[Sca-cooks] Arghhh feast service

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Jadwiga, Autocrat in a coffin of pastry, despaired:
>the person arranging feast service for our event in a week and a half has
>now announced that the 11 people he has lined up can only reliably serve
>high table (8 people at high table) and I'd need an additional 13 people
>(one per table) as part of the feast service staff -- offboard and being
>fed beforehand at the event's expense -- simply to provide simple service
>to the other 13 tables.
>
>Am I crazy, or is he?

Well, my first response is:
HE is crazy. I cannot possibly understand how 8 High guys could
really honestly need 11 servers! Sheesh, i'd be glad to have 11
servers for 100 diners, myself.

But then i got to thinking about "interKingdom anthropology".

For example, the issue of the food itself:
Someone mentioned the really elaborate and different food served to
High Table...
Not here in the West Kingdom. Royalty eats what the populace eats -
although occasionally their platters are more prettily arranged. And
if there is a sotiltie, they get presented with it first, but then it
is shared with the populace.

Then the issue of the servers:
Boar Hunt - my main experience - with 80-95 diners, we had maybe half
as many servers as tables. Of course i made sure High Table got their
food in the first go-round. In the West, the Royals may reasonably
expect to be the first served, but they don't expect extra-special
treatment. In fact, at a number of feasts, i don't know what to call
them, i'm sure there's a proper term, the "friends of the Royalty",
their hangers-on, friends, "court", whatever, often serve as their
servers...

Then i thought about how food is served.
Here each table generally gets a big plate or bowl of each dish. We
don't "pre-plate" the food, as would be done in a restaurant, but the
diners serve themselves. But i gather that in some SCA regions or at
least at some feasts, the food is pre-plated (seems like a waste of
time to me - i portion by table, and our tables usually seat 8, so
all the diners can see what there is and are generally very
considerate about the portions they serve themselves.

Obviously, this stuff is done differently in different SCA regions.

Can we have a bit of a discussion about Food Service? To be truthful,
i'm more interested, at least in the first run, in SCA food service.
Naturally, Medieval food service would be different - but then i
would expect it would vary from culture to culture and time to time,
as well.

Anahita