[Sca-cooks] Request for Guidance

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings.  I received a post from Lady Teceangle after she found
one of my articles.  I asked her permission to post it to the two
groups since, while I have cooked medieval food, I am not a head
cook/steward/feastocrat and don't have the practical experience some
of you have in coordinating all the aspects of a feast.  Would some
of you be willing to respond to her and/or give some links to any
websites that might help her coordinate and run a feast as she
requests in the snip from a second post?  Her e-mail is at the
bottom of the message.  Thank you!  You all are a wonderful
collection of knowledge!  - Alys Katharine

**** Snip from a second post:  I've no worries about cooking in
bulk, though,
I want to be able to bring the thing together into an experience,
not just
a parade of food.
*****
Original post:
I've set myself a Task and I would be delighted if you could tell me
where
I'm going to go wrong.  I'm feast steward for a feast which we've
placed
in Chateau de Talmont in 1378.  Well before I found (again, I'd read
it
awhile back and almost forgotten it) your article "The Compleat
Cook" I
had decided that this would indeed be a late 14th century French
feast.
No English dishes, no Spanish/Moorish/Italian/made-up dishes, just
documentably French food from the latter half of the 14th century.

I have enough sources, I believe, almost all pre-published.  _Early
French
Cooking_ by Scully & Scully, _The Medieval Kitchen_ and _Pleyn
Delit_ as
well as access to the online _Du Fait de Cuisine_ and _Menagier Le
Paris_.
I have reconstructed recipes from original sources before and might
do
that, but will be relying on materials already published for some of
my
dishes.  I read "food", so I occasionally wrinkle my nose at a
redacted
recipe and read the original to see if liberties have been taken;
thus
far I've had no major flops and nobody has noticed the minor ones.

I've got plenty of hands, plenty of time (6 months), and some
pre-cooking
dates already set.  I'm trying to get a preliminary menu set up in
the
next week or so, with a few extra listings in case we run into
trouble
with any of the A list items.  I've a budget of $460 for 50 people
and
am planning on three courses of 6 dishes each plus one subtelty per
course.

I'm also reading up on humoral theory, but that will unfortunately
have
to take a backseat to every other consideration, I think.

I've never `done' a feast before.  I've cooked, lots, period and
modern and
am fearless in the kitchen.  My last foray was a pair of classes
with the
first being on working out a recipe from original sources and the
second
on cooking a recipe worked out from an original source.  Nobody
showed up
for the first class so in the second we cooked directly from the
original
source.  It came out fine.  But other than playing kitchen devil
(not even
cooking, just dishes and service wrangling) I've not actually done
this
sort of thing, and certainly not on this scale.

I am not the Event Steward.  My good friend Rafaella is, and this is
her
vision I am simply bringing to life with the food.  We have someone
in
charge of hall decoration and another who will organize service who
is
going to work with me for timing and other considerations (she'll
have
a menu so that she can assure companion dishes go out together,
etc.).
There is an organizer of entertainments, as well.

So I deal with the food, its form and taste and documentation and
order
of presentation.  I'm not worried I can pull off a good feast, but I
am
hoping to do it in a good and period style and to present some
things
that are out of the ordinary and pleasing to the feasters.

If you have time, I would very much appreciate any advice you can
give me
on any of this.  I feel my best chance to do this right is to blend
my
own experiences and knowedge with the advice and help of those who
have
done this thing before and know what I might not.  I'm also rather
pumped at
the chance I have and am hoping to springboard the learning
experience into
the cooking research and practice I've always hoped I'd get into,
someday.
I think someday is now.

- Lady Teceangl
tierna at agora.rdrop.com