[Sca-cooks] Cooking contest

Volker Bach carlton_bach at yahoo.de
Fri Jul 28 22:42:00 PDT 2006


Am Samstag, 29. Juli 2006 01:23 schrieb Michael Gunter:

> But I was told that I didn't "jump through the hoops" of entering A&S and
> teaching and putting on at least one major feast a year. Now, I agree that
> I've pretty much retired from cooking so I've hung up my desires for the
> Leaves but I still chafe at the thought that in order for me to be
> considered
> for a Laurel, A&S competitions are more important than feeding people.
>
> And the funny thing is that one of the best cooking Laurels I know became
> one based a lot on her awesome abiity in A&S competitions.

I have to say that is a mindset that pisses me off no end. What possible 
rationalisation could there be?  Personalkly, I don't think A&S Competitions 
add anything to the arts and sciences and hurt our development in many ways, 
and I have resolved to never participate in any again (I did it once, and no, 
I won that one, so it's not sour grapes). 

First off, many people are uncomfortable competing, especially if they have no 
chance winning. Why should they enter a competition if they know that many 
who are much better will do the same? What good does it do me to be told at 
the end of the day that my needlework is worse than Mistress X's by so many 
points or my soup tasted less good than Lord Y's sugarpaste by so many 
degrees? 

Secondly, the feedback. I don't know how it works elsewhere, but honestly, the 
feedback I got was a joke. I entered an 'instant' mustard sauce and the 
translation of a German medieval cookbook with recipe redactions. The mustard 
sauce won the competition (it took a few hours to make and required no 
particular abilities). My feedback consisted of 'tasty', 'cool idea' and 'I 
didn't know they had instant food then'. The translation got almost no 
points, with feedbackers pointing out that I should have had it bound, should 
have put the recipes in a 'peri-oid' font, should have put it into a prettier 
layout (I used .txt for the sake of portability) and that it would have been 
better to actually cook the things.  All of this in handwritten notes done 
between tourney and melee, when the judges could spare the time. 

 Thirdly, WHY? What is it about A&S that makes it even remotely suitable for a 
competition format? How do you compare the relative merits of a chicken stew 
and an embroidered belt? Why would I want to pit my skills against another 
when I'd much rather - and much more productively - sit together in the 
kitchen swapping redactions and ISBNs? Why not devote the time spent on 
judging to workshops? If I go to an event, I always try to have the time and 
material to teach a class. I wouldn't want to spend that time judging 
instead. 

In our kingdom, A&S is currently being shifted almost completely onto a 
competitive track, which has greatly discouraged many in my Shire. I think 
this policy is dangerous and hurtful to the SCA as a whole. But you know, my 
opinion can't be important - I never enter competitions...

[/rant]

Giano


		
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