[Sca-cooks] Needing help with... Breakfast quantaties

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Susan Laing:
>Firstly - Thanks for all the ideas and help I've been receiving regarding
>the "Scottish theme" feast I'm doing, it's all much appreciated.
>
>I've decided on simple breakfasts of  Porridge (of course!); Bacon and
>Scrambled Eggs (Served with toast and spreads)
>
>Unfortunately my "Large Quantity Recipes" book ignores the concept of
>breakfast entirely (or perhaps they don't count Bacon & Scrambled eggs as
>"recipes" as such) so I have no idea of how much of each dish to cater
>for....
>
>I'd like to start my figures at "for 50 people I will require the following
>raw ingredients".....
>
>Anyone have any clues on this?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Mari de Paxford

I've got "Food For Fifty" on a shelf about two feet away. I can grope 
for it, and try to figure things out, or would it be possible for you 
to simply give me an ingredient list for your menu, and we can try to 
assign quantities?

"Food For Fifty", I've found, is usually pretty accurate. Some claim 
it doesn't address the needs of the 8-foot-tall, 600-pound, 
carnivorous SCA fighter, and that may be so, but not all SCAdians fit 
into that category, and when you average in the needs of SCAdians 
large and small, old and young, male and female, carnivorous, 
vegetarian and omnivorous, they seem to turn to be just that: average.

Ff50 seems to be recommending two pounds of rolled oats to serve 50 
(yes, rolled oats are different, but I believe the main difference is 
in volume, and cooking time, and if you use a similar weight of oats 
with an appropriate amount of water and cook for a suitable period of 
time, you should get a comparable number of servings, or about two 
gallons of cooked oatmeal porridge, or fifty 2/3 cup servings.

Bacon: I assume you mean back bacon, and not belly or streaky bacon? 
Ff50 recommends 5-6 pounds of streaky bacon (the stuff Americans tend 
to eat), but 10 lbs of Canadian bacon (which on a good day is the eye 
of that same loin or back bacon you guys eat, and on a bad day a 
nasty pseudo-bacon sausage-ey thing, pressed into a round shape like 
a canned ham). I'd go with the ten pounds of back bacon; you don't 
lose much to shrinkage but people probably eat more of it because 
it's viable meat.

Eggs: they seem to see one large egg as a serving. If you want to do 
two, it would probably not be amiss.

Toast: confusing. Under bread, they recommend one slice per person, 
but under Toast: French, Buttered, or Cinnamon, they recommend two 
slices. Evidently  they feel you'll need 3.5 one-pound loaves, at 16 
slices per loaf, OR 2.5 one-and-a-half-pound loaves, at 24 slices 
per, or 1.5 two-pound loaves, at 36 slices per loaf. The math used 
here seems just a little fuzzy to me, but it goes on to say you'll 
need a total of seven pounds of bread, for two slices of French 
Toast, Buttered Toast, or Cinnamon Toast, per person, for 50 people. 
I was unsure at first whether they meant a double amount of slices, 
and whether or not they meant whole slices or points of some kind, 
but the gross weight suggests they mean rounds, or whole slices, of 
bread, in determining the weight of the amount you'd need. How you 
cut it is your business.

Butter: "For Table" 2 pats per person, whatever that means, for a 
total of 1 to 1 1/2 pounds. I'd go as high as two pounds, myself, and 
approximately a similar amount of soft cheeses, if you provide that.

Jams and jellies, 1 Tbs (which in the US is a volume measure of 1/2 
fluid ounce) per person, or 2 - 3 lbs for fifty servings.

Anything else?

HTH,

Adamantius