[Sca-cooks] SCA Pinterest Board

[Doug Bell]

It's probably prepared by people whose strong point is social media relations and not food and agricultural history.

The books listed there also need to be closely examined for accuracy.


Sadly, many sites like these will delete any posts that disagree or correct their display.

I think we endanger our enjoyment and health if we ignore the food and agriculture of other times and cultures. There are discoveries to be made there and we may need them in the future. (Though some recipes for eel pie can remain lost in time as far as I am concerned.)

best regards
Magnus

________________________________
 From: "lilinah at earthlink.net" <lilinah at earthlink.net>
To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, May 6, 2014 3:07 PM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] SCA Pinterest Board
 

Today i discovered the SCA's very own Pinterest boards, operated by official SCA Social Media people. Besides linking Mamluk stuff as Persian (argh, argh, argh! The Mamluks ruled Egypt and the Levant and were not of Persian origin) i found the following:

"The wealthier families of the 1500s had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead from these plates to leach out onto the food, causing lead poisoning and sometimes death. This poisoning happened most frequently with tomatoes. So, for approximately the next 400 years, most people considered tomatoes to be poisonous."
[http://www.pinterest.com/scasocial/medieval-life-food/]

I confess that i added a comment with a link to Johnna's article about tomatoes in 16th c. Spain and Italy, which Stefan has on the Florilegium. (Thank you, Stefan and Johnna)

There is also this:
"For those of you who have read the books to a Game of Thrones you know that the food is described in a ridiculous amount of detail... Here are the recipes! Also, if you enjoy recreating medieval style recipes here is something close."
[http://www.pinterest.com/scasocial/as-culinary-arts/]

I understand the concept of using the popularity of Game of Thrones to try to draw people to the SCA, but seriously, fire pods are not medieval.

I found quite a few problems in other boards, too, including 18th c. art (!!) and pictures from Braun and Schneider's 19th c. costume books, a great deal of which were never historically accurate. There are plenty of areas in which my knowledge is limited or lacking, so i suspect there are more gaffes.

Isn't the SCA supposed to be an educational organization focused pre-17th century, which would suggest to me that inaccurate food myths and 18th c. stuff shouldn't be promoted? Am i wrong to be disturbed by this?

Urtatim
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