SC - pot luck/buffet feasts

[Mark.S Harris]

Sieggy said:
>     I learned long ago (and to my very great sorrow) NEVER to serve a buffet
> style feast. I've seen people go through the line balancing 3 plates which
> were overloaded to the max, and those coming in towards the end were left
> with nothing. What was even more infuriating was the amount of wastage on
> the part of those overloading their plates - most of that food wasn't eaten,
> it got tossed. I don't comprehend that kind of mentality, but I'll be
> switched if I ever do a buffet style feast for the SCA ever again.

In general, I agree with you Sieggy, especially with pot luck type 
feasts such as my barony does at it's Yule Revel. My experience has
been that the first third of the line gets lots of choices and lots
of good food, the second third gets most choices and a reasonable
amount of food, but the last third gets only the 'leftover' dishes
and little of the choice food items.

However, there has been mentioned a way to handle this that I think
might work fairly well, but I've not had the opportunity to try it.
This works best when only seating folks on one side of the table or
when you can leave at least one space at the table vacant. The food
is distributed in these open spaces rather than at a centralized
location. When things start, folks start at their table and proceed
around the room in a particular direction. No waiting and no priorities
as to where you end up in line. As food dishes get emptied, the
remaining dishes can then get moved to a centralized table.

For more discussion on this method and others for pot luck feasts,
see this file in the FEASTS section of the Florilegium:
pot-luck-fsts-msg (14K)  1/10/00    Handling 'pot luck' feasts in the
SCA.

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net