[Sca-cooks] Steppes 12th Night is completed

[Terry Decker]

As promised, I present my critical consideration of Gunthar's feast for 
Steppes 12th Night. It was very successful in terms of two of my criteria. 
It was edible and delicious and it was very close to being an excellent 
recreation of a medieval meal. I would agree with Gunthar's estimation that 
overall it was a "C" and say that the cooking was a "B." In twenty odd years 
of Ansteorran feasts, I've seen less than a dozen that were superior in both 
quality and authenticity of the cooking, a couple of those being under 
Gunthar's control.

The feast was intended to be two courses of about five items each. It became 
a feast of three courses (I suspect from cooking delays in the kitchen). I 
did miss several of the dishes and I can not comment on their culinary 
qualities. Other than the wastels yfarced, there was no bread with the 
feast. As a baker, I find this a sad thing, as bread was a large part of any 
medieval meal.

Since I currently have a sporadic dry cough, I avoided the kitchen and will 
need to rely on Gunthar for any observations therein.

Bear



The Feast

For the first course there was stwd beef, benes yfryed, buttered wortes, 
chireseye, wastel yfarced and sauge.

Of these the chireseye and the wastels yfarced were considered the best. The 
chireseye appealed to those who like sweets and cherries. I found it a 
little more glutinous than I would prefer and I'm definitely not a great fan 
of many fruits, but I will agree that it was one of the outstanding dishes 
of the meal. I am thinking about experimenting with the recipe later.

The wastels yfarced were the big surprise. A savory stuffed and baked roll, 
they presented a perfect blend of taste and texture. From my observations, 
the wastels were the best received dish at the feast.

The sauge, chicken served in a spicy sage sauce, was interesting, but the 
sauce was a thick paste, where the recipe suggests that it is made as a 
thick paste and thinned to a thick sauce. It didn't taste as spicy as the 
recipe suggests it should be either. It was of enough interest that I think 
I will try the sauce with fish in the near future.

The buttered wortes were okay, but I can't get really enthused about 
blanched and steamed greens.

The stwd beef was blander and tougher than than I expected. In my opinion, 
the dishes was cooked at too high a temperature or not cooked long enough to 
make the meat tender. The spicing is an issue I hope Gunthar will address, 
but he was directing the kitchen and I suspect may have left the spicing to 
others who didn't taste the results.

The benes yfryed were interesting, but nothing to write home about. If you 
like beans, you would enjoy them. If you don't, you won't. This dish was 
also the only visible error in recreating period recipes. Red kidney beans 
were used, placing a 16th Century vegetable into an early 15th Century 
recipe. Black-eyed peas or other Vignas such as yard-long beans would have 
been more authentic.

The second course was mousserouns florys, makerouns, cormarye, and apple 
tarts.

The mousserouns florys are skewers of bacon and mushrooms, glazed with egg 
yolk and sprinkled with spices. Very enjoyable and flavorful, but slightly 
lacking in texture.

If you like mac and cheese, the makerouns were a hit. Wide noodles (lasgne 
size I believe) layered with cheese. I think they were held in an oven that 
was a little too hot because the top cheese had a texture suggesting that it 
had been browned, but I found that to be quite acceptable, making the dish a 
little more interesting. This dish was close to the wastels yfarced in 
popularity.

The pork loin (cormarye) was tasty, but a little dry, either from being 
slightly overcooked or being held too long. I wonder if one of the ovens may 
not have been running 50 degrees F above its set temperature.

The apple tart was a very good piece of apple pie.

The third course, which I did not get to eat and can not comment on was 
capons stwed, creme bastard, and esparaguat, but those who ate it seemed to 
enjoy it.

Portions may have seemed small, but the cumulative effect was a more than 
adequate meal, except for an absolute carnivore.




Layout and Serving

Gunthar's responsibility was the feast, so this isn't his province, but I'll 
discuss it anyway.

The feast hall is a large, long room with a stage at one end. Facing the 
stage, there is an alcove to the left about one quarter to one third of the 
way down the hall. A nice large commercial kitchen extends back from the 
alcove with two large serving windows on the alcove. The main entry is to 
the right of the stage opposite the kitchen.

Tables were grouped in sections on either side of the hall, seating 40 to 50 
people to a section, and leaving the center of the hall open.

Service was by sending someone from a table up to the serving windows with 
plates on a tray (commercial jelly roll pan).

The hall has very bad acoustics and is difficult to keep warm. Fortunately, 
the weather was very good, so chilled food was less of an issue. There are 
steam tables at each of the windows, but I don't know if they were being 
used. From previous experience dining in this hall, I would use them if at 
all possible.

The jelly rolls pans being used as trays were supplied some time during the 
afternoon. The one we were given was inadequate for the number of dishes we 
needed to carry. This problem might have been solved by waiting until about 
15 minutes before serving, then counting the place settings and providing an 
adequate number of trays. If there were an inadequate number of trays, 
service could have been done by section, with the trays being transferred 
between sections.

All of the servers were called up at once, causing long lines, extended 
waits and some fraying tempers. Service would probably have been smoother 
had sections been called up in turn.

Each of the windows had three people doling out portions to the plates as 
the trays were moved from right to left across the service windows. It sould 
accelerate service if the faster apportioners were on the right side of the 
window doling out the largest number of dishes.

I've seen worse feasts on layout and service, but it could have been better.

Were it my feast, I would lay out the hall in the same manner and find six 
to eight waiters. The waiters would serve each section seperately to get hot 
food to the table as quickly as possible. Before each of the remaining 
courses, an almoner and a couple waiters would pass through the sections 
with voiders to clear away the debris. I would also use four heralds and 
quarter the hall, as suggested by Baron Ulf Gunnarson, to overcome the 
problems with the acoustics.