[Sca-cooks] Minor rant Re: An Event Without a Feast, was Cookery book at Longleat House?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Nov 8, 2009, at 10:28 PM, Judith Epstein wrote:

>
> On 8 Nov 2009, at 9:08 PM, chawkswrth at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I was in the same shock as Judith, when I first heard of No Feast  
>> Events. Feasts are the norm in our Kingdom (we are both Meridians).  
>> My theory is that it stems from Southern habits-people who come to  
>> our Events are company and we do tend to treat our company royally.
>>
>> You might even say that having a Feast is Tradition in this Kingdom.
>> And we all know what they say about Tradition....
>>
>> Helen
>
> I'm in the Middle Kingdom now; the events I attended in college were  
> in An Tir, and everyone kept talking about the feasts. (Back then, I  
> didn't keep kosher; I couldn't partake because I could barely afford  
> admission to the event, let alone food while I was there.) It just  
> seemed to be the standard thing: you have an event, and therefore  
> you have a feast.
>
> But yes, I'm Southern by birth and tradition, and Jewish on top of  
> that. It seems... well, not *quite* repugnant, but not far off, to  
> invite someone over and not at least make the effort feed them. They  
> can turn it down if they want, but at least making the offer is the  
> correct thing to do, or so my confluence of traditions tells me.

Hmmm. I started to reply to Helen's post, discarded it, and will now  
try again. The short version is, in spite of the fact that I have  
probably spent less than three weeks south of the Mason-Dixon line in  
my life, I don't seem to recall ever hearing around here that a reason  
not to have a feast at an event was lack of desire to do so. There are  
feasts that are easy, feasts that are difficult, and feasts that are  
simply impossible. One option in that case is to not have an event,  
and the other is to have one without a feast.

Had a traditional sense of obligation, or the lack thereof, been the  
issue, I wouldn't have comparison shopped to save a few pennies of  
someone else's money, purchased half the food to feed up to 100  
people, fronted the cash myself, carried it home on my blinkin'  
bicycle through heavy urban traffic, I might add, pre-cooked it and  
vacuum-sealed it, and figured out how to transport it and reheat it on  
a site with a tiny kitchen we were not contractually allowed to cook  
in, ninety miles from my home...

It's all just a ploy to conceal my region's deplorable lack of  
hospitality. That and cattails, I guess...

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