SC - Help!

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>
>Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 11:19:07 -0500
>From: "rond" <rond at sginet.com>
>Subject: SC - HELP!
>
>Greetings my Lords and Ladys, 
>Iam new to the SCA and for my first project I get to feastocrat a avent.
>Great isnt it!
>Please oh please I can use all the help I can get. Us gypsies are not
>always the most
>organised. 
>                    Annastasis

Well, let's see---Feast-0-crat 101 in one easy lesson. That's a tall order!

First I suggest you gather the following information:

1) When is the event (what modern date, time. etc, i.e.: how much lead time
do you have until then)?
2) What is the theme (ie: 14th century France, etc., or is a generic-themed
feast OK?)
3) What are the cooking facilities like?
4) Who will be helping you?
5) What is the attendance estimate?
6) What is your budget per person? Ask for about $2.50 per person minumum
for each course of dishes, and more per person per course if you are serving
fewer courses, with a minumum of $3.50 per person for a one-course feast, or
$2.00 for a bread-and-stew type feast (we call that a half-feast around here).
7) How is this all being served, and who is coordinating that? Consult with
them.
8) Who is your clean-up crew (or are you also responsible for that?).

Once you have this information, it should be easy to find your "direction".
Next I suggest you begin by using already redacted sources for your recipes.
A good one to start with (let's get you off on the right foot, cooking
documentable food right away!), is Elizabeth and Cariadoc's Miscellany,
which is online at http://www.sca.org  . You'll need to click on the Arts
and Sciences Icon. Also there you will find other useful resources such as
"Take a Thousand Eggs or More" by Cindy Renfrow. For your first event, I
suggest you stick to one source, plan a menu (easy=2-3 helpers)--one course
of dishes, or middling-hard=4-6 helpers---two courses of dishes, or
downright exhausting=6-10 helpers, three or more courses of dishes).

As a rough European rule of thumb, pick your meat and surrounding
complimentary dishes, and a beverage for each course. Include a vegeteable
dish for the vegetarians, a starch dish, and a fruit dish, along with your
meat dish to satisfy the MODERN diners, if you have a vocal and pernickity
group of eaters to whom you must cater. Dessert is optional, but a good
idea, espescially if it can be made in advance, such as fruit tarts, small
cakes, candies, etc.

Now that you have a menu planned, cost it out with supermarket prices. If
this adds up to over your budget, re-plan your menu. Always have a "fudge
factor" of about 10% of the budget that you plan on NOT spending, so that
you can run out and get those extras you forgot to bring/buy the day of the
event without busting the budget. For very small events, this is crucial!!!!

Next, scale down your menu to serve 8-10,and invite over a few SCA friends
and you helping cooks. Cook the feast for them, and record your process of
cooking AND their reactions to the dishes. Re-plan and cost your menu
according to any changes.

You can do this test-cooking in installments if you want to, but make sure
the dishes go together well. Once you have all this down, get a check from
the group for the amount of the allownace per person. If you go over this
amount, my method is to pay out of pocket and get re-imbursed later, tho
this happened to me only once in 13 years of cooking. At this point, you
must keep your receipts faithfully, because you will have to account for
every pennny with a receipt or else pay for the difference! I tend to keep a
special envelope in my purse for these receipts, with a running tab of what
I spent, and then any difference in cash I get the day before the event so I
won't have to confuse the troll with sums taken from the cash box for
emergency ingredients. Re-deposit any excess in your account and after the
event and write a check for that amount to the shire, so there is always a
paper trail of what you did with that money and why.

The next step is to make a detailed schedule of what gets cooked when
onsite, and what can safely be prepared ahead of time, what prepwork gets
done early, etc., and when serving happens, and what order things are served
in. This will be posted on the kitchen door or some other handy place the
day of the event. Put a pen or pencil with it so you can cross items as they
get done. This way, anyone who comes in volunteering to help should consult
that schedule for things they can do. Include dish washing, etc. on the
kitchen schedule.

Now you have a schedule. You also need a presentation menu (atleast 1 per
table, made up a few days before in case of emergencchanges)and a recipe
list or at least ingredients list to post (I make a pamphlet with the
sources, redacted recipes, ingredients, with the menu on the inside front
cover, but folks here think I'm nuts to do it---it has come in handy many
many times, though. lately i have been running out of them, and hav to
e-mail an entire feast's recipes to different people who wanted a pamphlet
but didn't snag one in time).  

Now you have a workable menu. Multiply your recipes by the number expected
onboard (get a concrete number 1 week ahead, if possible!!!). Sort out the
odd ingredients found only in special places--you'll have to get them
seperately from the rest of the groceries. The next step is to call a
restaurant supply house and price out bulk items (ie: half a case of leaf
lettuce is $12.00 currently in my neck of the woods. That's 12 large heads
of green or red leaf lettuce, which would cost me about $20.00 in the
grocery store. Half a case of lemons (perhaps 50 or so)is 9.00, which beats
4-for-$1.00 any day of the week. I just bought 2 cases of chicken parts for
.55 a pound, fresh---never frozen, and packed specially for me. They will
sell me untrimmed whole top rounds, still cry-o-vacced, for a significant
discount (maybe 1.29-40 a lb.).  They gave me a 3% discount for ordering a
week ahead and a 5% discount for non-profit group----get that tax number
from your seneschal and call ahead of time!!!!). You are now significantly
under budget, and your autocrat loves you. This is a good thing. Order your
groceries for pick-up early the day of the event unless there are storage
facilities onsite, in which case get them the day before. Take a beefy guy
to help you load/unload them. Then take a nap, you're going to need it!

The day of the event, arrive onsite and post your schedule. Stick to it if
at all possible. At least an hour before serving happens, make sure the
servers have talked to you and the head server, so there is no confusion and
they know what the dishes are roughly made from and how to pronounce the
names, and who is serving which tables.

It is handy to have a person coordinating the dishes travel from the kitchen
to the staging area, and the server's taking of dishes from the staging
area, if you are serving family-style or individually (not!). 

When it is time to toast the cooks, make sure someone comes to get you, so
you can take a bow. While you're out there, look around. All those happy
faces are there because you did a great job!

That's my method. It has never failed me. I hope it works for you, too!

PS We didn't cover what to do about Royalty, etc. Do you need to know that now?


Aoife

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