[Sca-cooks] Growing for Feast

[KristiWhyKelly at aol.com]

Greetings!
 
I myself have grown fava beans, cucumbers, flowers, berries  (elderberries 
and currants) and ducks for various feasts.
 
We butchered geese for 12th night at a local farmers place.
 
The birds, flowers and cucumbers were easy.  Flowers and cucumbers  were used 
fresh.  Ducks and geese where slaughtered and frozen.
 
Frankly the ducks were not cost effective, between feed and loss of  animals. 
 If you can get them at the local Asian markets it's about  the same price.  
The geese on the other hand were $5 per bird, usually at  the stores they run 
close to $50 per bird.
 
The favas where difficult as I mistimed the sowing and it was a really  rainy 
year and I had fungus problems.  Also, with the new Asian and  Hispanic 
markets opening up it's not as hard to find them.
 
Harvesting at a local farm is a lot cheaper if you are willing to go out  and 
pick yourself.  I got asparagus for 50 cents per pound at a friends  farm.  
Same goes for apples 50 cents p/pound for organic heirlooms.   What's best 
about this option is that you can almost guarantee a harvest.
 
Hope this helped.
 
Grace
 
In a message dated 4/18/2005 1:44:52 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
gordonse at one.net writes:

Has  anyone worked on a feast where the group (the event group, not
necessarily  the actual cooking crew) grew a substancial portion of the
vegetables for a  feast?
Or the fruit, herbs, eggs, grains, or  meat?