Food-related Meta-Issue -- was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Cola with sugar was Semi-OT: So... guten Pesach to themas does it...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 13, 2006, at 11:36 AM, Mairi Ceilidh wrote:

> Master A,
>
> May I quote you?  What you have said here fits perfectly into a  
> paper I am
> currently writing.  Actually, it started as notes for a class on  
> documenting
> feasts (heaven forbid!), but has taken on a life of its own, and is  
> heading
> toward an article for some daring publication somewhere.
>
> (Full credit given, of course.)
>
> Mairi Ceilidh

Sure, if you'd be kind enough to let me know exactly what parts  
you're quoting (up to and/or including the whole thing, so that when  
they come after me with the baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire,  
I'll know _exactly_ why I deserve it ;-)   ).

See, I'm an Easterner, and we're never really happy unless we're  
telling others how they should run their lives. (I am kidding.  
Mostly.) Seriously, though, I've been doing this for a while now, not  
as long as some here, but more than many, and recently I've been  
giving more thought to what is right, and what is wrong, with our  
game as it is played where I live, and without getting into any deep  
controversy here, I'm finding that there is occasionally a double  
standard where the food thing at events is concerned, and that  
liberties are often taken with food service that would not be  
considered for a second in the venue of the costumer, for example.

There's a certain minimum standard for costume (just for example, and  
this is among many other art forms), below which the wearer of the  
Air Jordans at events is considered not making a reasonable effort,  
but we seem to tend not to swarm the people with the styrofoam Big  
Mac containers, or take them aside and say, "Hey... dood..."

I've always thought, and tried to get others to feel similarly, that  
what we eat at events is as important as what we wear, how we speak,  
or anything else, in contributing to the overall picture we present  
of ourselves as anachronistic travellers.

I don't think it really has much to do with the fact that this is one  
of my special niches in the SCA; I just really, really respect those  
who put in the extra effort to play the game well across the board,  
and those are the kind of people I like to see as role models for our  
community.

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04