SC - Feastocrat? Autocrat?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

lilinah at grin.net wrote:
> 
> As someone new to the organizational end, can someone please explain the
> difference in responsibilities between a Feastocrat and an Autocrat to me?
> I realize that Autocrats manage events other than feasts and i assume that
> Feastocrats manage only feasts... But i gather from some posts that some
> feasts have both...

Umm, yes.

The term "Autocrat" was devised on day one (or possibly two) of the
SCA's existence, more or less when God and Adam went around making lists
of the names of things, if you know what I mean. The term designates the
person in charge of an SCA event: usually this means the person who
finds and arranges the site, handles publicity, forms and manages the
various departmental teams so everything needed for the smooth running
of the event gets done. Oh, and the autocrat is supposed to form a
clean-up crew ;  ) . The autocrat usually is directly responsible to the
seneschal, or group president, of the group holding the event.

In an attempt to decrease the number of non-period made-up terms at SCA
events, you'll sometimes find terms like "Event Steward", or sometimes
just "Steward", used instead of "autocrat". (Period, of course, is also
a made-up term, but what the hey, you have to start somewhere.)

The term "Feastocrat" (and this term has never been used as universally
in the SCA as autocrat, and is pretty much a heretical insult in some
parts of the known World, such as mine, for instance) is more or less
the food and beverage manager for the event, or may be in charge of one
specific meal only. The Feastocrat (ugghhh) is usually responsible for
planning the feast, from organizing the kitchen resources, both human
and non-, planning a menu within a specific budget, shopping, arranging
for some kind of posted ingredients list and sometimes a menu also, for
people with health problems, making sure the kitchen is run in a
sanitary and safe manner, usually the shopping necessary for the food
being cooked, sometimes the cleanup afterwards, and miscellaneous
associated duties.

As I say, there are kingdoms where this term is never used. I myself
find it sickeningly and insufferably cutesy, and there are various
substitutes used. The original term used was some variant on "cook", but
probably  somebody came up with "feastocrat" as a better indication of
management-level cooking, if you know what I mean. The first person I
ever heard use the term was a Meridien, so it may have originated either
there or in the Midrealm, I don't know. Here in the East, we generally
either use the term "Cook" or "Head Cook", while "Chef de Cuisine",
"Maitre Cuisinier", "Kitchen Steward", and my own favorite, "Kitchener"
are more period terms that occasionally pop up, used to distinguish the
Person In Charge from the person that peeled all the onions (who may or
may not be thePerson In Charge).
     
I'd say the majority of SCA events have some kind of food service, so
most events generally have both an autocrat and an (ugghh)
feastocrat....I mean kitchener, unless somebody wears both the hats,
which is now less common than it was in the wild and woolly Old Days.

HTH,

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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