[Sca-cooks] Booklist for Culinary Novices-- Non Recipe texts

[Wanda Pease]

Ah, I see.  Thank you.

I know I really enjoyed reading about how a feast was put on since it seems
to be the other half of SCA cooking.  Some of our posters here are fabulous
cooks and they want the recipes to play with.  Some are both cooks and Feast
Stewards (tying to avoid my ingrained "feastocrat").  That is they
frequently help put together the entire feast in both dishes and
presentation.  The two are linked, but not necessary to each other.  A cook
need not know how the hall will be decorated, or even how the dish will be
presented, other than plated.  A Hall Steward need not know what went into
the dishes.

Still, this seems to be to be an vague illustration of what started a
previous thread about ignoring sources that don't have the "original
recipes" in them as useless for SCA cooking purposes.  This would give a
cook ideas on what was eaten, although without the recipe, how it was
served, where it was served, and in some cases what it was eaten with.

One of the reasons I'm on this list is that several of my tries at preparing
recipes from both redacted and non redacted sources have been dismal
failures.  This isn't because the recipes are bad.  It's because I either
expect something different than I get, or I've done something wrong.

Still, it also means that I'm not focused exclusively on cooking.  I want a
broad knowledge of everything to do with feasting... including
presentations.  This book gives me information that I didn't get in all the
various period cook books that I have available.

Regina Romsey
Noting that the book does not concentrate on Elizabethan, but gives a sweep
of examples from Greek and Roman all the way up to Victorian.
> I know that's insane, but it's the librarian in me.)
>
> Johnnae
>
> ******<>
> Roy Strong Feast
>
> I've owned it since 2002 when it came out in the UK.
>
> Strong writes very well, but it should be noted that Feast is not a
> cookbook or
> a recipe book. It's a descriptive and tantalizing text that covers
> "eating in the
> grand fashion." It's going to frustrate Society cooks because it lacks
> the details
> that they are going to want. (Don't count on it providing you with a
> list of everything
> a typical banquet might have had in circa 1300 or 1560.)  It's an
> idea book
> that stimulates the mind and palate;  if you are into reading about past
> banquets, you will be entertained.
> Do plan on reading it closely and then going to the footnotes.
> You really need to like reading footnotes too.
> It's worth getting, especially at the closeout price of $5.99
> which is the price being offered  by some dealers now.
>
>