[Sca-cooks] 100 Mile Feasts

[Cat Dancer]

Using only foods obtained from within a specific distance is fine if 
you're portraying the lower classes, but even then things such as salt 
fish (and in some cases, the salt itself) were imported. And really, 
eating like the lower classes is just not healthy--the imported, delicate 
foods like almond milk and olive oil are far more suited to the upper 
class temperament than the coarse pottages and beans of the peasantry.

A feast that's truly a feast should showcase the finest ingredients that 
money can buy, the more delicate and rare the better (but we will 
understand if peacock and swan don't suddenly become the latest food 
fashion) and of course there must be a lavish use of spices and imported 
delicacies such as dried fruits and foreign wines.


Margaret FitzWilliam