[Sca-cooks] Perioid versus period

[UlfR]

Terri Morgan <nothingbutadame at inthe.sca.org> [2005.02.09] wrote:
> Speaking as a not-very-experienced feast cook, I can agree that the main
> difficulty I have is lack of knowledge about terms and flavours. I know that
> pre-cooking for a feast is a grand idea - but pre-testing an entire litany
> of unfamiliar foods in the wild hopes that enough of them will trip your
> trigger sufficiently to add to your prospective menu can take a long time
> and be off-putting to the cook who is isolated from those of you who are
> familiar with medieval food.

You know the way I found around that? Cook medieval every day (week,
whatever).  I've done so for years, for two reasons; I like the style of
food, and it gives me an familiarity with the corpus (at least the
manuscripts I use most). This of course assumes that your familly is
willing to eat "strange stuff" (not all are).

> the SCA cooking world" and when it's not. So reading the denunciations of
> cooks who would dare to serve food that isn't "period within a T" IS adding
> to *my* stress about ever attempting to cook a feast again. I've been out of
> the loop for 6 years - a long time in the researching world - and after
> subscribing here, I'm unsure I will ever do more than assist in a kitchen.
> I'm a good cook and a fine dishwasher. 

Don't worry. If you want to cook hang on to some more experienced cooks
when they cook feasts, work up a set of recipies that you are familliar
with from home that works, and then -- when you feel ready -- go for it.

Your post made me think. When do I feel that someone is in the wrong for
cooking a modern meal in an SCA context? Not when they do it in their
own camp/household/whatever. Not when a beginner (for whatever
definition of beginner you care to use) does it for a feast. When
someone who damn well knows (or at least should know) better does it.
Thus we are looking at experienced cooks, who have cooked in an SCA
context for years, and still make (at best) perioid food and don't
appear to care. When the crown announces that they want a "modern food"
feast.

Cooking feasts fullfill two purposes; (a) it feeds the masses, and (b)
it is a "display" art (like heraldry, singing, or dancing can be). In
the case of (a) tasty food that is not harmfull is fine. In the case of
(b) the issue is trickier, and open to interpretation and judgement
calls.  Do the best job of both and you are golden in my book.

> Washing dishes leaves one open to far less condemnation from one's
> contemporaries.

You *obviously* have never heard our familly arguments. I get no end of
grief for my style of washing dishes...

UlfR

-- 
UlfR Ketilson                               ulfr at hunter-gatherer.org
Sex is like a bridge game -- If you have a good hand no partner is needed.