[Sca-cooks] OOP, somewhat on-topic...

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list...

Last night I was talking with a local fellow list member, and the
subject veered onto various modern organizational tools, and
high-tech stuff in general in the running of kitchens that produce
medieval-type food. Obviously for those who do campfire feast
cooking, or are otherwise going for the total historical recreation
experience, this could be of limited interest, but I found myself
thinking of various ways to make life easier (yes, I'm probably
getting too old to juggle the 80-quart stockpots quite as much as I
used to, and my work style is changing accordingly).

Do people want to throw ideas into the ring?

My totally non-period contributions, apart from the obvious stuff
like food processors, are two which figured heavily last weekend. One
is sort of anecdotal, but very simply a life-saver. Five or so years
ago this would have been unheard of, but on Saturday I found myself a
passenger in a moving car full of a meat order that had taken much
longer than expected to assemble; we also took a wrong turn due to
highway construction and bad signs, so we were fairly late. I hear
this peculiar noise, and I realize it is the accursed device clipped
to my belt, which I keep for emergencies, communicating with my wife,
and in lieu of the eight billion broken pay phones in Manhattan. It
turns out that my friend and frequent co-conspirator, Master Robin
Argyle, was already on-site, looking at most of the supplies for the
day, wondering what to do. It had never occurred to me to set up any
kind of drop-dead contingency plan. I was just going to show up and
cook for a small, quirky, and emotionally-charged event. Anyway, the
bottom line is I was able to look at my notes, and get the dayboard
and the feast started by remote, as it were. I arrived at least
ninety minutes late, and we were still more or less on schedule.

The second, probably obvious-to-everyone-else thing some of us may
take for granted: a good spreadsheet program. I use the one that is
part of an office suite produced by the Forces of Darkness, since my
lady wife needs it for her job and can't seem to manage StarOffice
for Linux. Here's what I've found helpful in the past.

Column A is your menu or menus, subdivided by meals, if more than
one, then by courses, and then by dish name. In column B, next to
each dish, and working your way down, are your ingredients for each
dish. It helps to spell consistently, capitalize or not capitalize
consistently, etc. Column C is the quantity of each ingredient needed
for each dish. Et cetera. Remember to include entries for salt and
such, even if you don't know the exact quantities. You can also
include a column showing total prep and cooking time, assuming you
know these. Subtract these times from service time and you have your
schedule, more or less. If you want to go hog-wild, include a column
of basic instructions for each ingredient, as in Onions/6
lbs/chopped, sweat in olive oil. This is your master chart.

You can then make a copy, delete Column A, which is only confusing at
this point, and sort alphabetically by entries in Column B. Suddenly
you have a chart showing all instances of butter usage, together, and
how much for each. Ditto milk, flour, etc. Say hello to your shopping
list. Yes, you'll have to add up the quantities (and there's probably
a way to make this unnecessary, too, but I don't bother), and figure
out stuff like how much salt to buy (I usually waste a ton of money
and splurge on a box of Kosher salt for every feast, use it for
seasoning, throwing it on greasy floors, fighting fires, cleaning
griddles, etc.).

It also can be used to generate your ingredients list for those who
need this information.

I've noticed, though, that when you have your notes set up this way,
the other cooks will actually go and consult them, and you have much
more time to consult with the people with allergies to nutmeg, or
whatever.

So, what's the stuff that other people do to make life easier? We've
talked about this before, but we also have a fair number of newish
people on the list that might benefit from this.

Adamantius