[Sca-cooks] Just A Feast report (part 1/2: general report)

[Kirrily Robert]

This Saturday just past, I had the pleasure of running my first event:
"Just A Feast".  I was both autocrat and head cook, which was only
possible because it was a small event and I had good staff.

The theme was, well, "just a feast".  No fighting, no fencing, no
archery, no A&S displays, no competitions or quests, no court, no
meetings... in short, just a feast.

My goal was to provide a really high-class, impressive evening.  We
wanted everything to look beautiful, to have a lot of ceremony and
pageantry, a heap of tasty and authentic food, and appropriate
entertainments.

People arrived from 5pm onwards, to find a small hall lit by
candlelight.  Banners and wall hangings covered most of the modern stuff
on the walls.  The tables were set in a U shape, covered with white
tablecloths, sprinkled with rose petals, and set with bread and some of
the first course.

Our guests made an effort to wear their finest clothes.  Since they didn't
have to change after fighting, or worry about doing anything except
sitting and looking beautiful, there were more elaborate outfits than
are usually seen.  Although the event did not have a particular time
period or place as its theme, the food was all Elizabethan and had been
advertised as such, so many guests tried to dress to match that.  Even
some of our most resolute T-tunic wearers borrowed something for the
occasion.

When most of the guests had arrived, and our Baron had managed to get
changed (he always seems to take his time at this), our Marshall of the
Hall rapped her staff on the wooden floor and announced a ceremonial
handwashing.  The servers processed in, bearing bowls of scented water
and linen towels, and everyone washed their hands and settled in for the
start of the feast.

The first course consisted of mortis of chicken (a
chicken-almond-rosewater spread for bread), liver pate (modified from a
period recipe for liver pudding filling), pickled mushrooms and pickled
dried figs, a sallet of asparagus, and peascods in lent (fried
fruit-filled ravioli in the shape of pea pods).

[ It's probably worth noting at this point that although the dishes
served were from period sources, the order of service was not... I had
chosen a mostly modern way of arranging the first four courses, and I'm
not sure how bizarre it would have seemed to an Elizabethan person.
Each course we served was announced by the Marshall of the Hall, and
brought in by a procession of servers.  The servers made a reverence to
the high table, and presented the dishes for their approval, then served
the food starting at the top of the hall and working down. ]

The peascods were immensely popular, and it's lucky that we'd made a lot
of them.  We kept sending out plateful after plateful.  One of our
servers came in, looking worried, and said that she'd been serving a
table of mostly new people, and they were almost full already.  Uh oh.
She tried to coach them to pace themselves, but they just weren't ready
for it.

Second course consisted of boiled chicken with barberries and greens,
carbonado of beef, two variations on a quelquechose with peas and with
oysters, a cold sallet of cucumber and radishes, and a rice custard dish
called a white pot.  The hit of this course was the beef, which was
basically a kind of early 17th century barbecue.  We scored steaks in a
criss-cross fashion, broiled them while basting with butter, and served
them with a sauce containing orange juice and spices.  Also, at least one
marriage proposal was conveyed to the kitchen in response to the chicken
dish.  The white-pot and quelquechose, however, were not as much eaten
as we had hoped.  We assume that the diners had filled up on beef and
chicken, and had no more room.

By this point our guests, even those who had paced themselves, were
beginning to complain of being too full.  As they sat their rubbing
their bellies, they were entertained by a local lady singing an
Elizabethan ballad.  In such a small hall, she was heard easily by
everyone, and they paid attention without being forced... something
seldom achieved at a larger feast.  There were also two dance
performances: a Canario and a galliard/volta, by two couples from our
canton.  I forget exactly when these dances were performed, but it was
sometime during the first half of the evening.

The third course consisted of two plates of light food: one containing a
herring salad (pickled herring fillets rolled around onions and herbs,
with an oil and vinegar dressing) and hard boiled eggs with a mustard
sauce, the other containing a layered sallet.  The layered sallet was
extremely tasty, but looked a bit mysterious.  It contained a range of
dried fruit (figs, raisins, currants), almonds, olives, capers, sage,
spinach, oil, vinegar, sugar, and perhaps some other things I've
forgotten.  All were chopped finely and mixed up, and served on a bed of
lettuce on which orange and lemon slices had been arranged.  Despite its
impressive presentation, the tastiest layer was perhaps just a little
too mysterious for some diners.  One server suggested that the
candlelight may have made it difficult to tell what it was, and that
diners might have been a bit put off by the "black mess".  So we got
quite a lot of leftovers of that one.  None of the kitchen staff
complained, however, as we all found it really tasty.  And, to prove
that we weren't the only ones, those diners who did attempt it declared
it to be delicious.

While this light course was on the tables, the centre of the hall was
used for general dancing.  The dances were Ballo del Fiore, the Black
Almayn, Rufty Tufty, and Heart's Ease.  The latter three were taught
briefly for the benefit of the newcomers, and the number of dancers on
the floor exceeded the usual number seen at larger events in this
kingdom.

The fourth course went out about an hour later, at 9pm.  It consisted of
olaves of veal with a cinnamon/currant sauce, apple moye, pie meat (lamb
with fruit, served in coffins), a herb tart, a warm sallet of spinach,
and onions upon sops.  The veal disappeared almost instantly, and the
lamb was also very well received though we did have leftovers.  The
tart, spinach and onions, alas, returned to the kitchen with plenty
still on the plates.  In most cases we believe this was because of the
quantity of food already consumed, not because of any inherent fault in
the food itself.  We did receive some comments, however, that the tart
would have been better hot than cold.  Unfortunately with our only oven
dedicated to the veal, this was not possible.  Luckily, our servers,
kitchen staff, and some of the more discerning and practically minded
diners made short work of the leftovers, which were in some cases eaten
on the spot and in other cases sent home in ziplocs and tupperware
containers.

More entertainments occurred during the fourth course, including a
reading of poetry by Christopher Marlowe and two stories.

The final course was a banquet course of various sweet finger-foods,
served from a side table while more dancing occurred.  We had not
expected anyone to have much room left, but the way the dessert
disappeared gives some credence to the theory that people have a
separate "dessert stomach" which comes into use only after the main
courses are finished.  For dessert we served a large fruit platter with
strawberries, grapes, plums and pears; a trifle made with
cream/sugar/rosewater/ginger and with wafers for dipping; small balls of
marchpane, both spiced and unspiced; a date-leach, which looked like
"sugared dog turds" according to one cook, but looked much less so when
sliced and served with strawberries; prune tarts flavoured with
rosemary; and bisket bread (a kind of aniseed-flavoured biscotti).  We
also served a non-alcoholic hippocras, a hot drink of grape juice
(soured with cranberry juice to taste more like wine), flavoured with
honey and spices.

The trifle disappeared in an instant.  One moment it was there, the next
it was gone.  If we make it again, we will make a bucketful, and have a
server standing by to slop more into the bowl as it is emptied.  The
prune tarts, which I was personally unhappy with because they had kind
of exploded and leaked, looked fine in the candlelight and were all
eaten.  The marchpane and date leach had only a few pieces left at the
end.  The bisket bread was the only dish that didn't get eaten, but then
I did put a lot of it out and it is the sort of thing you only have one
piece of.  When I went around with the plate and said "if it doesn't get
eaten, it'll get thrown out", our Exchequer grabbed a huge double
handful to take home with her.

More dancing occurred at this point, with the Belle Qui pavane and
galliard, Black Nag, Petit Vriens, and probably some others (I know what
was on the dance list, but I'm not sure whether they were all danced.)

At 11pm, as the dancers finished the last repeat of Petit Vriens, we
turned the hall lights on and began the cleanup.  We left the hall just
after midnight, exhausted but pleased with how the evening had gone.

Early feedback included a report that the Baroness was worried that
we've given the newcomers unrealistically high expectations, and they
may now expect other feasts to be as good as this one.  The Baron, whose
favourite food is KFC and who often has a burger stashed under the high
table so he doesn't have to eat that weird medieval stuff, was seen to
be digging into our food with gusto.  Some of the canton and baronial
officers have warned me that I can expect to be asked to cook for more
events in future.  And people I respect have compared my feast
favourably with those done by some famous SCA cook whose name I can't
remember... trust me, it was flattering at the time :)

So, overall, the event was a success.  We even appear to have made a
tiny profit, despite having had a nasty snow/ice/etc storm on the day of
the event.  Good thing we made everyone pre-pay!

Downsides: too much food, but not *way* too much.  I can probably reduce
quantities by 10% safely.  And I think I should have arranged specific
staff for a couple of tasks that I didn't originally think would need it
(such as hall cleanup... it was a small hall, and not a very big task,
but the rest of the staff were so tired that it would have been nice to
have someone with energy in reserve.)

Now there's nothing left but some paperwork, and to start thinking about
whether I want to hold another one of these next year.

Yours,

Katherine


--
Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert)
katherine at infotrope.net  http://infotrope.net/sca/
Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere
"The rose is red, the leaves are grene, God save Elizabeth our Queene"