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

[chirhart_1]

Hurrah Brighed.    You have started the legacy. Good food and period to. Oh
and the lessons learned!

From:   Chirhart (Legend in my own mind-And someday
the worlds)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 7:05 PM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Feast report -- EK K&Q Rapier Champions


> 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