[Sca-cooks] Feast quantities

[Christine Seelye-King]

Here is the info I use to teach from.
Christianna

Very often, the Autocrat will come up with a figure for food that fits in
with the overall event cost, and then assign it to the Feastcrat.  Start by
deducting the amounts for other meals such as breakfast, to determine the
actual amount you have for each diner.  The average person’s stomach holds
roughly 32oz. of food.  Plan on serving amounts that do not exceed a total
of 32 oz. per diner spread out over all of the courses planned for the meal.
A general way to look at the distribution of the types of foods to serve is
to look at the typical expenditures on meals, 40% on meat, poultry and fish;
35% on produce, beverages, and misc. groceries; 17.5% on eggs, butter,
cheese, dairy; 7.5% on breads and desserts.
	With a definite starting number, you can plan on dividing up the cost and
serving sizes among the foods you plan to serve.

For example: if you’ve got
$5.00 for feast,
40% on meat or other entrees	  = $2.00.
35% for produce and groceries = $1.75
17.5% for dairy would	  =     .87
7.5% would 			  =     .37

and a 32.0z total serving weight divides out to:
40% 	of 32oz.  = 12.8oz meat or other entrees
35% 	of 32oz.  = 11.2oz. produce and groceries
17.5% 	of 32 oz. =  5.6 oz dairy
7.5%	of 32 oz  =  2.4 oz of bread and desserts

To figure food costs per recipe:

1) Copy the recipe with the ingredients in a column running down the left
side of the page.  In columns across the page:
2) Enter the measurement for the amount called for in the recipe.
3) Enter the unit cost of the ingredients
4) Figure total cost of each ingredient
5) Add the Cost column of ingredients to obtain total cost of recipe
6) Determine the cost of a single serving
7) Determine the cost for the total number of diners planned for.
8) Determine the amount to be allocated to the food budget from the event
fee.

1) This list may be used in conjunction with the shopping lists. Be sure to
include all ingredients, even the cooking oil, spices, and other consumable
items used in the recipe.
	2) This can be done for a single serving, or for an expanded recipe.  Be
consistent
	in the measurements used, converting to weight measure wherever possible.
	3)Use this column to figure in cost per pound, ounce, quart, cup, etc., as
prices are found.  Sometimes an average cost can be used, such as in eggs by
the dozen.
4) Multiply the amount of each ingredient in the recipe by the unit cost to
get the total cost of each ingredient.
5) When figuring by the single recipe, consider leftover food cost from
packaging,
6) After checking the yield in a test batch,  the total cost is divided by
the number of servings the recipe yields to arrive at the cost of one
serving.
7) Multiply the single portion by the number of diners planned for.   Use
this number, in addition to figures for any other meals or other consumables
that will be part of the feast budget to come up with a total feast cost.
8) Divide the total number by the number of attendees expected at the event
to determine the figure allocated to the food budget as part of the event
fee.

Overall, planning your menu is a balancing act between food costs (dollars),
percentage of the type of food from each category(quantity), and the size of
the items in ratio to the rest of the meal (ratio).