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

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Lest The West be misunderstood, while we rarely have feasts at 
Kingdom level, there are plenty of feasts in the branches of The West.

As i have repeatedly bored everyone by saying, most of our events at 
Kingdom and Principality (Mists & Cynagua) levels are camping events 
- i confess to lack of experience in our third principality Oertha 
(Alaska). And some baronies also hold camping events. Our camp sites 
often do NOT even have potable water and some have no water at all. 
We schlep our own water. Our autocrats hire port-potties and 
dumpsters. Sites such as these make providing feasts for the hundreds 
- sometimes over a thousand - attendees rather difficult.

I read with wonder and amazement about some "camping" events in other 
kingdoms that have sites with cabins, feast halls, fully functional 
kitchens, etc.

And i'm amazed when i hear about feasts for 200 or more. I've only 
been to one site around here that had a kitchen big enough to handle 
that much food. Most of the feast sites we can afford to rent 
(churches, fraternal orders) have small kitchens that are stressed to 
handle food for 80.

People here often talk about our fine feasts. There are excellent 
historical feasts at the principality level in the Central West (i've 
never made it to Oertha/Alaska). And the populace for the most part 
enjoys eating dishes from historical recipes. But such feasts don't 
happen every month and they rarely serve over 80 and more have often 
closer to 40 to 60 diners.

I have, as have others within my Kingdom and Principality, cooked 
small feasts using historical recipes for invited guests of royalty 
or knightly households at these primitive sites. But these are 
private, not for the populace, and funded by the sponsors.

On a few rare occasions, royalty have promoted feasts for the 
populace at our camping events. These are potluck affairs, so food 
available includes a mix of historical, modern home cooking, and 
take-out. Such feasts are not "traditional", and only happen 
sporadically. Everyone who wants to participate drags tables and 
chairs and appropriate lighting onto the Eric - those without a table 
share with others. Long tables are set up on which to arrange the 
food.

Kingdom A&S (officially "Kingdom Arts and Sciences Tourney") is 
another camping event, focusing on A&S classes and competitions. For 
several years, a recently Laureled young woman has been organizing a 
feast of historical food on Saturday night. She has been borrowing a 
vastly huge pavilion from a Duke's household for the "tavern" (as she 
calls the feast hall) and a sunshade from a branch for the "kitchen". 
But this has only been about 3 out of the last 4 years (IIRC) and 
when she stops there's no guarantee anyone will take it over. Before 
we fed ourselves, and it's likely we'll be doing that again.

The Mists Principality Bardic and twice yearly Investiture feasts 
usually feature recipes historical or mostly so, as do the kingdom 
level Collegium Occidentalis feasts, when we have one. These, and 
Beaconsgate Boar Hunt (Beaconsgate ceased to exist long long ago, but 
the Boar Hunt is the one event produced by the Province of the Mists 
each year), are the events for which i've cooked, as well as a 
privately sponsored dinner available to the populace (for a 
reasonable donation) at a Kingdom camping event. But there's no 
requirement these feasts be historical.

Each of the local Baronies in the Mists holds at least one feast per 
year, usually in the fall and winter. These are variable as to 
historicity, although the ones i've attended have been period.

I do not mean to slight the Principalities of Cynagua and Oertha, but 
i've never attended feasts in either Principality. Nor do i mean to 
leave out The Marches - those parts of the Kingdom not in a 
Principality - or Palatine Barony, but, again, i've never attended 
feasts there.

A branch i used to camp with, but which doesn't really camp together 
any longer, used to hold a period potluck at the two camping 
Investitures per year. I redacted some of the recipes on my website 
for those potlucks. It split into several camps, one a group 
essentially of Laurels, many who are foodies, who have period dinners 
at camping events.

In the month of December nearly every weekend there are several 
feasts put on by branches throughout the kingdom. These feasts are 
quite variable, ranging from potlucks to feasts of non-period or of 
peri-oid or of period food. Since my interest is in historical food, 
i rarely attend feasts that are of modern or mostly peri-oid food.

So there's good historical food here, but the feasts are small-ish 
and infrequent during most of the year.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita