[Sca-cooks] TI Article

[Daniel Phelps]

Brangwayna wrote:

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.

Thank you good gentle, you make a very good point.  It is my feeling that
feasts should teach people how medieval people ate... while putting on the
menu items that most will indeed eat.  Tis a balancing act at least in part.
We cannot push the envelope to hard but push it we should.  My intent in
having the small test feast/tasting is that we pick a cross section of the
populace... including both those with adventurous palates and those a bit
more timid.  In the end if a menu choice is substantially rejected perhaps
it should be reserved for more intimate dinners?  That being said it is my
intent to do an A/S entry in the future consisting of organ meats.  I just
need to collect sufficient recipes to redact where in they are served cold
as tasty bites... perhaps with sauces.  Tongue, tripe, heart, liver, etc.
;-)

Daniel