[Sca-cooks] Cooking contest

[Patrick Levesque]

Not to mention the completely period gratuitous showing off which, if I
interpret things correctly, must probably have been a considerable part of
the competition between stewards and cooks :-)

Seriously, to do a truly honest A&S cooking competition, whole feasts in
different groups should be evaluated over the course of an entire year or
season. Of course, this gives an advantage to those whose turn comes last,
but hey, nothing's perfect.

Petru


On 28/07/06 21:42, "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> The thing I found when I was competing was that I would usually win or lose,
> not on the quality of my research or preparation, but whether or not the
> judges liked the dish.  A cleverly disguised modern dish could win as easily
> as a well researched historical dish, which trivialized winning, so I
> dropped competition for feasts and research.
> 
> Don't feel like a hypocrite, in the historical context judging the worth of
> a cook by A&S competitions is nonsense.  For the period cook, mastery was
> the preparation of meals to please the palate of one's patron and
> competition between cooks would be in dishes prepared for the table.  To
> master the feast requires many more skills than than the ability to prepare
> a few recipes.
> 
> Bear