On Feasts in the SCA
By definition, the Society for Creative Anachronism is an educational not-for-profit organization devoted to the study of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. “As a living history group, the Society provides an environment in which members can recreate various aspects of the culture… of the period… we sponsor events such as tournaments and feasts where members dress in clothing styles worn in the middle ages and renaissance and participate in activities based on… period.
Based upon the above snippets, all of which come directly from the governing documents of the society, I’m sure you get the gist - ours is a game about history. We dress the part. We learn the part. We act the part. And we experience the part. At least that is what we should always be striving to do. Yet, there is one area where in my experience in this organization, I feel like I am frequently (MUCH more often than I find acceptable) banging my head against a wall to remind people to put the history into our game - and what I am talking about here is feasts.
I count myself very fortunate in that my home barony here in Caid takes feasts and period cooking very seriously. Yes, I have played a role in this development. But over time, it has just become part of the local culture - and I couldn’t be happier about that. But often, when I travel out of the Barony or out of Kingdom, I really never know what I’m going to get. Maybe the feast will be period (and I LOVE it when it is!). More often, the feast is “period-inspired”, which is to say a mix of modern and historical. And yet other times, there just isn’t even an attempt to do anything remotely historical. And yes, that bothers me. That bothers me a LOT! Why? Because, to be perfectly honest, there just isn’t a good excuse to not at least make an attempt - not nowadays when we have such a wide variety of books, sources, websites, and resources. Seriously gang - think about it for a moment. An SCA Feast is an actual activity of the SCA. Why should we expect any less attempt at history with a feast than we do anything else? And every time I hear somebody whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine that doing a historical feast is just tooooooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard, it makes me want to scream. So with that in mind, I have a few observations to make about feasting in the SCA:
“Period Food Tastes Yucky”: Luckily, it has been a while since I’ve heard this line of utter bullpucky stated. But taking this statement at face value, I just have to shake my head. With over 1,500 years of culinary history to investigate from multiple countries, I find it nothing if not the height of arrogance to completely dismiss all things prior to this modern age and culture as “yucky”.
“Doing a period feast is just toooooooooo haaaaaaaard”: Oh kiddies. Sitting in my rocking chair with my cane for a moment, lemme tell ya. At a time, this might have been true. Trying to find the information was not exactly easy. Heck, when I started, there wasn’t exactly a market for historical cookbooks. And in those days, before the world wide interwebz, you’d actually have to go to this thing called a book store to get a book. Did historical cookbooks exist at book stores? Of course not! So we had to either use these ancient portals called libraries to find copies of copies of university publications. Now fast forward to today. Not only has there been a huge renewed interest in historical cooking, but several books have come out in a variety of forms. Some are facsimiles of original texts. Others have been discussed, analyzed and redacted for you. And others down n out lay out the feast for you. Frankly, it couldn’t be made any easier nowadays if it was spoon-fed to you. (See wha I did thar?)
“How will your feast accommodate my allergies?”: OK, guys. I get it. Really, seriously, I do. I consider myself fortunate in that I am an omnivore without allergies. But I realize that not everyone can be. Some people really do have to work around anything from mild to severe health issues related to diets. And that utterly sucks. But, like anything else, that falls upon the individual who has the issues. In my experience, most people who have allergies (and off the top of my head, I’m thinking of everything from yeast to dill to mustard to meat to wheat to rice to barley, etc), have been exceptionally polite and have simply asked me prior to the feast what items they need to avoid. But every now and again, I have run into someone who expects - EXPECTS - that they will be given some other option simply because of their allergy. (Oh… millennials!!!!!) Or, to get more to the point, I have run into some people who magically expect that because they have a not-so-common allergy that I, as the cook, am supposed to A. Know that; B. Expect that; and C. go the extra mile to make some other dish JUST IN CASE someone has a problem with a key ingredient. To put it bluntly - no. Just… no.
One of the weirdest phenomena that I have noticed about American culture involves behavior in restaurants. For the most part, I think people are taught to use “Please” and “thank you”, and to show one another respect and courtesy. But for some reason unbeknownst to me, when people walk through the door of a restaurant, they transform. Suddenly, Bob is no longer just Bob. Bob becomes the Lord of the Manor. And the food-servers who work the restaurant are no longer Sally and Fred. They become the lower-class servant/slaves to Bob, Lord of the Manor. And if Bob finishes his ice tea and Sally isn’t there to refill it within seconds, Lord Bob gets angry! If Lord Bob’s steak arrives and it shows a trace of pink which is not what he envisioned in his mind, Lord Bob will read the riot act to Fred; as if Fred purposely went out of his way to offend Bob. The level of talking-down-to that occurs in restaurants appalls me sometimes. But what does this have to do with SCA Feasts? Oh, it has EVERYTHING to do with SCA feasts! Why? Because something about this rude “I am being WAITED ON HERE!” mentality often spills over to SCA feasts. I have seen people become livid at their server because a dish comes out cold. Aside from the fact that that particular dish may have intentionally been served cold, the server had nothing - NOTHING - to do with its preparation. Further, that server is a volunteer - not someone (barely) paid to put up with your abuse. Then let’s talk about the food itself. Did you read the menu before signing up for feast? If you did, and you bitch and whine the whole time that there is nothing being served that you can eat, whose fault is that? The people in the kitchen who are again VOLUNTEERING to bust their humps to feed people? No. It is yours. Volunteers deserve - DESERVE - your politeness and respect. And if you really think you can do better - PROVE IT! The proof is quite literally in the pudding.
So what if you really are a picky eater and/or have allergies and/or don’t like waiting for things to arrive at your table and/or don’t like period feasts? Simple - go to the Sizzler instead. Seriously! I do not mean that in any way, shape, manner or form as an insult or as a flip response. Sometimes, that really is the better option for everyone. You will be happy, as will the people who don’t want to sit around listening to you grouse. The SCA Feast experience, just like fighting or dancing or singing or fencing; can be a wonderful experience but really is NOT going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Heck, it can’t be. The people in the kitchen are not custom cooking dishes based on your individual order. They are cooking several dishes that they are hoping you enjoy en masse. Will you? Who knows? The same dish put in front of three different people will most likely get three different reactions. And yes, this is why many cooks often prefer to play it safe by doing modern foods. But if there is nothing else that I can convey in this post, it is the fact that American-Restaurant-mentality needs to be left OUT of SCA feasts. SCA Feast is NOT a restaurant experience! It is NOT, “We’ll have it your way”. An SCA Feast is the vision of the head cook. And hopefully, you will enjoy most of the things that you try. But there’s just not a guarantee of that.
So where am I going with this feasting rant that discusses various issues and potential problems? Well, very simply, I want to see a change across the board when it comes to SCA feasts. I want the food served to all be documentably SCA period - all the time - at every single event. Is it possible? Absolutely! Do we have the ways and means? Absolutely! Will it be to everyone’s tastes? No. But frankly, neither is any other SCA experience. It isn’t hard to find modern food - the restaurant around the corner has some. But an individual who attends his or her first SCA event should at least have a reasonable expectation to be exposed to history in each of the activities presented at an event - and yes, that includes the food (or at least it SHOULD).
For those of us who love and admire and appreciate history and historical experiences, we are being deprived of an SCA encounter that we wish to experience and have a reasonable expectation of being able to experience. So please, if you are a cook and are at all involved in preparing SCA feasts, please bear this in mind and add the one ingredient that many feasts are missing - history.
Based upon the above snippets, all of which come directly from the governing documents of the society, I’m sure you get the gist - ours is a game about history. We dress the part. We learn the part. We act the part. And we experience the part. At least that is what we should always be striving to do. Yet, there is one area where in my experience in this organization, I feel like I am frequently (MUCH more often than I find acceptable) banging my head against a wall to remind people to put the history into our game - and what I am talking about here is feasts.
I count myself very fortunate in that my home barony here in Caid takes feasts and period cooking very seriously. Yes, I have played a role in this development. But over time, it has just become part of the local culture - and I couldn’t be happier about that. But often, when I travel out of the Barony or out of Kingdom, I really never know what I’m going to get. Maybe the feast will be period (and I LOVE it when it is!). More often, the feast is “period-inspired”, which is to say a mix of modern and historical. And yet other times, there just isn’t even an attempt to do anything remotely historical. And yes, that bothers me. That bothers me a LOT! Why? Because, to be perfectly honest, there just isn’t a good excuse to not at least make an attempt - not nowadays when we have such a wide variety of books, sources, websites, and resources. Seriously gang - think about it for a moment. An SCA Feast is an actual activity of the SCA. Why should we expect any less attempt at history with a feast than we do anything else? And every time I hear somebody whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine that doing a historical feast is just tooooooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard, it makes me want to scream. So with that in mind, I have a few observations to make about feasting in the SCA:
“Period Food Tastes Yucky”: Luckily, it has been a while since I’ve heard this line of utter bullpucky stated. But taking this statement at face value, I just have to shake my head. With over 1,500 years of culinary history to investigate from multiple countries, I find it nothing if not the height of arrogance to completely dismiss all things prior to this modern age and culture as “yucky”.
“Doing a period feast is just toooooooooo haaaaaaaard”: Oh kiddies. Sitting in my rocking chair with my cane for a moment, lemme tell ya. At a time, this might have been true. Trying to find the information was not exactly easy. Heck, when I started, there wasn’t exactly a market for historical cookbooks. And in those days, before the world wide interwebz, you’d actually have to go to this thing called a book store to get a book. Did historical cookbooks exist at book stores? Of course not! So we had to either use these ancient portals called libraries to find copies of copies of university publications. Now fast forward to today. Not only has there been a huge renewed interest in historical cooking, but several books have come out in a variety of forms. Some are facsimiles of original texts. Others have been discussed, analyzed and redacted for you. And others down n out lay out the feast for you. Frankly, it couldn’t be made any easier nowadays if it was spoon-fed to you. (See wha I did thar?)
“How will your feast accommodate my allergies?”: OK, guys. I get it. Really, seriously, I do. I consider myself fortunate in that I am an omnivore without allergies. But I realize that not everyone can be. Some people really do have to work around anything from mild to severe health issues related to diets. And that utterly sucks. But, like anything else, that falls upon the individual who has the issues. In my experience, most people who have allergies (and off the top of my head, I’m thinking of everything from yeast to dill to mustard to meat to wheat to rice to barley, etc), have been exceptionally polite and have simply asked me prior to the feast what items they need to avoid. But every now and again, I have run into someone who expects - EXPECTS - that they will be given some other option simply because of their allergy. (Oh… millennials!!!!!) Or, to get more to the point, I have run into some people who magically expect that because they have a not-so-common allergy that I, as the cook, am supposed to A. Know that; B. Expect that; and C. go the extra mile to make some other dish JUST IN CASE someone has a problem with a key ingredient. To put it bluntly - no. Just… no.
One of the weirdest phenomena that I have noticed about American culture involves behavior in restaurants. For the most part, I think people are taught to use “Please” and “thank you”, and to show one another respect and courtesy. But for some reason unbeknownst to me, when people walk through the door of a restaurant, they transform. Suddenly, Bob is no longer just Bob. Bob becomes the Lord of the Manor. And the food-servers who work the restaurant are no longer Sally and Fred. They become the lower-class servant/slaves to Bob, Lord of the Manor. And if Bob finishes his ice tea and Sally isn’t there to refill it within seconds, Lord Bob gets angry! If Lord Bob’s steak arrives and it shows a trace of pink which is not what he envisioned in his mind, Lord Bob will read the riot act to Fred; as if Fred purposely went out of his way to offend Bob. The level of talking-down-to that occurs in restaurants appalls me sometimes. But what does this have to do with SCA Feasts? Oh, it has EVERYTHING to do with SCA feasts! Why? Because something about this rude “I am being WAITED ON HERE!” mentality often spills over to SCA feasts. I have seen people become livid at their server because a dish comes out cold. Aside from the fact that that particular dish may have intentionally been served cold, the server had nothing - NOTHING - to do with its preparation. Further, that server is a volunteer - not someone (barely) paid to put up with your abuse. Then let’s talk about the food itself. Did you read the menu before signing up for feast? If you did, and you bitch and whine the whole time that there is nothing being served that you can eat, whose fault is that? The people in the kitchen who are again VOLUNTEERING to bust their humps to feed people? No. It is yours. Volunteers deserve - DESERVE - your politeness and respect. And if you really think you can do better - PROVE IT! The proof is quite literally in the pudding.
So what if you really are a picky eater and/or have allergies and/or don’t like waiting for things to arrive at your table and/or don’t like period feasts? Simple - go to the Sizzler instead. Seriously! I do not mean that in any way, shape, manner or form as an insult or as a flip response. Sometimes, that really is the better option for everyone. You will be happy, as will the people who don’t want to sit around listening to you grouse. The SCA Feast experience, just like fighting or dancing or singing or fencing; can be a wonderful experience but really is NOT going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Heck, it can’t be. The people in the kitchen are not custom cooking dishes based on your individual order. They are cooking several dishes that they are hoping you enjoy en masse. Will you? Who knows? The same dish put in front of three different people will most likely get three different reactions. And yes, this is why many cooks often prefer to play it safe by doing modern foods. But if there is nothing else that I can convey in this post, it is the fact that American-Restaurant-mentality needs to be left OUT of SCA feasts. SCA Feast is NOT a restaurant experience! It is NOT, “We’ll have it your way”. An SCA Feast is the vision of the head cook. And hopefully, you will enjoy most of the things that you try. But there’s just not a guarantee of that.
So where am I going with this feasting rant that discusses various issues and potential problems? Well, very simply, I want to see a change across the board when it comes to SCA feasts. I want the food served to all be documentably SCA period - all the time - at every single event. Is it possible? Absolutely! Do we have the ways and means? Absolutely! Will it be to everyone’s tastes? No. But frankly, neither is any other SCA experience. It isn’t hard to find modern food - the restaurant around the corner has some. But an individual who attends his or her first SCA event should at least have a reasonable expectation to be exposed to history in each of the activities presented at an event - and yes, that includes the food (or at least it SHOULD).
For those of us who love and admire and appreciate history and historical experiences, we are being deprived of an SCA encounter that we wish to experience and have a reasonable expectation of being able to experience. So please, if you are a cook and are at all involved in preparing SCA feasts, please bear this in mind and add the one ingredient that many feasts are missing - history.