SC - Banana, was Unhistoric things

[grizly@mindspring.com]

sca-cooks at ansteorra.org wrote:
<<<Unfortunately so.  You might find that TRM/TRH have a greater number of retainers, all of whom expect to be fed at no cost.  (We try to discourage this.)  The autocrat has invited all of his girlfriends to attend as his guest (and he expected that none would figure out about the others!).  More people arrive than had been calculated.  And so on. 
This is a good reason to ALWAYS plan the feast for more people than you know will attend.  The worst that happens is you have leftovers.  My rule of thumb is 10% over and a minimum of 10-15, depending upon the original number.  <<<SNIP>>>
    A different problem is if the hall or service cannot be adjusted.  Then you do have to turn people away.  <<<SNIP>>>
So, learn to always, ALWAYS cook for more than the designated number.  This is also helpful because then you can choose the best pies to go out, or if something burns you have enough of others to go around.
<<<SNIP>>>       ---= Morgan  >>>>>>>

I agree in principal with much of what you say. It is prudent to plan a certain flexibility into the feast plan.  It gives your group the chance to be gracious and/or geberaous.  I offer that such can only go so far.  I live under the sometimes delusional belief that people who pay me $5.00 US per head should get darned close to $5.00 US worth of food and ambiance.  To shave off more and more pieces of that to give away to other people seems somehow wrong.  I especially hope that some of the anecdotes you shared in your post are uncommon.  In our neck of the woods, we expect people to pay for their food unless they have a spectacular reason not to, like they volunteered for serving the rest of the guests or are a member of the press that needs to be impressed.

My feast number usually runs about 160 to 185.  It is easily feasible to add in about 10 more than that with the budget.  Any more than that and I would start effecting value for the other _paying_ guests.  This all is apart from the issue of personal enrichment from SCA funds that rears its head on various occasions.  We NEVER would feed members of an entourage for free just because they are entourage (at least I hope not).

niccolo difrancesco