[Sca-cooks] Suggestions Needed

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/13/2004 9:03:54 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
sheltons at sysmatrix.net writes:

<<1)  Do other inter-kingdom wars have feasts and are they well supported?>>

I have never attended any interkingdom war other than Kingdom Crusades or 
pennsic, so can't answer this.  My guess would be that event wide feasts are 
probably extremely rare in those venues.

<<2)  If there is a feast, do you require advanced registration/payment or is
it just sign up on-site if you want it?>>

I suspect the site owner would insist on it.  If not, he will contract to 
cater a certain number of meals and it's going to be up to you to make sure he 
gets that many diners.  I think it would be very dodgy to expect him to cook for 
400 when you can't tell him if even 40 will be eating.

<<3) What dishes have people suggested when dealing with non-SCA cooks?
Without knowing their capabilities, I'm thinking 2 courses with a couple of
meats (something like Cormarye and some kind of chicken), cheese as a 3rd
protein, some type of tourte/tart, a starch like rice, a couple of
vegetables, some additional items for vegetarians, the inevitable bread and
butter, and some type of simple dessert(s).  Given the date, a nice hot soup
would probably go over well but I'm always a little leery about the
logistics of serving soup to the masses.>>

My suggestion would be to go with something simple like cormarye, as you've 
suggested, or Drye Stewe for Beef, which is essentially a pot roast variant - a 
familiar large-scale cooking item with just some different spices than he is 
used to.  Rather than a cheese dish as the third protein, I would go with a 
bean dish - they are economical, they hold well, and with the rice, would 
provide pretty much a complete array of proteins.  You could also do an easy 
cheese/starch like Losyns; he's probably familiar with the logistics of lasagna, and 
again, this is just lasagna with some slight differences.  If you have other 
hot foods, I wouldn't worry abut the soup so much.

<<4) What would be a reasonable target price? >>

With the sort of menu being considered, and taking into account his need to 
pay kitchen staff, I doubt you will be able to get a price much under $15-20.  
It's still considerably better than you'd pay for such a meal at most 
restaurants other than those that serve family style.
A scadian, volunteer cook and crew could probably easily pull it off for 
under $10, but you can't expect someone with a paid crew to do so.

<<5) What is the breaking point; i.e at what price do people decide they don't
want to pay for feast {even though we know it's a better bargain than
they'll get anywhere else}?>>

Personally, knowing that it's a catered feast, I'd be willing to go as high 
as $20 - but ONLY if I was sure it was going to be a feast of period foods.  
I'm not interested in shelling out $20 for mass-produced modern wedding food.

<<  How do people in the East feel about feasts and fees? >> 

I can't speak for all Easterners, of course, but what my husband and I look 
for is, first and foremost, period foods, which requires a menu published in 
advance (or a cook we trust).  Then we look at the menu and decide if the meal 
looks like it would be worth the price.  There are some cooks where we 
automatically know that pretty much whatever they are making, we want to eat.  There 
are others that we pretty much know aren't going to make even an attempt at 
period, and then we bring our own, usually.

Brangwayna