[Sca-cooks] Out of the food topic altogether rant Authenticitypolice

[Jeff Gedney]

Ugh... 

Every time I hear someone ranting on about the "authenticity police" I laugh or get upset depending on _my_ mood...

90% of the time people who are upset about authenticity police are dealing with people who dont know authenticity from a hole in the ground, or they are morbidly upset at someone having the temerity to question their motives...

Seriously, why be in the SCA at all if you are not interested in history? 

If you ARE interested in historical cooking, why is it incorrect to asume that you might be interested in serving food that is traceable to a period recipe, when you are cooking as a representative an funtionary of an event that, BY DEFINITION, is supposed to be recreating "the atmosphere of the Midle Ages and Renaissance"?

But mostly, I wonder why it seems to be ok in the SCA for people to go a-ranting about "authenticity police" and treat authenticists as stuffy snobs and mean lowlifes (as if we arent entitled to feelings on the subject). 
Why is it ok to spend hours and days working up complex jokes and even events based on arrant fantasy and purest hollywood tripe, but it is wrong for someone to ask where whence a recipe, technique, or ingredient was derived or the rationale in using it? 
(Because I am pretty sure that's all that your "laughable" incident was. )

Why is it morally OK to laugh and sneer at someone trying to get their stuff correct in regard to temporality and locality (I have seen a lot of such sneering), and at the same time it is morally reprehensible to point out to someone that something they are doing may not be connected to historical factuality.

It seems to me the SCA has only one universal prejudice, and that is against those who try to set their personal standard a higher than t-tunics and pizza.
And to me that prejudice has a much greater commonality and audacity than anything mere historical wonkism can ever hope to achieve.
It is especially audacious in light of the fact that our very incorporating documents and bylaws all point to an ill-defined defined but none the less historical context for personal and group endeavors in the SCA. 

And you know what else? 
If your "good cooks" were not the slightest bit interested in preparing food with even a wink and the barest nod to the historical context, then, IMHO, they dont belong in the SCA in the first place. And if they were why did such questioning and commentary drive them away? 

You comment about their garb implies that you have that very common idea that they only people who can talk to anyone else about authenticity are people who have 100% of everything authentic.  

If you cant be 100% accurate you should not care about accuracy all?  That is a patently ridiculous argument.
Whatever seems to be the case, it is simply impossible, without access to a functional time machine, to be 100% period in everything, so that little argument is useless. 
Maybe some people are not interested in period garb but may be interested in period cooking, or period music, or whatever. 
Maybe they are just starting out and hoinestly looking ofr information and documentation.

But Maybe, just maybe, what they are wearing has no bearing whatsoever on what YOU were doing at the time. 

in any case, the discussion at hand was and is entirely in regard to whether lemons were commonly served in period, and what documentation exists to support or disprove the concept. 

In this regard your rant is unwarranted and intrusive, and completely beside the point.

So who invited the UNauthenticty police, anyway?

Capt Elias
-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas

Authenticity police badge #666

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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather 
wood, divide the work, and give orders.  Instead, teach them
to yearn for the vast and endless sea. 
  - Antoine de Saint Exupery