[Sca-cooks] I obviously need medication

[Mark.S Harris]

Helewyse de Birkestad said:
> The facilites are as follows:
> A covered outdoor porch 15' * 40' with a couple of picnic tables.
> A "kitchen" counter 2' * 6' with 6 electrical outlets.
> No water, no sink, no stove in short nothing but a room.

Wow! That's more than we've had for many of our events. However,
those have not been in the winter and we served simpler meals.

> With all this in mind I am still planning on cooking a 3 course dinner for 25 people.
> I have one two burner coleman stove (fuel) that I can set up outside and should be getting another.

Does this covered outdoor porch have any walls? If not, or if they
are only partial, consider stringing up some tarps or tapestries
to block the wind. This will make it warmer and help quite a lot
in keeping the flames on your Coleman stove lit and even.

> So the tentative menu looks like this
> First course
> Bread (baked Saturday morning)
> Pies of Parys (served cold, baked either Friday night or Saturday afternoon)
> Gourd in pottage (served hot, cooked Friday or Saturday and refridgerated)
> Benes yfryed (prepped in advance, finished on site Sunday)
> Second course
> More bread
> Roast chicken with sauce (up for suggestion on which one)  (chicken cooked as late as possible on sunday and kept hot in roaster, sauce pre-made and reheated on site)
> Herb or cheese pie (possible torte bolognase, served cold)
> Third course
> Applemoyle (apples cooked and pureed in advance, dish finished on site, served hot)
> Candied oranges (I strt tomorrow)

I would substitute a stew/bruet for the chicken or perhaps the pies.
Something warm instead of cold and pretty easy to do. If should also
warm up, or even cook well in several of the crock pots.

> To drink
> This is in a park facility, so no intoxicants.
> we figured the unperiod: water and ice.
> White grape juice (substitution for wine)
> Sankanjebum (or some other tea type thing)

Sekanjabin can be served warm.

Or Hippocras, using the grape juice. Unfortunately most of the grape
juice I've seen in the US is made from Concord grapes so the taste is
different. But period hippocras doesn't appear to have been made
with the best wine, anyways. (You're going to be covering up much
of the taste with the spices, so why use your best)

Okay, wasn't going to, since you've seen this before, but there
is this info on spiced wine:
spiced-wine-msg   (21K)  7/ 5/01    Spiced wines. Hippocras. Recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/spiced-wine-msg.html

Or since it is cold, mulled cider.
wassail-msg       (25K)  4/30/01    Spiced cider and ale drinks.
Traditions.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/wassail-msg.html

> All and any suggestions are welcomed and absolutely encouraged.  I tried to give a balanced idea of a typical medieval meal based on what was served first second and last.

If you have the right iron, wafers would be good, especially if you
serve a spiced-wine. And they can be prepared ahead of time.

> Yours having realized her insanity.

Well, that's a first step...

Now, to take advantage of this and work it into your persona, see
this file:
per-insanity-msg  (36K)  9/13/96    Insane personas, insanity in period.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/PERSONAS/per-insanity-msg.html

Stefan li Rous