[Sca-cooks] Casbah! Feast, was Period Couscous References?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

David/Cariadoc wrote:
>Sir Nathan in Calontir used to provide period food for the Calontiri
>royalty at Pennsic by a version of this approach. I believe he used a
>seal-a-meal or something similar, with bags that could be boiled. He
>also used a high quality cooler. The cooler was paced with bags of
>frozen food. For each meal, he pulled out the required bags and
>dumped them, still sealed, in a pot of boiling water.

Yes, Fabian is considering buying a Seal-A-Meal set up. The plastic
used for this can withstand both freezing and boiling and, i think,
microwaving, and the bags are heat sealed so they're less likely to
pop open. So this is safer in several ways than using zip-shut
plastic bags.

He has a household and is thinking how convenient this would be for
feeding the household at events - cook the food *well* ahead of time,
freeze it, and pull out and pop it in the cooler for an event, then
heat up the water and drop it in.

I think this is a good idea for camping events, although i'd *never*
do this for a feast... well, if various folks are cooking dishes
ahead of time, some things can withstand home freezing - which takes
longer than commercial, often forms ice crystals in the food which
can change the texture to mushy, and if the packets aren't properly
sealed the food gets freezer burn and tastes like the other stuff in
the freezer...

The meatballs were fine and the White Tharidah seemed not to suffer
from being frozen for 2 days. But some things just don't survive home
freezing without getting a weird texture.

Anahita