[Sca-cooks] sauce competition

[Stefan li Rous]

Samrah asked:
> I am event steward for a small tourney, with a small feast 30-50 people
> expected, and we would like to have a sauce competition. There will be
> some simply spiced beef for the sauce (and possibly chicken) served at
> the feast, and I would dearly love to give the diners and opportunities
> to judge these sauces for taste, with a panel of 3 or so to review
> documentation.
>
> Has anybody done anything like this before? Did it work, or are the
> logistics just too far out there?
I believe I did this several years ago at the baronial pot luck Yule 
Revel I was running. It was a bit more informal than what you are 
proposing. I had two prizes. One for the best liked dish and one for 
the best liked sauce. The barony traditionally provides some roast meat 
for this event and the vote was simply by the populace placing the two 
beans they were given at the gate into the cups in front of the sauces 
or dishes. I encouraged documentation, but didn't require it.

I gave a book as the prize for each contest. I had tried to build up 
interest in the sauces ahead of time by providing various sauce recipes 
in handouts and posted to the local baronial list with links to the 
Florilegium where more sauce recipes could be found. I was disappointed 
in the number of sauces which were entered. I seem to remember that my 
entries did well, but were not the top one.

Is your panel judging the documentation simply saying whether the 
documentation is good enough to allow a sauce to be entered? Or is 
there some weighting system between the populace vote and the 
documentation score?

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****