Wierd menus?

[bunnyjadwiga]

I was thinking about 'what constitutes wierd period food' again today. Once upon a time, we did a feast like this:

On the tables:
* Endive Salad dressed with vinegar, oil, salt (Rumpolt)
* Pickled beets and cucumbers
* Sliced radishes dressed with vinegar, oil, salt (Rumpolt)
* Hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with vinegar and salt (Rumpolt)
* Poached Fish with green (parsley) sauce
* Mustard sauce with vinegar, honey, anise, cubebs, cardamom, salt (based on a reference in Rumpolt)
* Rye and white bread, herb butter
* Candied orange peel
First Serving:
* Pork schnitzels with pepper sauce
* Pea soup with chard
* Armored turnips (Platina)
* Rosemary chicken (from Sabrina Welserin)
* Cameline sauce (from Le Menagier)* & Black grape sauce (Maestro Martino)
Second Serving
* Sirloin of beef marinated in wine and cooked with onions and spices (Welserin)*
* Cabbage with sausage
* Roasted Carrots
* Barley with Mushroom broth and Mushrooms (adapted from Rumpolt)
* Roasted Onions
Dessert Board:
* Sugared almonds (Rumpolt)
* Lemon peel suckets (Rumpolt)
* Tart of Roasted Apples (Sabrina Welserin)
* Pears in spiced wine sauce (Sabrina Welserin) *
* Rice pudding with milk and almond (Sabrina Welserin)
* Compote of summer fruits *
* indicates inclusion of alcohol

and an arts person, wife of a squire, complained later about wierd feasts with pickled beets in them. Now, this feast was as innocuous as we thought we could manage, since we were feeding a crowd that a) had been burned the year before with the all-pork feast and b) were traditionally anti-period-food.

Now, for my money, there are a number of factors that seem to govern what people think is wierd. One is their personal characteristics. Fighters seem to be, in the aggregate, less adventurous eaters; I'm not sure why. Also, people from PA seem to be more adventurous than people from New Jersey, again, I'm not sure why. I've noticed that if I'm feeding people whose normal mode of food is what I call 'Dutchie'-- gloppy food, sweet and sour, lots of dishes-- they seem to be more open to period food as served family-style.

Some people are freaked out by pickling stuff, unusual vegetables, sweet foods that are 'normally' savory in American cuisine. Some of them are actually anti-soup or anti-stew. (Ok, I don't understand that. Two small girls I'm around also won't eat soup or stew, and I am completely wierded out by it, and don't understand how they get away with it...) Glop is not good for them. This may be the American finger food tradition.

What's going on here?

Comments

[scadian-fairy.livejournal.com]

Oh please tell me they don't do that.... uhhhhh... *turns green*

[tattycat.livejournal.com]

It gets better-- this was at a Chinese restaurant owned by actual Chinese immigrants. I had a little chat with the owner, who informed me that "white people don't know good food." I told her from now on, I wanted what she eats.

My G-d, the difference. It is amazing.

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

My favourite Chinese restaurant was the one my ex-husband worked at all through High School and College, because Mr. and Mrs. Wa knew to serve us the Chinese menu, not the American menu. We did our rehersal dinner there and they did a full-on 12 course Chinese feast for it.

A-mazing.

Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Wa retired and closed the restaurant a few years back and i've never found anywhere as good.

[scadian-fairy.livejournal.com]

Oh my!
hehe, yes, some of us like good food!

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

we finally got our local chinese restaurant all trained up, and then we had to move =(

There was *nothing* like the eggplant hotpot, and I dont even like eggplant!

We would walk in, sit down, and 20 mins later, dinner would appear. It was almost like being home.