[Sca-cooks] TI Article

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/18/2006 8:34:05 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
phelpsd at gate.net writes:

<<I've an article recently published in Tournaments Illuminated  regarding my
thoughts on choosing what to serve at feast.  I would be  interested in the
thoughts of others on the subject and upon my  article.>>
 
In general, I thought it was pretty good.  I did think, though, that  the bit 
about accommodating to modern tastes and sensibilities came off sounding  
like one should avoid all the more unusual foods and foodways in the medieval  
corpus entirely and just serve the kinds of things your diners would be familiar 
 with, which seems to me like telling someone to go ahead and try, say 
Vietnamese  food but only if it is cooked like Americans cook.  I've always thought  
that the purpose of doing medieval feasts is to teach people how medieval 
people  ate, and that means using some of the more unusual recipes in moderation 
and  pared with more familiar things.  I probably would do a tripe recipe in  
small quantities if I felt it appropriate to the feast.
You may not have intended your advice to be taken to that degree, of  course, 
but I could see a lot of new feast cooks, or people from areas where  
medieval cooking isn't as common as in the East, taking it that way.
 
Brangwayna