Creative Supplimentation (was RE: [Sca-cooks] English Doctors want to ban pointy knives...)

[Huette von Ahrens]

Hi Celia!

As a long time resident of the Kingdoom of Caid [31 years next Sept.] and a Feast chef for
almost as long, another reason for the lack of frequent banquets and a lack camping events in Caid
is that, not counting our Hawaiian territories, we are a very compact kingdom and Southern
California is a very heavily populated area.  People can drive to one day events and go home
to a warm bed and clean showers.

If you have had the opportunity to ever drive from Califia [San Diego] to Angels [Los Angeles],
you will notice that as you drive north there are very few areas of wilderness or rural farmland.
Just a whole lot of interconnected cities.  Consequently, wild, open areas in Caid are few
and far between.  So, our camping events are the wars, of which there are currently six.  Although
there has been a push in Caid to restart the West-Caid wars.  If that happened, that would
be seven.

Here in Angels, which is Los Angeles, there are only a couple of parks that have enough territory
to hold a camping event.  One is Griffith Park, which is in the heart of Los Angeles.  I believe
we have tried to have a camping event there, but the park is hideously expensive and located
in an urban area where it is used at night by mundanes of questionable intent.  The event
wasn't well attended and we lost a lot of money.  Another area is Whittier Narrows Park.  It
has very nice facilities and the cost is more reasonable than Griffith Park, but it is located in 
a poor neighborhood with heavy gang activity.  We had one camping event there.  The event went
mostly well until a young teenaged girl got up in the middle of the night on a Sunday night to use
the privies and was assaulted by two or three gang members.  Fortunately her screams brought a
couple dozen men with swords drawn which scared away her attackers.  She wasn't injured, just 
badly frightened. However, it was decided that the park was just too dangerous to use again. 

I was part of the committee that put on our 20th Anniversary Celebration, now 15 years ago.  We
wanted to put on a four day camping event in an area within our borders.  Other than the two 
parks I mentioned, most of the campgrounds in our borders were in the mountains, which had nice
camping areas, but no suitable areas for fighting.  We eventually found a privately owned camp
grounds that had a smallish but decent fighting area.  They charged us over $5000 for the weekend.
 I am told that the event was a lot of fun.  I spent all my time putting on two banquets for 300+
people using a very primitive kitchen, i.e. no running water and a few counters, but they did have
a huge 5'x3' charcoal grill, a propane griddle and a 25 gallon propane coffee pot.  I managed
to serve period foods quite successfully.  The first night was a Royal feast of 15 dishes,
servers and table decorations.  The second night was a beggar's feast, where we feed the
leftovers + a few extras and the diners had to beg the cooks for their supper.  I spent
Labor Day scrubbing borrowed pots and being generally exhausted.

When I first joined the SCA, getting decent halls for events was relatively easy and cheap.
We used to have a lot of banquets, mostly consisting of period foods.  However, as church's
budgets tightened, they began to raise prices until it is difficult to find a hall for less
than $1000 for one night.  A couple of years ago, I found a great hall for 12th Night, but
I had to wheedle, cajol and plead poverty to get the cost of that hall down to $2000 for
the one night.  And if you are putting on a smaller event, like a baronial anniversary,
$2000 is just not affordable.   There are three events that usually bring in enough people
to warrant a large banquet, and they are 12th Night and Spring and Fall Coronation.  Our
next Coronation is this coming weekend, it has a banquet and is being held in Califia. 

As for getting game meats for banquets and/or growing ones own food, that just isn't a 
possibility here, as very few of our members live in rural areas where one can grow enough
food to put on a 300+ banquet.  As for using and or finding game meats, it is very costly
for one person to go hunting here and the limits are such that one person couldn't provide
enough meat for an entire banquet.  Such meats are very costly when purchased in a supermarket.

As for your experience with camping at Potrero.  Households are not all the same.  You can
find in Caid every kind from the extremely period reenactors down to the guys who are just
there for the fighting, drinking and jiggle bunnies, who don't give a darn what they eat
as long as it tastes good, is plentiful and is cooked by someone other than themselves.

Caid has several baronial level cooking guilds.  I believe there are at least two in 
Califia.  The Baronies of Gyldenholt, Dreiburgan and Wintermist and the Shires of Darach
and of Heatherwyne all have a cooking guild of some sort.  There might be others that I am not 
aware of. 

Yes, we do have a different approach to what kind of events we hold, but that doesn't make them
any less fun.  And you will find that the events held on mainland Caid are different from
those held in the Barony of Western Seas [Hawaii], both of which are different from that other
kingdoms do.

I hope that you will enjoy your time in Caid.  I hope that someday we can meet.

Huette von Ährens
Barony of Angels, Kingdom of Caid.
    
--- Celia des Archier <CeliadesArchier at cox.net> wrote:



> /me laughs...
> Alright, except that if you run them down with your car, you won't get
> arrested for killing them out of season, or for killing more than your
> "limit" ;-) 
> 
> But seriously, and trying to move back to the topic as relates to SCA
> Cooking ;-), I just moved from Meridies (the Southeast) to Caid (Southern
> California).  I wasn't active when I lived in South Downs (Atlanta, GA), and
> I haven't been active since I moved out here to Calafia (San Diego, CA), but
> in both cases I socialized with folks from the SCA, as well as folks who
> planned feasts for other camping activities.  I was very active on and off
> when I lived in Glaedenfeld (Nashville, TN) and did some feastcrating there
> {which shows my age ;-), as I understand that term is now out of favor and
> has been for a while :-) .}
> 
> One of the things that has been a bit of culture shock since I moved out
> here has been the difference in cultural attitudes about feasting.  The
> first SCA folks I met out here were very kind and invited me to travel with
> their household with the upcoming Portrero War.  In an effort to repay them
> for their kindness I offered to play "camp Mom" and plan the meals,
> expecting to stay as "period" or "perioid" as possible, which shocked them.
> The idea of trying to at least contribute to the "illusion" by including
> period and perioid foods seemed foreign to them (as did the idea that their
> kids might actually enjoy those foods ;-)   I later found that the vast
> majority of the events here were 1 day events, or if they were two day
> events they concluded in the evening of day 1 and resumed on day 2.  The
> exception seemed to be the few large wars.  Again, I haven't had the chance
> to attend any events yet, and I've just recently renewed my membership, so
> this impression was obtained primarily second and third hand, by talking to
> folks, but out here feasting seems to be the exception rather than the rule,
> whereas in the Southeast it is almost always integral to the event. 
> 
> Now, I know that there are exceptional cooks out here in the West, so it was
> curious to me that this should occur, until I started talking to folks about
> the reasons why, and it seems that it comes down to two issues, both of
> which are primarily related to cost.  The first is that in the Southeast we
> have access to inexpensive parks, which doesn't seem to be the case out here
> in California.  Apparently getting a camping site for the weekend is simply
> prohibitively expensive out here, whereas it is not in the Southeast. 
> 
> But the other is that food is less expensive, and it is not at all unusual
> for feastcrats in the Southeast to supplement their feasts with wild game,
> often procured through very clever means.  I've known feastcrats (again,
> what we were called at the time, but I will be happy to use the current term
> if folks will let me know what they prefer) who have raised their own
> rabbits for stew, who have obtained free venison for an event of as many as
> 300 people by having a good relationship with their local 'ranger' (these
> were not road kill either, these where deer who had been hunted and dressed
> and then seized because they were either hunted out of season or above the
> hunter's bag limit.  The meat was then butchered for size and kept
> refrigerated to give away specifically to non-profit organizations), as well
> as feastcrats who hunted for their feasts.  And while procuring supplemental
> sources of meat probably had the most impact on the costs of the feast, I've
> also known feastcrats who grew their own herbs and vegetables as well.  So
> there are often creative ways to provide ingredients for a feast both to
> decrease the cost and to more closely control the quality of the
> ingredients.
> 
> So I was wondering, what other experiences folks have with creatively
> supplementing their feasts.  What different ways have you used to obtain
> ingredients for your feast, other than the "mainstream" ways (i.e. other
> than purchasing from a grocery, etc.)?  What were the reasons you
> supplemented your feast with ingredients which were not obtained through
> "mainstream" means?  What were the results? 
> 
> In service to the Society,
> Celia des Archier


Remember that while money talks, chocolate sings.

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