[Sca-cooks] My experience with the Savory Tosted Cheese contest

[Michael Gunter]

> > Unfortunately, this is all too true. This pretty much sums up my
> > experience with the Savory Tosted Cheese contest that the Barony of
> > Bryn Gwlad put on at their Candlemas event this past weekend, although

I think I missed this post. Need to check my records.

> >it has less to do with authenticity police and more with rudeness and
> > diplomacy.

Okay. I definately missed this post. Please tell me about what rudeness?
Unfortunately, there is a lot of that from the arts community in Bryn Gwlad.

>It took me 3 days to make. I soaked several different kinds of beans
>(shaddap, Adamantius)

Okay. So I'll do it.  AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Howzzat?


>and boiled them up, thinly sliced and sauteed the beef
>and venison with onions and garlic, added the chiles and my chile powder
>blend and the tomatoes and the red wine, mixed it in with the beans, and
>then simmered it for a couple hours, chilled it overnight, simmered it next
>day for a couple hours, chilled it again overnight, and heated it up, mixed
>in some fresh chopped onions and put it in a thermos for the contest, and
>took it down.

The recipe sounds nice. But I sure want to make this a thread on chili
cooking. ......again.......

>The winner was the standard SE Ohio
>beans-n-hamburger-n-tomato sauce w/a dash of chili powder and a bit of 
>onion
>powder.

Well, you takes yer chances wit yer audience.

>If they wanted to give a prize to some yutz whose idea of a period 
>redaction
>is adding chutney and puff pastry to STC, let them.

Okay, the thrust of my post....(yeah, finally).
Just the other night I was speaking with Countess Sara, one of the judges.
And ranted a bit to her about "redacting" a recipe with chutney and puff 
pastry
and then actually rewarding the person. She explained to me the purpose of
the competition was just for fun and to encourage people to just enter
something. The winner of the contest actually did research and submitted
both an accurate and very tasty STC. But, they really wanted to show 
encouragement
to people who have never entered anything before. Now I totally agreed
that rewarding someone in a period cooking contest for having something so
totally out of period was insane and hurtful to those of us who constantly
have to knock our heads against a wall of modern food tastes. Sara is not
a cook. Trust me on THAT front. Evidently the "real" judges, who did
documentation and such, aren't period cooks either.

I wasn't there and only heard secondhand from the "taste judge".

>What does
>matter is that you did what you felt was the right thing, for the right
>reasons, and, from the looks of your redaction, did it well.

And, from what I heard from a non-cook, food taster, many of the
entries were documented. Which makes a co-winner of this particular
dish even sadder.

>The only place I can fault you is for not sending the lady an email. even
>late at night- if you try and don't get through, you're in the moral
>ascendance, more so than if you don't try.

I'll have to try to dig up what this was. And which lady was this?

Gunthar