SC - Serving question

[Bonne of Traquair]

>     I see from some of the menus posted to the list that people serve 3, 
>4,
>or 5 dishes in a given course. How do you co-ordinate that with your
>servers? Does all of it come out at once, or do they bring them out one at 
>a time?

My goal is to have it all go out at once, or as close together as possible.  
This allows the feasters can pick and choose among the items and those with 
special needs aren't left sitting and waiting for the items they can eat. I 
think also that I can serve less per person because their is such variety on 
the table that people don't fear there will be a lack and stuff their faces 
with the first couple of dishes served.  I don't think there is any 
historical reason for the dishes to trail out slowly, one at a time, that's 
just SCA habit from cooks not used to organizing food for large numbers of 
people.


And if they do, how do you keep the servers alive? Run the poor kids
>into the ground . . .

I allow 20 to 30 minutes between courses. This allows time for 
entertainments, or the brief re-opening of court if need be.  It also gives 
the servers have 10 to 20 minutes to eat their own food. Then, 10 minutes 
before the next course the servers go out to gather empty dishes, refill 
drinks, etc. If any serving dishes are needed for the second course, someone 
is standing by to wash and dry those. While the servers were eating their 
first course, others of us were finishing the 2nd course dishes and serving 
them up.  By the time the servers have finished with drinks and dish 
gathering, the next course of dishes are ready to go out.

>     We have a serious lack of serving vessels here,

Luckily, our barony invested in several sizes of trays and bowls in 
multiples of 2 or 3 dozen. If bought in bulk from a resterant supply house, 
this isn't so very expensive. We dolack enough serving utensils, and what we 
have are inconveniently long-handled and large.  Someone needs to hunt for 
something with shorter handles and with the bowl of the spoon more like the 
undersized serving size that is usually intended.

>tend to use no more than a dozen servers for a feast serving 250. Is that
>normal for everyone else?

An average feast in our barony is less than 100 people, as dictated by our 
sites.

bonne

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