SC - Serving question

[grizly at mindspring.com]

Our Barony just recently invested in some stainless steel serving platters for just the reasons stated.  We have 60 platters now, and served 20 tables last weekend.  They were a GODSEND.  They looked good, sturdy enough to hold all the courses, and didn't have to be washed every time before a new course went out.  

I can make the pertinent information available to people who want it.  With tax and shipping, you can look to spend about $15 each for these 17.75" x 11.5" ovel 18/10 jewels.  I can get information on these in 18/8 as well as smaller platters as well.  It was quite an investment, but these should last for years without breakeage or damage much . . . loss or theft is the only real issue we look at being a problem to which to pay attention.  

As for servers, my preference is to get host group to provide servers to the feast.   It's a hospitality thing.  A way to show our appreciation for their supporting our litle piece of the world.  It also adds to the atmosphere of nobles at feast when done that way.  We served 19 tables with about 7 people this time.  Two more for the high table, and one to carve the whole spit-roasted lamb.

niccolo difrancesco

sca-cooks at ansteorra.org wrote:
> I agree that this is one of the most vexing questions around.  What we typicallydo here in Atlantia is, for most feasts, call for one person from each table to
come to the serving area and pick up the dishes for each course.  This usually
works pretty well as folks at a table will tend to share this task, thus making
it so that different people serve different courses.

If the feast is a "fancier" one, say for a Coronation or Twelfth Night,  we use
servers, and the number is based on however many tables we have...usually two or
three tables per server.  These folks get fed in the kitchen as they complete
serving each course.

In any event, we also often do not have enough serving equipment to handle an
entire feast without reusing dishes.  Usually one or two of the kitchen staff
will circulate through the hall near the end of a course and retrieve as many
dishes as possible.  We make sure that we have a crew in the kitchen to wash dishes between courses (and we feed them as well).  In this manner, we can usually manage to serve feasts without too much difficulty!

Kiri

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