciences, and his achievement in the Arts and Sciences, simply 
because the people that he helps defray the bulk of the costs of this 
operation. Is he supposed to sell his blood by the pint to buy this 
stuff so he can give it away? He practically does that already, Your 
Majesty." [Note that it was not a Pelican I was advocating.]
"Yes, but he's a merchant. We don't give awards to merchants."

Please don't even ask me for more details, it's too depressing.

Adamantius