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

[Celia des Archier]

Huette von Ahrens said:

> 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.

My good lord, thank you so much for your kind response.  It is always
helpful to have multiple perspectives of things.  

> 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.
... 
>  The event wasn't well attended and we lost a lot of money.  

Yes, the availability of suitable park land did seem to be the major factor
in determining how events was structured.  When I moved out here I came
prepared to camp so as to stretch my money (as opposed to staying in a
residential hotel.)  I quickly found that staying in the hotel wasn't really
more expensive than camping would be.  Then, talking to folks out here, I
quickly found that group camping was not readily available and that even
renting a park for the day was often (as you point out) prohibitively
expensive.  Renting a park for the day also involved having people out of
the park at dark.

This is very different from the Southeast, where group camp sites with
cabins and multiple 'group' halls at a reasonable rate are readily available
and "primitive camp sites" are dirt cheap.  For example, our Barony commonly
held events at a Boy Scout Camp only an hour or two away from Nashville
which had, in addition to cabins, a feast hall large enough to seat 300
people "above the board", and to seat another 100 or so "below the board"
(in an outer room) if we had need, as well as having a "craft hall" and a
"chapel" for classes and were able to hold events with "master chef"
qualifying feasts (minimum of 21 courses for at least 200 people) for a
total event fee (including feast) of $20-30.  And just a few hours outside
of Atlanta we had access to a state park which had a 'primitive' camp site
(bathroom but no showers, no kitchen facilities but a pavilion for setting
up kitchen and feasting) which easily accommodated 30 people or so camping
in tents for a total site fee of $25/night.  So the logistics were obviously
in our favor and it was pretty quickly apparent that the main reason behind
the difference was logistics and cost. 

> 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. 

Oh my goodness! That's horrible!  
...

> 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. 

Wow!  It's amazing that a church would charge that high a fee for a
non-profit group!  That's definitely another cultural difference, or perhaps
it's just a difference with the individual church.  The few times that our
groups have used a church or school for events or demos, they always gave us
a break on the cost because we were a non-profit group.  I can see that
you're up against some significant barriers.

Thank you so much, m'Lord, for letting me know about Coronation.  I've
dropped an email to His Excellency to see if it's too late to request space
at the feast.  I don't currently have a car so getting to Encinitas and back
will be mildly problematic, and I'll have to bake a trencher and scare up
"feast gear", but I may be able to work those logistics out.  Hopefully my
modest garb will be acceptable (I understand, again from being told, that
Caid has higher standards than the Southeast for costuming :-) , as I would
love to attend.  I greatly appreciate your bringing this information to my
attention.  

> 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.

I had expected such.  I was hoping that people in areas where such things
were possible would share some of their ideas, as I recognize that this is a
Knowne World list, but that was definitely one of the other things that I
saw which would obviously impact the added cost of events down here.  These
were part of what I saw as the reasons for why events were very different
here than they were there.

> 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.

Oh, absolutely.  I recognize that, but it seemed that this household
expressed that this was generally the "norm".  It was that so many of the
household considered the idea so foreign that shocked me.  My own household
held taverns, so we always tried to carry some food which was at least
perioid, but we had also camped with other households who lived on hotdogs
and hamburgers.  But even those households were usually grateful for someone
who would come and cook for them, as you say, as long as it tasted good and
was plentiful.  To be fair, there was at least one member of this household
who was enthused by the idea that I would be willing to provide at least a
few meals which were also period or perioid. 

> 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. 

That is wonderful!  I have not yet had the opportunity to check that far,
but I will certainly try to contact the cooks guild here when I'm able
(again, without a car, things are problematic.  So far it does not appear
that the Baronial meetings are accessibly via public transportation).  I
recently made the acquaintance of a wonderful woman who is a chef who has
expressed interest in the group, so I have someone to commiserate with :-)
Again, I thank you for taking the time to share your information with me,
m'Lord.

> 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'm certain that they have their own grace and charm, m'Lord, I did not mean
to imply that they would be in any way inferior and I apologize if it came
across that way.  I do see that I was right in my assessment of the whys
behind the differences.  I do recognized that it will take an adjustment on
my part to adapt to how events are held here.  My expectations, based on my
past experience, is that a common event was a weekend long party, removed
from the harshness of modern life but usually with many of it's conveniences
(such as cabins and a modern feast hall) and my experience with "War" was
Pennsic.  The differences are just that, differences, and will, I'm sure,
come with their own set of trade offs.  As someone else pointed out, not
having to drive 5 hours for an event will be nice :-)  Not having to deal
with the logistics of housing and feeding a household for the weekend and
being able to sleep in my own bed will also be, I'm quite certain, a
pleasant trade off :-)  Not having to set up and break down camp after the
intensity and exhaustion of an SCA event will also likely be welcome at some
point.  Life is full of trade offs, and while all things are never equal,
often they are equivalent, simply different.

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

I thank you for your good will, m'Lord.  Your information has been much
appreciated and I, too, hope that we have opportunity to meet.  I do intend
to try to make it up to the Barony of Angels eventually, if not sooner, then
later.  I hope that I have the chance to meet you sometime soon as well.

In Service to the Society,
Celia