Alright then. I said I tend to to the Living History end of things, and mantioned that this is something I do at FlaRF, but what exactly do I and the other like minded loonies do?

Well, instead of being military, we decided we would be a set of servants brought down from the Mayor's estate to cook and serve food to the Nobles (the cast) at the faire.

We cook period recipies (medieval mainly) over open fires, in cast iron pots, then go the whole hog and serve them correctly as well, all on period furniture handbuilt by the group. At some point I'll get photo's up, but for those who have it, we tend to look like the great pictures in Embleton and Howe's 'The Medieval Soldier'. In our down time, we play period games.

Everything we do has been researched in as many sources we can find. Medieval cook books are easy to come by, but serving manuals are not! I have the station of Carver, who actually cuts the meat so the Nobles can eat it with spoon and fingers (NO lollypopping on a knife end here, thank you! And put that fork down as well....). It is at times almost experimental archeology. We know they say they did this, but how does that work?

It involves a lot of work, as we start prep work and costumes in December, and spend every faire day arriving on site at around 7:30am so we are already for opening gate at 10am.

Why? Because we're mad? Well....

I enjoy it, the whole lot of it, from teaching those MoP's who want to ask questions, to actually looking right (hose pointed to doublet, anyone?), to trying medieval food (luce wafers are good, but this years favorite is stockfish pie), to having the other cast admire us for what we do.