[Sca-cooks] serving schedule

[Jim and Andi]

I agree that this arrangement for serving would be beyond any kitchen used
by the SCA around here, and probably beyond me personally. But wasn't that
closer to the medieval European way of serving?

I've always wanted to do a true medieval Arabic feast served in the
traditional manner... all the food served at once on common trays, on
carpets on the floor. The people just eat straight off of whatever trays
look yummy. With their fingers, of course! I realize of course that this is
pretty much unrealistic for a feast....

Madhavi

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org [mailto:sca-cooks-admin at ansteorra.org]
On Behalf Of bonneoftraquair at netscape.net
Sent:	Saturday, January 26, 2002 2:18 PM
To:	sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject:	[Sca-cooks] serving schedule

. What I would do, to stretch the feast out a bit, is to serve the
>food by dish and not by course. For example, serve the appetizers with
bread
>on a tray... wait 20 minutes, serve the eggplant dish.... wait 15
minutes...
>serve the chicken... wait 15 minutes... serve the fish dish.... and keep
>going like that. That way the people don't get bored.


I guess if done right, this gives the impression of food continually
arriving at table.  A generous and welcome thought.

Practically speaking, in all but the largest kitchen, with enough space to
hold dishes at the proper temperature and enough time and crew to do massive
amounts of prep work (I've never been blessed with even one of these), you
aren't allowing yourself and your crew enough time.

At dish C on a schedule of dishes ABCDEF, the stove/workspace must be
cleared of dish B, the items for dish C brought out and prepped and plated,
the servers should go round the hall once with the dish, once with a water
pitcher and again to pick up the empty dish and the scullery must have time
to wash prep and serving items from dish A that are needed for dish C.  You
are also dealing with portions of dish D, E, and F so they will be at the
right point when their time comes.


One way to deal with this is for a third of the dishes to be entirely
prepped in advance and not intended to go out piping hot.  Salads, tarts,
cakes, bread, compost all fit these requirements.  Another third of the
dishes can be prepped in advance and held warm.  Soups, sauces, and most
vegetables are in this category (timing the vegetable so that they aren't
overdone when going out).  Meats also can be out of the oven and plattered,
covered with lids or foil for 20 or 30 minutes before actually going out.
Lastly, there are the dishes that must go from stove to table.  Fried
things, things with fussy details and garnish.  With planning and holding
space, you can send the servers out a dish at a time every 10 minutes.  But
I suspect this must have been the intent at many feasts that have a single
dish wandering out every 15 to 20 minutes.  Sauces cooling in the hall
before the meat comes out, vegetables that might have benefitted from the
sauce also coming out after the meat and after the hungry diners have sopped
the sauce with bread leftover from their own lunches.  Special needs diners
wondering when something they can eat will show up (let's assume they are
not troublesome, have called in advance and know they should be able to eat,
sooner or later). The servers are running in circles to get food out, water
re-filled and empty dishes back with nary a pause. One server entirely
misses some dish, another server then thinks it is extra and proudly
presents it to his table of hungry diners--who bless him with tokens.

IMO, better to send dishes out in pairs and trios(plus bread) every 20 to 25
minutes. Relatively speaking, you have the same amount of time to get three
dishes out, though the workflow for kitchen staff, hall staff and the diners
themselves is less hectic. Just enough serving dishes to fit on a tray a
single server can carry.  Two or 3 serving dishes plus bread basket won't
overwhelm what little extra space is on the standard banquet tables after 8
people arrange their feast gear.  Just enough food variety that no special
needs diner is left watching their neighbors eat.  Enough time for the
scullery, the servers, the cooks and you to catch a breath between
assignments and maintain a calm attitude.  Also, more time built in to deal
with the omigoshes that inevitably come up.

My 2 cents.

Bonne
--




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