[Sca-cooks] ancient Roman cookery

[Volker Bach]

Am Samstag, 1. Oktober 2005 04:13 schrieb lilinah at earthlink.net:
> Giano wrote:
>
> Parthian? (perks up) Parthia was pre-Muslim Persia and Iraq, and a
> bit more, and immediately preceded the Sassanian Dynasty. If it isn't
> in Apicius, recipe, please?

It is from Apicius, and it may be no more Parthian than 'French' bread is 
French. Basically, it's chicken in a lovage-caraway-garum sauce roasted in an 
earthen pot. I normally 'break' the recipe by adding bread-mushroom-onion 
stuffing because it goes so well with the sauce's flavour)

> I don't know the exchange rate, but our feasts run around $15 for the
> feast and the site fee... People complain, but there's no way anyone
> could get so much good food anywhere for so little money. A nice
> stuffed omelette and a double cappuccino costs around $10 at an ok
> (not high class) cafe.

How much does the site fee come to? EUR 5 is around $6 right now (it tends to 
hover around parity, give or take 25%). We tend to have expensive sites in 
Drachenwald, so the feast is only a small part of the total cost for the 
event. By way of an example, last Winter Coronation cost around EUR 45 of 
which EUR 8 went for feast, the rest for site rental, dayboard, and 
incidentals. EUR 15 for an event is very low, most groups here couldn't get a 
camping place for that little (and since many Drachenwalders have to fly to 
events, we have to provide crashspace at least). 

It all sounds very different.

> On the other hand, what you have available is more "correct" for most
> Medieval cooking, when doing it by seasonal availability.

True, but I'd like to make some feasts that aren't regional. 

> >But then, the same goes for Arabic food and I talked people into eating
> > that several times at smaller events. Maybe it just takes time.
>
> I'm both surprised and not surprised at your problem - of course
> there are plenty of places in the US where folks don't trust "period"
> food.
>
> Anyway, when i lived in France - granted, over 30 years ago - most
> Europeans i met were resistant to foreign food (even from another
> European country, let alone from another time or continent). Heck,
> French people from one region mocked the foods of other French
> regions.
>
> On the other hand, folks always seemed rather proud of their
> heritage, and at least from several thousand miles away, and via the
> internet, folks today seem to embrace Medieval costuming and
> accoutrements. So i assumed those same people would embrace Medieval
> food
>
> I guess I'm lucky - i live in the founding place of the SCA and
> people have been working there way through the evolution of the SCA
> Medieval-oid or Medieval feast for 39-1/2 years. And us 'Merkans are
> from every part of the world, and especially here in California we
> have people from just about everywhere, so we have their restaurants
> to explore and many of us are willing to try almost anything...

You probably are. I think the problem here really isn't that people wouldn't 
be willing to try the food, it is that everybody is too worried they might 
not like it. As I said, Drachenwald sites are expensive, and our feast 
budgets seem to be comparatively low. Also, we are a large kingdom with a 
small population, so going to events is an expensive proposition anyway (I 
have to reckon about $200-300 for a weekend kingdom-level event, most of it 
travel cost). Attendance is relatively low, and autocrats are worried that 
experimental feasts might drive away some people, especially fighters. Add to 
that a relatively strong prejudice towards 'core' period and against 
'exotics' and the stage is set. I have yet to meet anyone who tells me 
outright 'I won't eat Arabic/Roman/Byzantine', but there are plenty who are 
worried that others might not. It took enough time getting folks used to the 
sweet-spicy flavours of the European middle ages, after all. 

Giano


		
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