SC - Analysing What's Wrong in Trimaris

[WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/27/00 9:33:46 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
memorman at oldcolo.com writes:

<< Is Trimaran food really that bad?  Let's be honest here.  Do we have some
 Trimaran cooks who can belly up to the bar and say, yea or nay, WHY her
 highness would have such a poor opinion of Trimaran cooks that she
 publicly insults and humiliates them?  Are all the cooks of Trimaris bad?
 Are cooks being chosen for political reasons rather than reasons of
 culinary skill?  Are the halls chosen without looking carefully at their
 kitchen capacities?  What's actually wrong here?
 
 Elaina >>

I'll answer what I can.  I'll admit there have been some feasts I've attended 
which were not the greatest.  There was one where the cook simply didn't 
prepare enough of anything.  The portions were skimpy, but what there was had 
been thoroughly cooked and tasted fine.  No attempt at periodicity, edible 
20th century food, just not enough of any of it.   

There was another one recently, where the kitchener had spent the previous 
week in bed with that nasty flu, but the quality of the feast was his usual 
excellent repast.  The problem I had with it was the lack of variety.  
Everything except the meat was smothered in various cheese & cream sauces.  
Including dessert.  Too rich.  There should be ups and downs at feast, I 
think.  If you serve a lot of rich stuff in one course, you should lighten up 
the next one.  Then go back to rich, etc.  Anyone who was lactose-intolerant 
spent a miserable night after this one.  Again, there was no attempt at 
periodicity at this one, either.  

I can't say as I have ever eaten a feast here that was truly BAD.  I've heard 
horror stories of pink chicken, but I, as an individual, have never eaten a 
BAD feast here.  

My own experiences as a cook have been universally positive.  I've done all 
kinds of feasts, including my big experiment last year.  I had one dish in my 
Elizabethan feat which came back to the kitchen in larger quantities than I 
was used to, but then it was the bean tart from A Proper New Boke of Cokerye, 
which, though I and the testers liked it well enough, didn't have enough 
popular appeal to be gobbled up like everything else.  Found out that a lot 
of people just don't like beans.  Period.  ;-)  But it was one dish out of 21 
served that night.  It was a small, local event, cooked for 120, no hats in 
attendance.

We recently began using, for Kingdom events, a splendid site, with a million 
dollar kitchen.  It's a beautiful facility.  It'll seat 400 or more for a 
feast.  But, since we're new to the site, and they're not really comfortable 
with us yet, their kitchen staff is always in the kitchen with us, and they 
lock the place up at midnight.  From what I have been told by some of the 
cooks who've done feasts here (I haven't, and I won't do Kingdom feasts) that 
this restriction has had an effect on most of them.  We're hoping that, as we 
use this site more often, and they get comfortable with the fact that we're 
(by and large) fairly responsible humans, they'll lighten up on the 
restrictive access to the kitchen.  

The rub here is the "can seat 400 or more" part.  As a rule, Trimaris has, 
for many years, consistently done feasts, even at Kingdom events, for 150-200 
souls.  This number is about the largest any of the old event sites can seat. 
 So, Trimarian cooks are fairly competent at feeding that number of people.  
With the change to La-No-Che (the new site), I think they're trying to feed 
more.  Like 300 or so.  I think that's where the trouble is currently 
occurring.  Most Trimarian cooks do not have the hands-on experience required 
to feed over 200 people.  We've all admitted here on this list that once the 
numbers get over 250 or so, the logisitics change so drastically that it 
takes a whole new set of "rules" to make it happen.  I believe the Timarian 
cooks who are currently doing Kingdom events (which is where the hats 
normally do most of their feasting) haven't had enough goes at this large 
number of feasters, and lack any sort of mundane experience which would help 
them out.  Very few (none that I know of) mundane banquet chefs or caterers 
among the cooks here.  This was discussed among the cooks I hang out with 
when we got our first look at the new kitchen.  And, after counting out the 
number of cooks here who have actual experience in feeding more than 250-300 
feasters, we could do it on the fingers of one hand.  If someone attempted a 
period feast, without being completely ready to do it for 300, and did it for 
300, we all know what kind of disaster that could potentially turn into, yes? 
 

As to how cooks are chosen, well, we volunteer, just like everywhere else.  
For Kingdom events, the process is fairly simple.  A local group decides they 
want the money that doing a Kingdom event can generate.  The seneschal calls 
for volunteers.  They put in their bid to do the event.  It's a five-page 
form, or it was the last time I did it.  Streamlined, it ain't.  The Kingdom 
Seneschal then determines which group's going to do the event, tells the 
Kingdom Exchequer to issue funds, and the local group goes about it's merry 
way.  They work their butts off, hoping for on-site volunteers to flesh out 
their (usually, unless it's a Barony, of which we have 3) small staff.  At 
old event sites, this wouldn't affect feast very much, since even local 
events often have 150+ feasters at them.  But at the new place, if they're 
planning on feeding 250+, it can turn into a nightmare if the cook's not up 
to the task.

We've only been using La-No-Che for a year.  There have been 3 Kingdom events 
there in that year.  I can see the potential for someone like her Highness to 
experience inadequate feasts under the above circumstances.  But the 
treatment of the situation is still wrong.

Walk in peace,
Wolfmom