SC - Estimating Crowds

[Morgan Cain]

RButler96 at aol.com or "Khadijah" asked:

>     I wanted to gather some information here.
>
>     For those of you who have previously done feasts, how many do you
> typically prepare for?  Specifically, I refer to being given a budget, for
a
> certain number of people.  Do you stay at that number (100 for a starting
> point), or do you prepare for 110 just in case?
>
>     I would like to know how others handle this.  I was dealing with a
> situation last weekend where feast was supposed to be for 75 (local
event),
> and at a last minute request was for 85.  If this common?

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.  Now, I used to live in a group where we routinely cooked for
200-250 so my experience may be a bit askew from yours (have not been asked
to cook anything since I moved), but I do remember the days when we had
smaller groups, and cooked for smaller numbers.

A different problem is if the hall or service cannot be adjusted.  Then you
do have to turn people away.  Of course, I had the problem where at 3:30pm
the Head Cook said that she had plenty of food and everybody should be
seated, then came out less than an hour before dinner time and was quite
appalled at the number of tables as she did not have enough serving trays.
I apparently got a bit testy in explaining to her that no, we could NOT
simply take away three tables to suit her convenience, she would have to
figure out how to serve all the people who would be seated.  We ended up
with tables of 10 instead of 8, a couple odd-sized, and some fairly modern
looking serving trays pinch-hitting.

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.

Or, you have to take a VERY FIRM stance and tell people that there is simply
no way at all that you can handle the extra ten persons, no matter who they
are.  The former gets you in good graces while the latter may ensure you
never cook again in that group, or not until they forget you made them stick
to the published numbers.

                        ---= Morgan