[Sca-cooks] snails and puppy dog tails...

V O voztemp at yahoo.com
Thu Jan 27 09:18:43 PST 2011


I agree, on the too many bland usual fare.  But, it is possible to be a great 
cook and do all the unusual things that can be found at a feast, and be a blah 
cook and do things like frogs legs, that fails.  It is really all in the ability 

of the Chef.  If you have a great reputation, it doesn't matter what you make, 
people will come.

On the other hand, you can lose that reputation in a second by one bad dish.  
Just ask anyone here in the Outlands about fish jello, and what it did to a 
decent cook, who has not done a feast since.  Even if you were not around at the 

time, most people have heard about it as an example of bad period food, and why 
period food is not something they are willing to try.  Which makes it just that 
much harder to get people to try something new, if it is labeled "period".  

 
Even when I started 25 years ago I heard stories about a really failed feast, 
where the chicken stew was rancid.  Even though it was a couple of years before 
I joined.  That cook never got his rep back and stopped playing not to long 
afterward.  


Here at least, it really is all about reputation, and unless you have one, the 
feast is unlikely to sell out.  For new Cooks that can be really hard unless you 

have a known cook backing you on the feast.  
 
I know in some Kingdoms you have things like all day feasts, and that it can be 
the center of an event.  Here we have so much antagonism and blase attitudes 
toward "period" foods, that if someone tried to do, "unusual", the event and the 
feast would fail.  


Mirianna

 
----- Original Message ----
From: Audrey Bergeron-Morin <audreybmorin at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Thu, January 27, 2011 9:37:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] snails and puppy dog tails...

> very well.  Can you imagine the uproar if you said to feasters, "Oh, we are
> having this item that only 5 out of 20 people will like, but we are charging
> you all the same price, and you don't get another dish to replace this one if
> you don't like it."

Here, we have a cook (Hi Petru!) who is well know for his unusual (and
extremely yummy) feasts. Those of us who are fans would pay a small
fortune to attend any feast he was cooking; it came to the point where
we will rarely stay for feast if somebody other than him is cooking,
at least in our local group. We've eaten too many feasts of bread with
honey butter, barley stew, glazed carrots/parsnips and overcooked
roast. When you attend too many SCA feasts, there's a certain bland
"standard" that ends up always tasting the same. Petru, on the other
hand, has served us, in the last few years, among other things, frog
legs and snails, both of which went over extremely well, and a lot of
things usually considered adventurous (lamb or fish, for example).

Of course, some event organizers fear that an original feast will
scare off some people; so he's been having some trouble getting
"hired" locally. More adventurous groups, however, publicize widely
that he's going to be cooking. Knowing he's cooking really draws a
small crowd to an event.

I think as long as the menu is posted well in advance, and there is
seating for picky eaters or off-board, there is no issue... But maybe
that's just me :-)
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