[Sca-cooks] Above/Below the Salt was Greetings
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Tue Mar 18 16:49:59 PDT 2008
This wasn't a dig at your knowledge or your talents. It is a question of
historical accuracy that popped into my head while reading about your feast.
Be prepared for such questions to pop up every so often, it's the way we
learn.
I started out creating not so accurate feasts and have progressed to the
point (over 45 years cooking and over 30 in the SCA) where I am extremely
interested in producing feasts that are as accurate as time and budget can
produce for a given time and place. To varying degrees, most of the people
on this list are interested in the historical accuracy of food and feast,
but we aren't opposed to people doing the best they can.
Above/below the salt feasts are somewhat traditional in the SCA. They show
every so often and are a good way, as you point out, to provide a two tier
feast. But from the evidence I have seen, they are an artifact of the 16th
Century and later, probably with a Victorian assumption that this is the way
feudal lords did it. The question is not a matter of wording, but
developing a knowledge of how a 13th, or 14th or 15th Century meal was
served and serving the historically accurate meal in as accurate a manner as
possible. Think of it as another level to the game.
Bear
> Oooh, I have yet againg expanded my learning with medieval cooking...We of
> course are just using the above/below salt to haveand excuse to plan an
> expensive and and not so expensive feast. Have others worded this
> differently in the past for such a feast?
>
> James
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