[Sca-cooks] maintenance questions -- feast gear

[Edouard de Bruyerecourt]

> You send your main courses out in bowls?  Even if it's roast pork and
> chicken and spinach (for example)?  I have seen several places who put
> the  entirety of a course on one platter (for each table).  While I
> understand  that other places aren't as "stuff" wealthy as Bright
> Hills, I do not,  personally like this method of serving.  It makes it
> look more like pizza  <<ICK>> than anything else.  I guess I'm not one
> for food touching other  food, although I am not obsessive about it (I
> hope).  I can't imagine my  enjoying foods even more mixed up in bowls.
> Olwen

I have served some feasts or some courses on a single large platter.
Depends on the food items within the course. After using one site that had
round banquet tables, I toyed with the idea of serving a Middle Eastern
menu and placing the whole event under the theme of European
travellers/merchants/pilgrims stopping along the road to whereever and
being hosted by the local sheik. The plan was to serve a course of three to
four dishes on one large round platter set into the middle of the round
table. Sometimes we also put the food into a bowl on the tray, other times
it was placed directly on the tray (I may have used a liner of greenleaf on
one of them). Most of the food had distinct form (lamb jonts, meatballs,
flatbread, etc) and would stay in place on the tray (i.e. no flowing or
oozing into it's neighbor). What didn't (e.g. pureed eggplant, sauce) went
into a bowl. I also took care to keep the non-vegan dishes away from the
vegetarian and vegan dishes.* I also tried to make the arrangement as
pleasing as possible, rather than look like it had gone through the mess
hall chow line.

*No, I didn't plan the menu around vegetarian and vegan dishes. I chose
what looked interesting and doable, then noted what was vegan and
vegetarian for that would want to know. I may have opted for a vegan
friendly dish when I had two options and the course was a meat/dairy
dominate.

Edouard