[Sca-cooks] Regretable foods....

[Glenda Robinson]

I've never cooked a meal that's had problems, apart from the recent
off-chicken incident (but we found that BEFORE we cooked!!)

However, a long time ago at an event far, far away....

The caterers were supposedly professionals that the organising group had
used plenty of times, however... they'd only used them for single meals,
never for a weekend event where all meals were provided. They also weren't
as honest as originally thought.

First evening there was supposed to be venison in sauce. Tasted quite unlike
venison - they'd substituted beef, because "no-one would notice". Just as
well there were no Hindus there!
The next lunch involved the meat having been 'forgotten', so on Easter
Saturday the organisers had to go and find enough meat to feed 200 at a
pinch. We ended up with LOTS of pre-sliced luncheon meat. How Mediaeval!

That night's dinner had served improperly cooked chicken and pork -
thankfully the previous problems made us cautious, and we double checked in
the candle-lit marquee. We were served last, so we got the worst of it. Some
ate around the edges and were OK, some ended up in hospital overnight. My
husband made a bit of a fuss to the servers about the nearly raw pork that
was served, so we were brought out a plate of cooked pork - with lovely bits
of ear and teats. At least some of the bits were edible, I suppose. This
meal was also supposed to have a goat stew, but the caterers told the
organisers the goat had been stolen - again, later investigation found that
they'd never bought it in the beginning.

The third night's dinner ended up being cooked properly after the organisers
took over the kitchen and COOKED the food, but, unfortunately, many ended up
dialing out for pizza. The organisers never got any money back from the
caterers either (naturally!)

Many of the souvenier t-shirts of this event have been overpainted with "I
survived" to commemorate the food mishaps.

I'd been highly involved in organising the two previous events, held every
second Easter, and the lovely woman (and her family) that catered our events
was duly canonised as "St Michelle of the Cooked Meat" for her wonderful
food provision.

Glenda.