[Sca-cooks] FWD: November 2004 MK Cook's Challenge

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

How do you manage the
> opulence they hope for on such a limited budget? What ideas do you
> have? What assumptions do you make?

OK, you're talking about a rural area, in the American South.

Guaranteed, there are inexpensive foodstuffs available, particularly pork.

One of my first moves would to be to contact the local grange, and ask for
donations, with an eye to getting a pig, and perhaps some suckling pigs as
part of the feast donated. This isn't as difficult, or as much stress on the
farmer as might be supposed- too often a sow will have more piglets than she
can comfortably feed, and many farmers would be willing to cull out the
least active, that the others might grow better. It might help, in such a
request, if you specified what foodstuss you actually want, because Southern
farmers are going to be raising a lot of corn, and may not realize that our
"corn", maize, is New World, and not appropriate. If you get a large
donation of corn, though, you might just hafta bite the bullet, and figure
out a recipe that uses it in a non-obtrusive manner.

Another thing many Southerners are into is hunting and fishing. Approaching
a local hunting/fishing club might get you a good supply of game. I'd look
for someone to domate a deer, depending on the time of year- they're
becoming so overpopulated in many areas, that many states allow more than
one per hunting season (we were up to 3 in SE Ohio, last time I checked) and
there might just be enough surplus, that a donation is not only possible,
but a bit of a relief to the giver ;-)

Supposing you can get the major part of the meats donated, you're home free
;-)

As far as the rest of it, I'd look at "seasoning" the feast with elaborate
subtleties. There's a lot that can be done with papier mache and sugar
paste, and neither are particularly expensive.

In order to be more detailed, I'd have to know more about the area.
Depending on where you are in the South, some foodstuffs are more available
and cheaper than others. If there's an exotic game farm in the area, for
example, you might just be able to find a real boars head, or perhaps a
peacock that you might get donated, and use that as the basis for a
subtletie. If not, you're back to the papier mache, but you can still do a
great deal with that.

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....