[Sca-cooks] feast centered event

[Philippa Alderton]

--- Charlene Charette <charlene at flash.net> wrote:

> I'm autocratting an event where the main focus of
> the event is the
> feast.  I'm not a cook, but I am an autocrat so I
> thought it would be
> fun to do an event and let the cooks play.  Our
> feasts run 150-300
> people; this event will be 50-75 which will allow
> for dishes that are
> usually too time-consuming or expensive to do.

First thing you'll need to figure out, is how much
money the guests will be willing to spend on a meal.
Depending on your shopping resources, it may actually
be a bit more expensive per person to do a smaller
feast because you're working with less in the way of
group and quantity discounts.

And, who will do the shopping? Will you have each cook
buy the stuff for their course, or will you have your
Head Cook collate the necessary ingredients and do, or
delegate, the shopping?

There's lots in the Florilegium on this- also, Akim
wrote a letter to the List recently on how he has
saved money for feasts- if Stefan didn't save it, I
may have, and would be willing to forward it to you.

> While I'm want to the cooks to be as involved as
> they care to be, I
> thought I'd gather ideas for our brainstorming
> meeting.  My main
> questions at this point (I'm sure I'll have others)
> are:
>
> I was thinking of having a cook or set of cooks each
> do a "segment"
> (what is the correct term?  I've heard that neither
> course nor remove
> are accurate terms for "a set of dishes") with a
> head cook to coordinate
> everyone.  How have you selected dishes?  Three
> possibilities that come
> to mind are:  a tour through time with each segment
> being a different
> time period; a world tour with each segment being a
> different
> geographical location; recreate a documented period
> feast.

Well, I think it would be well to have the Cooks'
input first,and see what they might be interested in
doing, with your ideas available in the background if
they get to a "Gee, I dunno" point.

Things you might consider- are there a lot of a
particular persona type in your area? Enough that you
might want to theme a feast as, say, Late Period
English, or perhaps, Middle Eastern? I think your
feast might be more saleable if you do have a theme of
some sort, rather than trying to advertise, say, "A
Feast of our Cook's Refrigerator Leftovers" ;-) One
idea I've been playing with, is a "Feast of the
Elements" where each course would be focussed on each
of the four, maybe five (spirit) elements.

> Someone suggested to me that spring would be a good
> time to do this
> because of the availablility of fresh herbs and
> produce.  Someone else
> thought summer would be good because it's hot
> (southeastern Texas) and
> an indoor, air-conditioned event would be welcolmed
> then.  Comments?

Again, that depends on what you're doing. There could
be a case for fall, too, as the time of the Harvest
;-)

If you know who you'd be working with as your Head
Cook, get with them and brainstorm. What are the
abilities and interests of the intended Course Cooks?
Is there someone there who is a whiz with pastries?
Perhaps you might have them making all the pastry type
stuff, for all the courses.

Try to decide what your resources are, then start from
there. Once you know more specifics, Cook's List can
help you more.

Hope this helps a bit,

Phlip

=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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