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How to play Faire Without Mortgaging the Castle
How to play Faire Without Mortgaging the Castle
y Scott Perkins
Part I
The Bill of Faire
I have said many times that the simplest concession a reenactor can make to his or her audience is in the manner and style with which they consume thier meals. Assuming you're following all the other rules... nothing will be more jarring to a patron at faire than watching a peasant eat a snowcone out of a plastic cup. You could wear Nikes with your garb and I think it might elicit less comment.
Unlike swapping your Nikes for period footwear, however, the necessary gear to make your feast more period will be both cheap and easy to obtain. Strangely, it's also the easiest place to cheat and get away with it.
"Feast gear" refers to any item related to eating in a period manner. I beleive it is a term which passed into the vernacular care of the folks at the SCA and we thank them for it. Feast gear is at once the single cheapest thing for rennies to obtain and the most expensive. As I said in the introduction, foundries the world around are copying archeological relics out of modern approximations of period materials and selling them to reenactors for a small fortune. Something which in period might cost you a day's wage could cost you a week's wage in today's reenactment marketplace.
We're in luck, though. This is actually one of the few areas where the "cheap stuff isn't accurate and accurate stuff isn't cheap" rule doesn't always apply. And I'll tell you why: because the preconceptions about renaissance feasting are largely wrong. People become so wrapped up in the idea of pewter tankards and plates, spearing turkey legs off of silver platters with wrought-iron forks that they miss a salient point... we couldn't have afforded any of that even in the 16th century!
For most villagers, and in fact for more of the nobles and middle class than you might think, feast gear in the 16th century was still largely made of crockery, wood, leather and iron. All of these things are still readily available at your local thrift store or arts & crafts fair. Will the profile of your mug or goblet be a perfect rendition of a 16th century piece at the V&A museum? Probably not, but it won't matter. You'll still look more authentic using it than something instantly recognizeable to the patrons (such as a Starbucks cup) and feel more in character to boot!
I can give you the gist of everything that follows in one simple phrase: Haunt your neighborhood thrift stores, flea markets and garage sales!
Think of it as a picnic...
Wicker hampers filled with cold chicken, fresh apples, cheese, butter and rustic breads, washed down with an unpretentious white wine. The image above isn't a period layout, but it illustrates the point nicely.
People tend to run to extremes on feasting at faire: They either overthink it, or don't think about it at all and end up eating vendor food off of plastic plates.
The KISS principle applies in this as in everything. Keep it simple. We're not nobles, so there's really no need to go out and spend your dough on silver chalices and golden plates. As working-class peoples of the renaissance, most of our goods would have been unpretentious and utilitarian. That translates to: "cheap and easy to replace". Wood, earthenware, and some limited pewter are the name of the lower class game, and it's to your benefit as a pennywise peasant that it is!
NOTE: Don't forget to get a piece of leather and tie it into the sheath when you're not using it. Kids, especially little boys, are attracted to the sharper accoutrements of our pastime. They have a real tendency to grab for your knife or sword, and they are more likely to do real damage to themselves with a sharp three-inch eating knife than a three-foot long rapier!
Spoons are easy to come by, and in fact would often be made from horn rather than wood! I have never found a horn spoon at a thrift store since they're something of a commodity to those who have them, so I don't feature them here. I've recently found some good local sources for them and they're not terribly expensive so contact me if you think you need one. In the meantime, a wooden spoon will suit you just fine.
Here we see a basic peasant dinner setting. All of it is made out of wood, only the goblet cost more than a couple of dollars. The handled bowl in the back is called a 'Noggin' and if you can find one, they're great! If you have a Noggin, you have a ladle, a cup, a bowl, a spoon... it's the Swiss Army Knife of feast gear! They're not always easy to find, as they don't find much use in modern society, so really, the bowl and spoon are all you need as a bare-bones peasant kit. (note the leather straps for carrying tied to a pack or belt) A wooden bowl and spoon shouldn't set you back more than a couple dollars at most at your local Goodwill store.
Add the plate/trencher and you're stepping up a bit. The one shown was originally a wooden charger from Target (though I didn't buy it there). Items like this are usually marked 'not for food use' because the varnishes aren't always food-friendly. Sand them off and seal them up with a food-safe wood treatment available at your local woodworking store or coat with beeswax or brewers pitch.
The turned goblet was made by a craftsman in Iowa on a woodlathe. If you know someone with a lathe and a deft hand, they can turn one out for you lickety split. If you have to buy one, expect to pay for it. Craftsmanship always costs you. I will discuss less expensive options for your mead later.
If you're expecting to eat meat at some point (or carve an apple), you should have an eating knife. I don't usually like what most vendors sell as 'eating knives' in thier booths. Little daggers with modern snaps as peace ties don't cut it for me. At the very least I'd replace the sheath to get rid of the snap. The one shown above was found at a Goodwill. It's probably the most expensive piece of feast gear shown on this page that wasn't custom made. It cost all of six dollars.
(The spoon was made by a faire blacksmith and was a Christmas present to my wife from her father. There's a matching two-tined fork as well which we usually use when carving a bird at faire.)
The point isn't to say "Gosh! Look how cool my eating knife is!" but rather to show you that good things can come cheap. And persistance in your search is usually rewarded. To start yourself out in your gear, go to the knife bin at your local thrift shoppe and select a knife that is reasonably sharp but not serrated and make a sheath for it.
A sheath can be as simple as two pieces of belting leather cut a little larger than the shape of the knife and sewn together with enough left over at the top to double over and rivet as a belt loop.
And - come to think of it - neither do the pewter items!
As you attend feasts and faires you will see more and more of what other people have and get a better idea of what you want and what you should look for when you're haunting the thrift stores.
Pitchers, mugs for hot drinks (never drink hot drinks from a metal cup!), goblets, jugs, bottles, crocks, most of what you see above was either purchased from a local craftsman or from the thrift store! (The checkered wooden 'horn mug' is another story which we will get to later.)
Note that we've managed to set a sumptuous feast table, a peasanty repast indeed, and except for our knife we've yet to pick up a single item of pewter, brass, gold or silver! Ren Faire really doesn't have to be expensive!
The tankards at right represent several years of pillaging the thrift stores in the puget sound region. Two of the tankards are made out of recycled aluminum by area students learning to sandcast (it took me awhile to track that one down) and the rest are made from an alloy usually known as States Metal. I generally seek out the work of the Wilton Armetale foundry of Columbia Pennsylvania. They do fine work and most of the tankards you see here are theirs. If you buy one of their tankards, you can rest assured of its lack of lead. Look for their hallmark which looks approximately like the one below.
Wilton-Armetale is still a thriving concern and available new from their website and at retailers everywhere. (Though some of the designs shown are no longer made.)
We are not paid for this endorsement or we wouldn't be telling you to hunt them down at Thrift Stores and Flea Markets. Buy them where you can find them. They're functional, durable, lead-free and we're enthusiastic consumers and collectors of their wares.
If you cannot track down the maker of your metalware, there are several commercially available lead tests which you can purchase at your local home or paint store. They are generally intended for testing for lead in the paint in old houses and in the lead in ceramics (also a danger) but they advertise that they can find lead in other places too, including metalware. It will require you to abrade the surface of your item someplace unobtrusive, but for me, the scratches are worth the peace of mind.
The three styles of tankard you are most likely to find are shown above. All of them perform the function of getting beer from the tap to your mouth quite well. (I checked it out for you, no charge!)
The center one is my favorite. I know several people who use these at faire. Armatale doesn't make them to my knowledge, but they are a safe "Statesmetal" alloy. The best part is that they are cast with dents already in them! The one on the left is the most common you will see. Technically it's a Georgian (Colonial era) design with the potbelly or 'bell' profile and curly handle. A new one, cast from fine (lead-free) pewter could cost you upwards of sixty dollars. (But not at thrift stores and antique stores!) The 'horn' mug on the right is pure fantasy, but I now have a set of four of them and I think they're fun. You see them at faires a lot and they're widely accepted.
Other items will occur to you the more you eat at faire and you may decide down the road that a fine polished pewter tankard is what you want. Or some forged utensils to replace the wooden ones. It's up to you and it's your money, honey. The things found here are simply a good way to get you on the road to where you want to be.
Ren faire is a shared illusion between you and the patrons. The more you feel like a renaissance villager, the better you'll come across as one to the casual patron. The more they perceive you as a renaissance villager, the better they will enjoy the faire. And that's why we're here.
"Making Ourselves At Home"
Page contents Copyright 2006, Scott W Perkins except where noted
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