[Sca-cooks] subcontracting dayboards/meals

[Helen Highwater]

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa asked:
>  Question for the assembled: has anyone tried a variety of 'subcontracting'
>  meals-- where one person makes up the list and gets various cooks to be
>  each responsible for preparing/bringing one dish? How practical is this?
>  I'm thinking of it for a dayboard.

I did this for the first time at the Principality of the Mists Bardic
Feast last September (2002). The feast is a competition to choose the
next Bard of the Mists. All the contests take place between courses.

I worked out the recipes and decided it would be best to cook most of
it ahead, since I didn't want to be banging around in the kitchen
while folks in the hall were reciting poetry, telling stories, and
singing songs. Because i never test them, i gave each of several
people whose cooking skills i trusted one or two recipes. I confess
that i made more than two myself at home.

Also, because the site had a good kitchen, we prepared the grains on
site, as well as cooking the salmon in Seville orange sauce (since
that wouldn't take long or be noisy), reheated some stuff and
finished others (such as the melon potaje - heated it and stirred in
the beaten eggs), and because i hadn't had time, we made the modern
baklava (per the Bard's request).

It was successful (although there was a problem with one dish i made
on site), and i intend to do it for this year's Mists Bardic.

Anahita