[Sca-cooks] Feast report -- EK K&Q Rapier Champions

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... wait, I think
that one's been used already.

Although I took off the entire week before, time just seemed to
vanish on me.  I learned the hard way that the reason Costco sells
ground pork so cheaply is that they use the trimmings from pork
roasts.  If they don't happen to trim any roasts...  And then I ran
out of true cinnamon, and had to run around to find some.  The long
and the short of it is that Friday evening, my lord Emrys and I had
made only 5 pounds of the 25 pounds of sausage that I planned.

Jadwiga, who had kindly promised to help in the kitchen, arrived
Friday night to find me in a state of chaos and grim determination.
She rolled up her sleeves, and she and Emrys finished the
sausage while I finished the peach pits.  We got to bed around 3
a.m.

For some odd reason, we were all moving a bit slowly the next
morning.  We finished loading the van with produce and other
things that could not be packed the night before, and arrived on site
only one hour later than planned.

If I try to give you a blow-by-blow, this post will turn into an epic, so
I'll just give the highlights.

The kitchen had no clock, which was a Bad Thing.  Many of the
volunteers did not have a watch, so it was easier to lose track of
time.  As usual, everything took longer than expected.  Berelinde,
my pie-maker, was tied up for much of the day finishing a scroll
that had to be presented that day.  Once free, she started whipping
through them at record speed.  They were not all baked when the
feast started (on time) at 7:30, so I bowed to the inevitable and
moved them to a later course.

I felt very harried as the feast progressed, but the servers coming in
reported that people were happy with the food.  Midway thorugh, I
could hear that the usual round of toasts were beginning.
Someone came into the kitchen, and told me I was wanted in the
hall.  I'd taken my shoes off to releive the ache, and didn't bother to
put them back on.  It was obviously the toast for the kitchen staff,
so I came out into the hall and stood on the sidelines.  Mistress
Rhianwen, one of the co-autocrats, was standing in front of High
Table, and she beckoned me over, and introduced me.  So there I
stood, in my bare feet and shabby bog dress, and received my
toast.  Fortunately, no one expects a working cook to look elegant.

The feast was going along nicely, but it was getting late, and some
people started leaving.  Many others were feeling full.  Just before
the boiled course (the next to last), we learned that we were
expected to be out of the site earlier than we thought.  The boiled
course, with ham and sauces, and the carrot pies, was served
hastily.  I told my autocrats that I would not make hot chocolate,
nor try to serve the platters with olives and cheese and nuts, but
that I would like to put out the peach pits and bizcochos for people
to nosh on.  I really didn't want all that work to go to waste.  I also
requested the boon of serving a platter of sweets to High Table, and
this was granted.  Her Majesty asked for some peach pits to take
home, which pleased me.

Since my "contract" specified that I would not clean the kitchen
afterwards, I took a platter of bizcochos and a bowl of peach pits
and circulated through the hall, offering them to the populace.  The
peach pits got a lot of satisfactory responses.  "Peach pits?  I
thought you couldn't eat those."  "Aren't they too hard?"  And then
that wonderful moment when they took a bite and their eyes glazed
over.  This also gave me an opportunity to get some feedback on
the feast, which made up for the disappointment of having to end it
so quickly.

What went well:

I am very glad I brought an oven thermometer.  The ovens needed
to be set 75 degrees above what the control knob said.

Everyone loved the carrot pies.  The leftovers were all taken home.

They raved about the sausages (Jadwiga, your sleep was not
sacrificed in vain!)

The salmon casserole went over *very* well, and it looked beautiful
contrasted with the orange juice sauce.  Jadwiga had the bright
idea to shred the parsley and sprinkle it on top of the fish, which
made for a lovely presentation.  (Yes Olwen, I took some pictures
of the feast, but didn't have time for many of them.)

The bread was popular.  I'd made it with a biga, so it had a good
chewy texture and a lot of flavor.

The pomegranate drink was VERY popular.  The servers kept
running back for more.  The tables also had pitchers of water, so it
wasn't just thirst that made it popular.

What didn't:

The chicken in quince sauce (Janete of Hens) was a textbook case
of why sauces don't always scale up well.  It tasted good, but was
much too watery.  I should have used about half the amount of
chicken stock.  It was also a little lumpy.  Because of haste, we
didn't blend the sauce ingredients thoroughly enough.

I discovered at the last moment that I'd left the cheese for the
Moorish gourds at home.  It was tasty even without cheese, but
would have been much nicer with.  I'd planned on used ground
caraway seed, but there was no spice grinder, so I used whole.  It
wasn't as strong as I feared, perhaps because milk has a "muffling"
effect on flavors.

In retrospect, it was a very ambitious feast -- perhaps too
ambitious.  There were really too many courses.  I knew that in
advance, and did it anyway.  Because this was my first chance to
use my Spanish redactions in a feast setting, I wanted to pull out
all the stops.  The late start and abrupt end of the feast were
annoying, but as neither was under my control, I didn't feel too bad
about it.  The food was good, the guests were full and happy, and I
hope perhaps I converted a few more people to the period-food-is-
tasty camp.

It's also occurred to me that the unused foods need not be wasted.
 I'm doing dayboard in March for Mudthaw (our barony's largest
event).  The feast will be multi-cultural, and I've been encouraged to
do the same with dayboard.  I foresee a crockpot of hot
chocolate....

Brighid, tired and happy


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net