[Sca-cooks] Re: Pennsic illusion foods class

[Elise Fleming]

Olwen wrote:
>...then I suppose I shall give it a go. The 
>worst I can do is flop!

Well...I guess I'm a bit sensitive about folk being pessimistic about their
abilities.  The thing about "flopping" is that one can take a "flop" and
change it into a teaching experience.  Back when I was first doing sugar
paste with gum tragacanth, I drove up from Cleveland to Ottawa (about a
12-hour trip) to my Laurel's home to teach a class on using gum tragacanth.
For whatever reason, the tragacanth didn't "liquefy" and remained as a
gummy blob, rather resembling really stiff classroom paste.  So (panicking
inside) I continued to add the sugar and additional liquid, reasoning that
kneading would take out the gummy lumps of tragacanth.  Yeah, guess what! 
It didn't.  I got some smaller lumps, and they never did smoosh out.  We
couldn't roll out smooth paste because of the lumps.  Prying them up from
the rolled out paste was too time consuming.  Finally I gave up and
admitted what had happened.  I sure was embarrassed!  So, we went back to
try again.  And, the second time the tragacanth "liquified" and we made
good paste. 

So... if you think that some folk might criticize that the class isn't
totally medieval, you can start by saying what you know of period practices
and the types of things that are documented to have been made with sugar
paste.  Documented items mentioned in period cookery books include: 
dishes, shoes, walnuts, skulls and bones, trenchers, slippers, cinnamon
sticks, capital letters, snakes, keys, plates, clasps and eyes, snails,
knives, wax lights, frogs, gloves, cups, cowslips, roses, letters, marbles,
primroses, cherries, knots, table furnishings, burrage flowers,
strawberries, "jumballs", pigeons, stock gilliflowers, marigolds, apples,
rabbits, "any bird or beast".  Then you go on to show how you can make
additional items that we have in our current Middle Ages (shrimp,
hamburgers...).  

The tools you use are modern versions of what we can document they used. 
Documented tools include:  molds carved inwards,
double molds (for cherries, strawberries, etc.  Twig is inserted for
stalk.); cut with tin instrument (cookie cutters??!?); knife; hand;
pincers; tin, wood or stone molds (Murrell says that if you aren't skilled
you can use a tin mold.); reeds (to wrap candy cinnamon sticks around);
handle of wooden spoon.

I don't know that you necessarily doubt your skill, but I know that a
number of folk new to teaching at Pennsic tend to "put down" what they have
to offer.  My belief is that most of us have _something_ that we can show
someone else.  One doesn't have to be a Laurel to teach at Pennsic.  (An
awful lot of Peers are busy with other activities!)  One doesn't have to be
an expert, either.  All one needs is the desire to share knowledge.  And if
someone asks "What about X or Y?", you can always say "I don't know.  Does
anyone here have any information?"  And often, someone in the class will
know the answer.

I'm somewhat sorry that the last two years the A&S Coordinators have felt
the need to limit folk to teaching 4 classes.  I truly don't know why the
limit was put on.  When I ran the classes we had two (maybe four) teachers
(out of some 250+) who overextended themselves and didn't keep their
committments.  We had a handful of teachers teaching 10+ classes.  Most
taught them all.  If you have more than four that you would like to teach,
contact the Coordinator privately and ask about an exception.

Well, back to grading papers.  End of the marking period has come.

Alys Katharine