Two Types of Cook

Hello there, and welcome back to the kitchen. I apologize to anyone who was looking for an article last month; I lost track of the date. Lets see if I can make up for it this month...

I’ve been thinking about what I should talk about this month, and a couple different thoughts have come to mind. One of those thoughts was the idea of the different types of cooks we have in the SCA, and the other was the idea of writing about the historical accuracy of our feasts. The topics are fairly closely related, so this month I’ll talk about the two main types of cooks I tend to see, and next month I’ll talk about historical accuracy. 

The two categories I tend to lump SCA cooks into are what I tend to call (for lack of better terms, and please forgive the possible political incorrectness here) “Pelican Cooks” and “Laurel Cooks”. I honestly don’t like using those terms in an article like this, because most of the cooks are not Pelicans or Laurels, or even necessarily close to that level, however I haven’t found terms that I liked better, yet. So...let’s describe a couple types of cooks, and see if you can understand the differences I see.

I’ll start with how I see myself when it comes to cooking. Both inside and outside the SCA, I’m a mom. I feed people. That’s just what I do, and what I have done for as long as I can remember. I enjoy cooking. Even as a youth, when my brothers and I went to visit our father, whether it was for a weekend or a month, the kitchen was mine from the time I walked into the house.

I joined the SCA because I never really outgrew the idea of playing dress-up. I kept playing in the SCA because I found dancing at my first event. After playing for a few years, though, and meeting and marrying my husband, a group of our friends formed a household. As the household was forming, we tried all camping together and having a combined kitchen, which I said I’d be in charge of. For the next few years, I consistently ran the kitchen for our encampment, which was anywhere from 15-40 people on a regular basis. While feasts were rare in our local area of An Tir, I did get the chance to cook a few feasts, which I truly enjoyed.

When we moved to mainland Drachenwald, I lost the chance to cook at events. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until we moved to Insulae Draconis and I got to help in someone else’s feast kitchen. I was then lucky enough to have the chance to run the kitchen for our Yule Feast...and keep being lucky enough to get to work in the kitchens, or run them. It was here in Insulae Draconis, however, that I started realizing that there are some rather broad differences in philosophy between some cooks.

My basic philosophy when I’m cooking at an event breaks down into the following basic ideas.

1) food should be plentiful (no one should go hungry)

2) food should be enjoyable (people should like what they’re eating, not just eat because it’s all that’s available)

3) food should be reasonably period (don’t break the medieval illusion)

4) food should be available when people need it (within reason).

While the first three seem to be fairly standard, with varying degrees of importance, it’s the fourth one that seems to set the two types of cooks I previously mentioned apart the most. There have been at least two occasions where I’ve been running a kitchen at events where, for some reason someone was late for breakfast. On one occasion I had someone come to me in the middle of breakfast and explain that there were a couple people who had arrived extremely late the night before and really needed some sleep...but were also going to need something to eat. This individual was asking if she needed to wake her friends up to come eat, or if they were going to have to wait until lunch if they slept through the advertised breakfast time.

My answer was that I would/could have breakfast food available until I set lunch out. Another cook who happened to be in the kitchen at the time made a comment to the effect of “if you don’t state an ending time for breakfast, you’ll have people coming in at all hours and won’t ever be done with it”. As I was going to be in the kitchen working on things anyway, it didn’t really occur to me that this could be a problem. I wouldn’t stop and prepare a fresh, new breakfast for a late riser...but refreshing the porridge really wasn’t enough work to worry about in my mind, and I had the burner on the stove available to keep it warm for a while.

At another event, I had someone come into the kitchen after the breakfast foods had been cleared from the serving area and ask if there happened to still be anything available. I still had porridge on the stove (again, I don’t see a reason to pull the porridge off the stove until I need the burner for something else, and there’s always the chance that someone will need it), and I think at that point I also had a couple eggs that were easy to cook up for the late riser. I said it wasn’t a problem, and quickly heated something. I heard another cook, who was in the kitchen working on that night’s feast, grumble something to the effect that “the correct answer is ‘no’...if you sleep through breakfast, that’s your problem.” Again, this isn’t something that would occur to me. If someone is hungry and I have the food available for them...I will feed them, regardless of what the schedule says. 

This is where I see one of the biggest fundamental differences between the two types of cooks I mentioned. A “Pelican Cook” is cooking because people need to be fed. The primary focus is on the people. 

For what I call a “Laurel Cook”, the primary focus is on the food. These are the people who tend to be extremely detail oriented in their documentation and research before preparing a feast. These are the people who can give you a feast from a specific geographical region and time period, and can explain exactly why specific foods were used. 

I am not going to say that one type of cook is better than the other. In fact, there’s a certain amount of balance that needs to be achieved for a successful event or feast. A “Pelican cook” can cook a large amount of delicious food, but if it breaks the illusion of being medieval, it defeats the purpose of having feast at an event. Likewise, a “Laurel cook” can make an extremely historically accurate feast, but if it is not something that a modern palate can handle, or there isn’t enough to properly feed everyone, it again defeats the purpose. Most cooks aren’t entirely on one end of the scale or the other. So this month, my challenge to you, as fellow cooks, is to look at yourself, and your style of cooking, and see where you are, and where you want to be.