[Sca-cooks] To Garnish and Present Med/Ren Food

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Our cooking competition judging sheets have a category for 
Presentation, which i gather includes how the food is garnished, what 
the dishes the food is served in look like, whether we have napkins, 
etc.

Yet most recipes do not say how to garnish and present the food, and 
i have not found much about garnishing - or even how often it was 
done - and presentation in SCA-period any time, anywhere.

As an entrant, i do not pad my presentations with piles of parsley, 
although i choose my dishes and other accoutrements carefully, yet i 
cannot seem to break through the mystique of presentation.

As a judge, i'm tired of food swamped with sagging sprigs of parsley 
and covered with crumpled clumps of cilantro, as the primary or 
exclusive form of garnish. This seems so 1950s steak or prime rib 
house to me, in which settings as a child i commandeered everyone's 
parsley, the only lonely garnish, because i actually liked eating it.

Yet with all this, i don't believe i've ever seen anyone include 
historical information about their choice of serving spoons and 
dishes and napkins and trays (did they even use trays?) in their 
documentation for their recipe.

And it seems to me that many of the expectations and/or 
preconceptions for garnishing and presenting are so modern.

And, dammit Jim, it's a cooking competition, not an engineer... uh, 
err, what was i saying?

So, have people found good sources on SCA-period food presentation - 
NOT counting sotilties - that describe appropriate serving dishes, 
whether they piled on the parsley, etc.? And please specify time and 
place. I'm skeptical that what was used in 14th century England was 
the same as what was used in 16th century Italy or 9th century 
Baghdad.

I have found the rare occasional recipe that specifies the garnish or 
the color of the serving dish for a recipe, but these are the 
exceptions, rather than the rule, in my experience.

Additionally, how do other Kingdoms, Principalities, Baronies, etc. 
deal with and judge this aspect of their cooking competitions?
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita