[Sca-cooks] Gulf Wars BBQ competition - sigh

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 20, 2009, at 11:42 AM, Michael Gunter wrote:

> That has nothing to do with the gist of the competition for Gulf Wars.
> They want smoked and tomato or mustard basted modern 'que. I'm not
> happy with this.

Do you think (I do; YMMV) that the reason why this simply won't go  
away from SCA events is not because this is good food (we having  
demonstrated billions of times that there are plenty of period  
alternatives that are just as good), but because it's Officially  
Discouraged? At least, in the eyes of many?

The whole attitude that supports this sort of thing seems to be that  
kids will be naughty, kids will be kids, and if the adults are stuffy  
and stupid enough to make a fuss about it, it just proves they're mean  
old grumps trying to spoil our fun.

Alternatively, I think that by getting into the spirit of the thing,  
but with certain subtle perversions of intent (i.e. a nice  
carbonadoed, Scotched hank of spareribs with a mustard sauce, say),  
essentially saying, "Yes, we know, you think you're being naughty but  
what you're doing is actually pretty unremarkable from a historical  
standpoint..."

My feeling is that you, as the Crown and as a Laurel, should actively  
encourage those projects you feel show the SCA in its best light.  
Those that don't, you can either ignore or participate as a fifth- 
columnist until they do ;-).

Remember the story a certain Duke, and the Venetian Landing at Pennsic  
(when last I checked, I think His Grace had forgotten this one  
himself). We had a bunch of our local New York City teenaged rowdies,  
who had all joined the SCA as a household at around the same time, and  
for whatever reason, although no doubt there was a lot of alcohol  
involved, they decided they needed to get all the East Kingdom's camps  
prepared for a Venusian Landing scheduled for that night.

It seems there was this Duke who misunderstood what they'd told him,  
and spent quite a while explaining, in earnest tones, to them the  
finer points of exactly how to deal with an invasion of the Venetian  
Naval forces, identifying the Doge's flagship for capturing the  
commander, etc.

Well, apparently HE had a marvellous time through all this! I believe  
the boys got a bit tired of it after a while.

Go, thou, and do likewise.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter