SC - RE: SC Kids and feasts

[Phil & Susan Troy]

Brenna wrote:

> Okay, looking over my first post, I find that I left something out.  The
> children were allowed to attend either feast.  It was the choice of the parents
> (and the kids), but parents can judge whether the 11 year old will like the
> adult feast vs the 4 year old who will like the children's feast.
>
> Brenna

What I've done in the past, and which seems to work pretty well, is arrange for a
children's feast to be set up separately, which will begin at the same time, or
shortly before, the standard grown-up meal. Children generally have a lower
tolerance for things like long toasts and belly dancers, etc., which they tend to
regard as delay tactics. Unusually perceptive, some kids are ;  )

You might want to reserve a small percentage of your kid food in case anyone is
napping during the children's feast, or if for some reason the children are being
brought to the main feast instead. You can either have your server let you know if
there are any children who might appreciate being offered the kid food, or even
have someone go around the hall looking for really short people.

Menus are pretty much along the lines Brenna describes. Mac-and-cheese, made with
flat noodles, is a favorite, and I've had great success with McNuggets (either
chicken or fish) Egredouce, served, as the name suggests, with (note "with",
rather than "in") a sweet-and-sour sauce, which we whiz up in a blender, so the
raisins provide a thickener. Also sawgeat (scrambled eggs with fresh or smoked
sausage, more or less), pancakes with cinnamon and sugar, which kids seen to
regard as _extremely_ decadent to eat in the evening, various stewed pears or
apples, applemoy, and whatever simple vegetables you think this particular batch
of kids will eat. Peas or spinach, boiled quickly and buttered, make for what a
medieval cook would consider a simple boyled sallat. You might talk to the parents
of any children you know are attending, and get an idea of what they might like
best. This method seems to emphasize the ways in which period foods are like
modern ones, which I've found is an excellent way to introduce the less
adventurous kids, and their adult counterparts as well, to period foods.

One of the bizarre side-effects of this type of more-or-less period kid-oriented
foods is that I've had adults come looking for leftovers of the children's feast.
But then I've also known four-year-olds who had thirds on the haggis, so go
figure...

Adamantius

______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com


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