SC - A request
Christine A Seelye-King
mermayde at juno.com
Mon Apr 27 20:44:34 PDT 1998
My Lady,
This is a very comprehensive class outline. May I use it for
classes?
Mistress Christianna MacGrain, OP, Meridies
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998 22:57:16 EDT Kallyr <Kallyr at aol.com> writes:
>Here are the notes I made for a class I gave. I hope it's helpful.
>I'd love
>for you to share your final text with me.
>
>About Running a Feast
>-Minna Gantz (Sherry Levi, email: Kallyr at aol.com)
>
>Many people think running a feast is a project that depends mostly on
>creativity. But I would say that it's mostly a matter of logistics--
>bringing
>all the food, people and resources together in such a way that they
>can
>produce a delightful gustatory and cross-temporal experience.
>
>Planning a feast involves keeping track of many things: food, labor,
>budget,
>resources for cooking, cooling/ storage, and serving. Above all it is
>a
>matter of managing timing.
>
>Useful planning tools:
>
>1) Menu list: A list of all the dishes to be prepared (see
>"Constructing a
>Menu" below).
>Make many copies & use as a planning tool. Use one to make sure you
>review
>all dishes to be served when making your shopping list. Use one to
>plan a
>timeline for advance prep and another for prep the day of the feast
>(in other
>words, consider what will happen to the ingredients for a given dish
>ahead of
>time & up to the moment it is served?)
>
>2) Recipe: A written record of how to prepare a dish.
>Type a recipe for each dish-- type it yourself because it's important
>to
>become intimately familiar with the recipes you will be serving, to
>avoid last
>minute surprises. Structured with a list of ingredients at top & each
>step
>numbered separately below.
>It's very helpful to your staff to have all recipes in a parallel
>form. It
>can be taken from a source or your own redaction. Always indicate
>where prep
>may be interrupted for storage/ holding. You will be glad if you take
>copies
>of your recipes with you when you go shopping when you can't recall
>amounts or
>wonder whether a substitute ingredient could work.
>
>3) A kit & station per recipe:
>For each recipe, kit (usually appropriately sized cardboard box with a
>copy of
>the recipe) contains all necessary ingredients or a note where to find
>them
>(i.e., perishables in the fridge) and the station (where kit is
>placed)
>defines where they are to be prepared (or at least begun).
>
>4) Shopping list as a checklist:
>Broken out by type of establishment where purchases will be made.
>Generally, one will shop at 1-3 grocery stores, a meat supplier, a
>wholesale
>house, 1-3 produce suppliers and perhaps a few specialty suppliers--
>cheese,
>bakery, spices, or ethnic.
>
>5) Timeline: Lays out a plan of how activities (usually recipe
>preparation)
>will be sequenced and when things will happen. Plan backwards from
>all dishes
>served at feast time. Designate dishes that must be cooked last
>minute. Take
>all dishes as far along ahead of time as they can be without loss of
>quality.
>Remember it takes large quantities of food longer to get to cooking
>heat, then
>they still cook a bit slower than a small quantity. Make a page that
>shows a
>line for each resource, and what it will be doing at a given time.
>
>6) Lists-- Use them. Some useful lists:
>
>Things not to forget to do
>To do on a given day
>Transport & storage of perishables
>Planning & allocation of scarcest resources
>Things to bring:
> -Ingredients including seasonings
> -Ingredients stored in fridge, freezer, others' homes...
> -Tools, sanitation, First Aid
> -Presentation & decor items
> -Cleanup items
> -Personal Sanity & Nurturance for Feastocrat:
> Comfy Shoes, clean clothes, FOOD-- DON'T FORGET TO
>EAT!
>How to make your feasts more period
>
>Authentic Dishes
>Sauces
>Subtleties
>Presentation: (Strive for opulence)
> Eye Appeal
> Colorful
> Fancy (or appropriately Rustic) Servingware
> Use of Flowers, Herbs & Leaves
>Handwashing & other services
>Trenchers
>Coffins
>
>What is Authentic?
>
>Authentic feasts are those which are similar to ones of period times.
>I think
>it's better to focus on an authentic overall experience, and an
>authentic feel
>for the feast and event, than on explicitly letter perfect documented
>dishes.
>
>I firmly believe "authentic" is not equivalent to "documented".
>Specifically,
>there are many authentic dishes which are not documented.
>Criteria:
>-All ingredients available in same season in region,
>-Preparation techniques appropriate to region & era,
>-No ingredients or methods of preparation known to be out of period.
> Constructing a Menu
>
>Go into menu planning with ideas about estimated size of event,
>kitchen &
>dining room resources, theme of event, some dishes you'd like to cook.
> Good
>menu planning should involve both wishful thinking and practicality:
>what
>would be really neat to serve people and how can it be managed while
>retaining
>one's sanity and the affection of one's kitchen staff? The ideal menu
>has
>"enough" of each of these dish types: meat & other protein, veggies,
>starches, flavor impact dishes, and balances colors, textures, and
>flavors
>(salty, sour, bitter, sweet, spicy) across the menu and within
>courses. Other
>things to balance:
> -Familiar/ unfamiliar ingredients
> -Familiar/ unfamiliar preparations
> -Expensive/ inexpensive foods
> -Labor intensive/ easy dishes
> -Simple/ complex dishes
> -Dishes which can be made ahead/ last minute prep ones
> -Methods of cooking (baking, boiling, frying...)
>
>Theme: Tied to an era, place & season. Hopefully, also involves the
>event's
>theme, activities & decorations, etc. Theme helps to narrow your
>search when
>looking for dishes to fill in gaps in the menu.
>
>I am opposed to the concept of "throwaway dishes"-- practice of making
>mounds
>of uninteresting veggies, starches or lentils! which are predictably
>not
>eaten. Make several interesting smaller dishes (plan about 1/8 c.
>portions)
>to optimize chance each person will like something. the people who do
>eat
>veggies will be grateful and the holdouts wouldn't have eaten veggies
>in any
>form probably.
>
>Redacting Recipes
>
>Following an existing redaction to the letter may not get you a more
>authentic
>result than your own interpretation of the recipe.
>
>Bring to Redaction:
>Experience cooking & reading cookbooks:
> -Knowledge of process
> -Knowledge of "how ingredients work"
> -Knowledge of where to look up missing information
>A wide range of cookbook sources for reference
>Some perspective on the region in that era, its food history & cooking
>techniques
>An understanding of seasonally available ingredients
>Personal convictions about how cooks were "back then"
> -Smart: Frugal & preferring less labor
> -Desirous of producing delightful food
> -Skilled at & very knowledgeable about their profession
>An understanding that many concepts taken for granted by modern
>persons were
>not present or seen from a different angle in period:
> -Accuracy & reproducibility-- probably most period recipes
>were NOT tested
>after written down, many period recipe collections were copied or
>typeset by
>hand multiple times, introducing errors.
> -Assumptions of "what everybody knows" and "how things are"
>vary drastically
>from ours.
>
>
>Read modern redactions with a healthy skepticism.
>Ask what is background of person who wrote them (cook, scholar,
>SCA...)
>Errors are cues to knowledge level of redactor.
>Beware of tendency for redactions to get more like the cooking
>"vernacular"
>with which the redactor is familiar.
>SCA redactions tend to err towards:
> -Less expensive
> -Less labor intensive
> -More appealing to popular modern tastes & familiarity:
>witness the
>conversion of all sorts of root vegetable recipes into carrot recipes.
>
>If you redact, be careful not to skip steps!
>
>Cooking Technique Tips
>
>Always visit your kitchen scene ahead of time to scope it out.
>
>As soon as you arrive, make sure the circuit box, hot water & oven are
>turned
>on.
>
>Time: Remember it takes large quantities of food longer to get to
>cooking
>heat, then they still cook a bit slower than a small quantity. How
>much
>slower depends on how careful you are to prevent heat from escaping
> -for stovetop cooking ALWAYS USE LIDS, foil is a fine
>substitute,
> -minimize opening ovens to "check". Roasting lots of meat,
>add 1/2 hour for
>heat to "settle".
> -When cooking large quantities of things that cook quickly
>individually it's
>best to break down into small batches and run them through
>sequentially.
>Saute in steamtable pan across two burners-- miraculous!
>
>Similarly, big dishes take longer to cool down. For food safety, if
>chilling
>to hold for later, they have to be broken into smaller batches &
>chilled
>quickly.
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>
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