[Sca-cooks] Officially serving modern food at SCA events

Richenda du Jardin richenda.du.jardin at gmail.com
Tue Jan 29 18:29:27 PST 2013


I once did a feast for a Newcomer's Event for my local college branch. 
We served two versions of each dish - one spiced for a more medieval 
palate and one spiced for a more modern palate. However, everything, 
including spicing, was documented to period.

People's responses were amazing. A member of the faculty newspaper 
attended the event and couldn't believe we were serving French toast 
(pain perdu), macaroni and cheese (lozenges), and the like and it was 
all medieval and yummy!

One thing a lot of people forget - and sometimes even the cooks forget 
it - is we need to remember who we are feeding. We need to remember 
their palates and take the time to educate them. I moved from a very 
urbane, large group that strongly encourages authenticity in everything 
you want to do and can afford, to a much smaller, more rural group that 
is less arts and sciences-oriented. Soups and roasts are as period as 
they generally want their food to be - give them their potatoes and corn 
and they are happy. So, our fledgling culinary guild has a lot of 
educating to do.

Richenda

On 1/29/2013 6:14 PM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
> I realize not everyone is interested in being historically accurate in everything they do. That's fine. No one is under that obligation, and people are free to do as they like in their own camps as long as they're wearing some attempt at period clothing, per sca.org.
>
> But it seems to me that when serving food as an official part of an official event, it is much more interesting - and often tastier - to serve historical food rather than modern food. Period food definitely can be yummy. When it isn't, it's usually because the modern cook hasn't quite perfected their interpretation of a dish.
>
> I am also often perplexed when Royalty declare that something modern is "period" during their reign. Then i wonder, how hard IS it to go for a few Saturdays within a 6-month period without some favorite modern food or drink?
>
> Even if someone went to an SCA event EVERY SINGLE Saturday in a year, assuming 52 Saturdays, there would still be 313 other days to enjoy modern stuff.
>
> When i've been rather broke and/or pressed for time, i admit i've sometimes eaten modern food - such as a can of tuna with mayonnaise - while in the confines of my own tent. I would never serve such things at a public or branch dayboard, potluck, feast, etc. And that's also a far cry from declaring, for example, that chocolate brownies are "period" just because i like them. There's plenty more time in a year to enjoy them when not at SCA events.
>
> Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)
> sometimes just a cranky pants
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