[Sca-cooks] A very impressive feast

Lilinah lilinah at earthlink.net
Sun Apr 27 19:18:31 PDT 2008


Daniel Myers <edoard at medievalcookery.com> wrote:
>On Apr 27, 2008, at 4:49 PM, David Friedman wrote:
>  > Yesterday Elizabeth and I attended a West Kingdom Collegium which
>  > ended with a small feast--about 44 guests. The food, so far as I
>  > could tell, was all from 14th-15th c. English cookbooks, and
>  > competently done, which was nice.
>[...]
>  > For details see:
>  > http://www.caldarium.org/collegium/?q=node/3
>  >
>  > Has anyone else done this sort of thing at this level before?
>
>I haven't seen this sort of thing before, but you've now pretty much
>guaranteed something like this will be happening in our region.
>Thank you very, very much for posting this!  I think you've just
>restored my faith in the SCA.
>
>- Doc

The feast was quite amazing (except for the unavoidable fluorescent 
lights). Because this was presented as a class, they could serve 
alcohol to the adult diners and special food to the high table. The 
hand out was 8 pages, including URLs to pictures and sources, and a 
nice bibliography.

We were all seated in order of *medieval* precedence, *not* SCA 
precedence. There was a Marshall of the Hall, a Yeoman of the Ewery 
(hand washing and table linens), a Panter (bread, salt, & knives), a 
Butler (spices, wine, ale, & spoons). And each table of six - all 
seated only on one side facing into the U - had its own server and 
carver.

The tables were arranged in a "horseshoe"/U with the High Table at 
the "bottom" of the U. The details of the seating arrangement is on 
the web site. They provided historical reproduction benches with 
cushions, table linens, salt dishes, trenchers, cups, spoons, and 
napkins. We didn't need to bring any feast gear! Historically at such 
a feast there were 2 cups/glasses per person, however the presenters 
didn't have enough. If i'd known, i'd have brought my own historical 
reproduction beaker. But i understand why things were the way they 
were: the presenters wanted to avoid inappropriate personal feastware.

Our hosts were kind enough to have made one of the stuffed chickens 
without pork for the two of us they knew about - and who ended up 
completely by chance at the same table. This was fortuitous when His 
Grace and his lady decided to attend, so he could also partake as 
well.

It was so inspiring, i spent most of the meal in persona (which i can 
do, but rarely feel inspired to). I'm fairly strongly left handed, so 
i generally eat with my left hand. But part way through the meal i 
realized i was eating only with my right, except to tear the bread, 
as was appropriate for my persona. Because of this i didn't taste the 
wine or the ale, which i think was brewed for the event. I contented 
myself with water and Clarea d'Agua. I exchanged interesting 
conversation about humors and such with the other diner who was 
forgoing pork, a woman in what she said was the current Burgundian 
fashion. And the King and Queen were kind enough to send some of 
their special food to some of the other guests, so i got to have some 
of the Crusted Lamb Roast, which was excellent.

Afterwards Crystal said she'd chosen the recipes to show off the 
carvers' skills and she thought some tasted a bit dull. On the one 
hand, this was true. But on the other, wow! It was such a different 
experience from our usual family-style feasts. It was almost like 
stepping into a painting.

And the team made many of the items themselves: they cast the pewter 
spoons, made all the serving ceramics, built the benches, sewed the 
napkins and towels and cushions and the wonderful garb, etc. Of 
course some was purchased: the table linens came from 
HistoricalReproductions, the knives were also purchased, and most of 
the drinking vessels were loaned by team members.

Besides all the work to make so make items, the various servers, 
carvers, etc. had to take several classes over the preceding year to 
prepare. You might want to correspond with Crystal, once she has 
recovered.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

My LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah



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