[Sca-cooks] Re: Cooking in Challenging Circumstances, was 12th Night

[smcclune at earthlink.net]

-----Original Message-----
From: Morses3 at aol.com

I commend the lady for taking on the challenge of cooking for 12th night in 
what some of us would consider to be challenging circumstances.
<<<

Me too!

Though we once had someone in our barony, who had a large family and was fed up with the "high cost" of SCA feasts (you know, $8/head for a three-course meal is *so* outrageous ... sigh), who wanted to do Twelfth Night on a shoestring.  His proposal was to buy, raise, and butcher the chickens ourselves, and to find a vacant lot somewhere, where we could set up a tent to use as a feast hall.  I believe his proposal had us roasting the chickens over an open fire, outdoors.  In Denver, Colorado.  In January.  Yes, the weather *can* be nice, but for some reason, the act of hosting Twelfth Night often seems to act as a snow-summoning spell(1).

>>>
How have others in the past overcome the limitations of such a setting and 
what suggestions do they have to a future cook about problems to anticipate for 
a similar setting in the future and possible solutions for them. As a new SCA 
cook (but with lots of mundane kitchen experience), I would find the 
information helpful for future reference.
<<<

Well, the most challenging kitchen I've had to work with was for a feast I did last year at one of our local college campuses.  Great facilities, great price (because we have a student group there, we can get rooms cheap or free) -- but one major drawback:  We are not allowed to use any of their kitchen facilities, due to their contract with their food service provider.  So my "kitchen" consisted of a section of a ballroom containing about eight tables.  That was it.

I was doing a three-course Roman menu.  My staff and I pre-cooked most of the smaller dishes, and made plans to serve some dishes (such as the poached salmon) cold.  However, I brought in electric roasters (six of them, I'm remembering) and a handful of crock pots, and did the major meats (chicken and beef) on site, as well as warming things back up.  Gwen-cat, who is also on this list, provided a wonderful German lunch out of the same "kitchen".  I think she also had access to a large electric "soup tureen", which helped.

I'm also remembering that between lunch and dinner, we had 8 or 9 coolers (no refrigeration, either, obviously).  If I'm ever crazy enough to do this again, I'm going to remember to request extra tables to hold all of them; by the end of the day, bending down to dig stuff out of coolers was a major pain in the back.

Our biggest problem with this site was that the only running water to which we had access was either the drinking fountain or the restroom.  It meant that any washing that needed to happen (vegetables, etc.) had to take place before we got to the site.  It also meant that there was no possibility of any dishwashing, so we had to bring an excess of dishes and utensils, as everything could only be used once.  Thank heaven my husband and I have two mininvans, having replaced our totaled sedan with a used minivan a few months earlier, because it took both vans and then some to haul up all of the equipment.

But we served not one but two hot meals out of that "kitchen", and everything seemed to be well-received.  I had to send the borrowed roasters home dirty, which I felt bad about, but the people from whom I'd borrowed them were very understanding about the whole thing.  I managed to find some decent looking disposable serving dishes, so at the end of the feast, those were simply tossed in the trash.  The rest of the dirty dishes got packed into sturdy garbage bags and taken home with me and run through the dishwasher over the course of the next several days.

I think the keys to success were:

- Planning.  I selected my menu knowing what the conditions would be, so I planned for more things that could be served cold than I might have otherwise.  I also budgeted for some disposable serving equipment.  
- Equipment.  I had a fair amount of my own, and was fortunate enough to be able to borrow the extras that I needed (mainly roasters and a couple of coolers).
- Helpers.  I had a great kitchen crew, and many many helpers to help clean up and tote stuff to and from the cars.
- Facilities.  If you're crazy enough to do something like this, it helps to do it at an engineering college.  We had four roasters and several crock pots going at once, and never blew a single circuit breaker.  Now *that's* wiring!

So that's my biggest "challenging kitchen" story.  I've got others (like the time we found out a week before the event that we would not be allowed to use the site's large kitchen, the one with four industrial gas stoves, after all, but rather had to make do with the "small" kitchen -- one small-ish electric stove.  I pre-cooked *everything*).   But we'll save those for other times.

Arwen Southernwood
Caerthe, Outlands
(Denver, CO)

(1) Though that may just be me; seems that every Twelfth Night I've either autocratted or co-autocratted has been snowy.  This year will probably prove to be no exception.... :)