SC - Bad Feasts--Philosophically Speaking

[Decker, Terry D.]

Have you considered that for the autocrat or the group to do anything may
induce the failure they seek to avoid?  Is the autocrat competent to plan
and prepare such a feast?  If they aren't, then trying to dictate to the
cook is idiocy.  Whoever is responsible for doing the feast, needs to be in
charge of doing the feast.  The autocrat and the group need to provide the
support to see the job gets done.

The first place you have control is deciding who gets to do the feast.  A
feast proposal with a menu and a preliminary budget is a good place to
start.  If the proposal doesn't fit the groups needs or is ridiculous, don't
give the person the job. 

It certainly helps if the person can cook well and understands how to scale
up recipes for large groups. 

Beware of co-feast stewards, things usually get lost in the shuffle of
communications.

Obtain copies of the recipes and ask that the feast steward submit their
receipts to the treasurer at regular intervals.  This allows you to check
the between the proposal, the required ingredients, and the actual
purchases.  Do this on all cooks, experienced or inexperienced, to avoid
selective enforcement issues.  This is the group's money and they certainly
have the right to a regular accounting.

If the cook is not good at purchasing, find them an assistant who is.   

Have a backup cook available and familiar with the recipes.  I've seen a
cook who could handle cooking for 50 come apart when faced with 250 and a
fast approaching deadline. 

Check on whether the prep work is going to be done in advance or on site.
Make sure the cook has enough assistance to get the prep work done in time
for the cooking.  If possible make sure the cook has some assistants on site
as runners, preparers, swampers, dishwashers, etc.

Understand the floor layout of the feast, the movement of the servers and
what it takes to stage the food and get it to the table in a timely manner.
The greatest failure of most feasts is not being able to deliver the food to
the table at the optimum serving temperature or stringing out the service
over an amazingly long time.  Moderately good food will please most people
if it arrives quickly and at the right temperature.

Bear

 



> If I may, I'd like to suggest that bad feasts do more than 
> just harm the
> reputation of the cook. They harm the reputation of the group 
> holding the
> event. They also give fodder to those who are certain that 
> period food is as
> much to be avoided as the plague. People will forget who 
> cooked a specific
> Twelth Night feast, but they will remember which group hosted it.
> 
> If we accept that this is the case, what can the autocrat and 
> group to do to
> insure that an incredibly spectacular failure doesn't happen? 
> And, will the
> cook allow such a scrutiny to take place?
> 
> Yours,
> Rosalyn MacGregor
> (Pattie Rayl)