[Sca-cooks] MetalSmiths Symposium - [03] Learning

[Martin G. Diehl]

Greetings,

The MetalSmiths Symposium was held October 4 - 6.

I'll try to cover what actually happened: right,
wrong, late, support, ...

If anyone has any additional information, observations,
feedback, please make your comments.  I know that I
have a lot to learn -- more than I even know.

BTW, if anyone has saved messages from the kingdom
eMail lists, I would like to see/hear them as well.
I wasn't subscribed to SCA-East until after the event
and would like to see that feedback, as well.

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Most important ...

The success of this event depended on the planning
that was already done before I even heard about it.
Thanks to Olaf and Phlip.

The success of the feast critically depended of the
efforts of the volunteers at the event.  I am very
grateful for their help.

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Here we go ... sort of in chrono sequence ...

During the price checking, I was verbally abused and
harassed by the store manager at one of the grocery
stores in my area.  I found out later that anyone
checking  prices without buying (or having a shopping
cart) should get permission.  That was news to me!

Crème fraîche was not available (of course!) in my
area -- the cook's list gave good advice.

Verjus was not available either -- We decided that
even though white wine would have worked, it was not
an acceptable substitute for the Verjus in a period
dish.  By appealing to the other cooks for the event,
I was able to avoid an 8 hour side trip to Wolffer
Vineyards at Sagaponic on Eastern Long Island.
Master Luke provided one bottle; Margali and Phlip
got 3 quarts of bitter grape juice from a Persian
grocery.

The Italian Deli that usually supplies the pancetta
when I am going to make the Chicken Verjus Amorosa
(I had purchased it there at least 7 times in the
past 5 years) did not get their delivery that week
-- I had to substitute pre sliced pancetta from a
grocery store at a higher price than I expected.

When I checked beef prices, I saw beef at $1.59 --
that must have been a sale price, because I had to
pay $1.99 to $2.49 to get the amount I needed.

OTOH, I was able to get mixed salad greens (usually
2 lbs. for $2.49) for $1 off.

Originally, I was going to bring the 2 cans of olive
oil on hand in my kitchen (one had been open, the
other came back from Pennsic -- in all, about 1.5
cans of oil).  One of the stores had olive oil on
sale for $7 per 101 once can.  Buying that was
an easy decision -- In fact, why didn't I buy extra
for myself?????

In addition, I was able to get blocks of Romano
cheese at a sale price of $3.49 per lb.

I already had on hand all of the period spices that
would be needed (saffron, grains of paradise, and
cubebs).  I was able to get large bottles (4 oz) of
spices (pepper, cinnamon, ...) some even at $1.99
prices.

All in all, quantities were not entirely right.
Part of that was inexperience, part was the fast track
planning, part was the fact that the feast would be
served buffet style -- smaller quantities would be
needed for some dishes, e.g. the salad.

The kitchen was small, the stove was very small for
the size of the meals we were doing.  We did have
effective backup in the form of a 35,000 BTU fire
ring provided by Olaf.  OTOH, rain would have been
... unpleasant ... <g>

We had the use of 2 80 quart stock pots and that
helped on the chicken and beef dishes.

Perhaps I should have started doing the prep Friday
evening instead of going to sleep at about 1 am.

I got a *lot* of support from people who were there
to attend the event.  I was able to "accommodate"
anyone who offered to help in the kitchen during
the event.

Even though I expected to be at the site by early
afternoon on Friday ... shopping was done too close
to the event; some key ingredients were not available
at my usual suppliers; that 2 hour delay en route
was also a factor -- especially since I had already
used up any other slack in my travel plans.

The basil for the pesto had some discoloration on
the stems -- I expected to be able to rinse that off.
That didn't work, and had even spread to the basil
leaves.  We had to select what was usable.  7
bunches became just one colander.  We "made do" by
using more cheese and olive oil than called for by
the recipes.  Good thing I had plenty of olive oil
and romano cheese.

BTW, I know this is one of the few items that could
have been made in advance and frozen.  ... but which
others?

I planned to have freshly ground black pepper with
the salad, and I had a small pepper grinder along
for that reason.  OTOH, I didn't have a mortar and
pestle along.  That grinder did the work to get the
grains of paradise and cubebs into the Beef y-Stew.

The grated zucchini turned out to be very moist when
we began to cook the zucchini frittata -- next time
I'll have to use a cheese cloth bag to squeeze the
moisture out.  Any better ideas on that?

One minor snag with the chicken dish ... all of the
other times I served this (never more than 15
portions), I rinsed and chopped the mint and parsley
when I saw that the cooking was finished -- that
doesn't work when the dish is scaled up to 100
portions.  I realize that for each recipe that I use
for large scale cooking, I need to rewrite it to make
that kind of step overlap the cooking.  e.g. a
reminder of the form "while cooking, prepare the
garnish" ...

Not enough advance prep was done before the event.
I need to do better planning next time.  OTOH,
without a crew of my to help, it's hard to see how
all of the planning in the world would have helped.

With a *lot* more advance prep, we would have been
closer to staying on schedule for the feast.

We were very close on the number of pots available --
the same 3 gallon pot was used to cook the orzo for
the chicken dish, the linguini that was to accompany
the Beef y-Stew, and finally for the zabaglione.

The fire ring allowed us to use one of the 80 quart
stock pots -- but not 2, and the small stove could
not help either.  For that reason, there was no
overlap between cooking the chicken and the beef
dishes.

I don't recommend using a stock pot to make zabaglione
because it's hard to get a lot of speed on the whisk
inside a 3 or 4 gallon stock pot.  A large mixing
bowl would have been better.

I got some special food requests after the event
began (vegetarian, some allergy issues), but was able
to work that out: split off some of the Friday beef
stew before the beef or beef stock was added; make
the zucchini frittata in 2 batches (with and without
ground almonds); some pesto was reserved before the
pignoli nuts were added.

I should have had printed copies of the recipe for
each dish to be prepared -- even as something as
simple as salad.  That would have helped each person
who was helping with the prep to see where their effort
fit in.  I should have had printed copies of the menu
specifically for heralding each dish as it was served.
For that matter, I should have had place cards for
each dish -- to identify each dish and ingredients.

Some comments that I heard ...

"The best pesto I ever had"

Several commented that "The Chicken Verjus Amoroso
was wonderful" ... and there was none left.

"When you said there would be more food [just after
the chicken and orzo dishes were served], we didn't
believe you."  ... and there were 3 more dishes to
be served.

"You should have something to eat ... it won't look
good if the head cook collapses."  (Somehow, I just
didn't feel it was time for me to eat yet.  <g>)

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BTW, this was my first experience cooking for 100.

This was my first SCA feast.

I am,
Vincenzo Martino Mazza,
In Service to the Dream

--
Martin G. Diehl