A Midsummer’s Day Feast at the Faire

Renaissance Faire, Glen Helen Regional Park, Sierra Avenue exit from Highway 15 near Devore, San Bernardino County. (800) 52-FAIRE. Saturdays and Sundays May 13 to June 25, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission $14.50; parking $2.

What could be nicer on a day in June than a Renaissance Pleasure Faire, particularly at the Faire’s idyllic new San Bernardino County location?

Of course, you don’t really go back in time at one of these things. The games and stage entertainment may be rigorously authentic, the costumes and accents pretty authentic, but the food . . . well, the Elizabethans knew not the potato nor the tomato, neither yet the chocolate syrup nor the ice cream. Nor (trust me on this) did they ever, ever eat falafel.

Largely what the food stalls sell is modern English street or regional food like fish & chips and Scottish scones. Probably the most authentic historical food at the Faire, with the exception of the potatoes in the filling, is the Cornish pasties; in Elizabethan England everybody, not just in Cornwall, ate little meat pies.

The rest of the Faire fare is mostly simple stuff with a hearty and archaic look, like roasted turkey legs and beef ribs for throwing around a la Henry VIII. (If this sort of thing appeals to you, there are Feastes of pork ribs and Cornish hen, attended by serving wenches and ale-runners, at 12:30 and 2 p.m. daily. Reservations are required: (714) 642-0262).

Of course, there are some things you eat at the Renaissance Faire simply because they’ve always been served there, like the churros, a Spanish fritter rather like a long, straight doughnut. Sturdy traditions like banger sausage and toad in a hole are served at the east end of the fairgrounds around the Drury Creek Stage. But the best bet for something that both feels and really is Elizabethan is at the first food stall as you enter the Faire, which serves nothing but thick-sliced cheese, massively thick-sliced bread and good big pork sausages, separately or in any combination.

Apart from a little collection of stalls in the vicinity of Bread, Sausage and Cheese, the rest of the food is at the east end of the grounds, mostly northeast of the Maybower Stage. Here you find not only the roasted beef ribs and turkey legs, but an excellent beef sate called Steake on a Stake (in teriyaki sauce, no less, and capped with an olive and a chunk of pineapple) and a messy but tasty quail in mustard and vinegar sauce.

South of the Maybower Theatre are sold the Cornish pasties, and also probably the best food at the Faire, paper-thin crepes with various fillings. The “Hampshire crape” is particularly nice, with thin-sliced sweet ham and grated cheese inside. There are also fruit-filled crepes with plenty of ye olde chocolate sauce. Slurp hearty, my lordes and ladyes.