Presenting Feasts/Re: SC - Serving question

[Catherine Hartley]

- ----Original Message Follows----
From: "Diana L Skaggs" <upsxdls at okstate.edu>

Melbrigda said, "I also think that those that serve deserve some sort of
payment for their service.  If I have a full staff that is made from
members of my group, their payment would be to eat first (or at least first
of each remove) and (depending on the number) a small token of my personal
thanks.  If I were relying on volunteers of the guests I would at least
provide a nice desert just for them and perhaps a small token of my
personal thanks."

(snip)

This past weekend myself and Fra niccolo diFrancesco presented the Feast at 
Meridies Corwn List.  We had a few logistical issues on staging the feast 
(stemming from not thinking ahead to bring or ask for extra tables) but here 
are a few of things that went well for us:

1. We served the kitchen crew lunch. (non period, eat quickly --pizza and 
other munchies)
2. We rewarded the casual volunteers with a token: confits (M&M's)and 
handmade chocolates...
3. We rewarded the "all day long" working crew with spice jars filled with 
an ounce of an interesting period spice (grains of paradise, or what have 
you)
4. We set aside food for the kitchen crew and servers.

Incidentally, we used dedicated servers, and high table servers. It worked 
really well. We served individual foods per platter and sent the whole 
course out, one dish after anoather. We ended each course with a palate 
cleanser/sweet dish, after which the hall steward announced the next course. 
We ended the feast with candied nuts and spices, and preserved orange peels.

We sent out so much food, that we put the last remove (which we only 
prepared in small amounts, anticipating that people would be full) on one 
platter.

We did have a large number of extra High Table dishes that we made extra for 
the populace to sample. This seemed to be a big hit...

My goal has always been to have people enjoy working in my kitchen. However, 
it was a large feast, so some folks were pretty darned tired by the end, 
including myself and my co-cook, niccolo. People told us it was fun in our 
kitchen, so I guess, we managed to meet that goal.

If anyone is interested, I have the recipes in a cookbook available in .pdf 
format or in a mastercook 5 file. It is too big to post to the list. I may 
pick a few of the recipes to post for things I haven't seen before...(Spelt 
tort from the Neopolitan collection, yummm)

Caitlin of Enniskillen

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