Sunday, February 5, 2012

Inspiration

It seems over a decade ago, and it probably was, that I hit that moment of inspiration seeing what we were doing and knowing we could do better. That was when my local group at the time, was working hard on a feast with servants holding particular roles, hands being washed and almost unheard of pomp and ceremony. That was before it became nearly common to see "royalty" every year.

This had perked my curiosity about things such as service, manners, order of foods and how they were served. Of course, questions tend to lead to even more, such as timings, how food was served, different and somewhat opposing schools on the humours, dining arrangements and what people really did (as opposed to what they were told they should do).

All these things fill my mind whenever reading a new book or paper, perusing through a contemporary recollection or recipe book and often art as well.

Taking this to the next step was something I have been toying with for at least 4 years now, though obviously the idea was half there before that point. Of course I have not reached the next step due to not only the fact that I have been finding more and more information but that I have been practicing and learning in a more practical sense, often on stuff best not practiced for a regular event feast. For example, in the past few years I have made jellies from animal feet and other parts, I have soused a brawn that I did cut from a real pigs head, I have worked on standing pies both using moulds and without with varying degrees of success, I have made basic cheeses as well as almond cheese, made bread from period instruction and tried many dishes I would not normally choose to feed people in an SCA setting, such as pigs trotters. This is about year 3 for food heavy experimenting, however real life circumstances has kept me only semi active on the SCA front.

While waiting for an opportunity to throw on a feast to such a caliber as my imagination is allowing, I have noticed a fair bit of authenticity driven feasts happening throughout the SCA with the last one I noticed being a "perfectly period feast". I could not find a webpage but do know there are plenty to be found about it. This in itself is inspiring beyond no end as it is wonderful to know that other people and groups have successfully pulled something like this off and are continually upping the game.

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