[Sca-cooks] An Event Without a Feast, was Cookery book at Longleat House?
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Mon Nov 9 08:47:01 PST 2009
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
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