[Sca-cooks] Feast Challanges/Disaster for Stefan (really long)

[Lonnie D. Harvel]

Sharon Gordon wrote:

>3) If Aoghann sees this, would you tell us about the longships?  They sound
>like a cool idea.
>
OK, you asked... ;)

On the Monday before the event, we discovered that some of our serving 
dishes were no longer with us. So, I began to try and figure out how I 
wanted to serve the courses. On Tuesday evening, after going to bed, I 
had a fun idea. There were four courses in the meal and decided to try 
for some humor. Danelaw is a Saxon vs. Vikings event. Here is how it 
would have gone if I had not tried to do free-weight lifting with giant 
bags of bread...

There were no Royals at the event, so only a short Baronial court was 
held. The "main" item in the first course was the Boar Stew. It was to 
be introduced with "In compensation for a short court, we are serving 
stewed boors."

The main item in the second course was the grilled (roasted) chicken. I 
was looking for a way to cover the plain plates that would most likely 
be used, so I came up with the idea of using the outer cabbage leaves 
(blanched) to cover the plates. The chicken would then be piled up in 
the middle. A tattered standard made from a bamboo skewer, cheescloth 
and food coloring would be inserted into the pile. It would be 
introduced as "Saxon Chickens heaped upon the green."

The main item in the third course was the roasted pork. On Friday 
evening, we would have used the convection oven to make viking long 
ships. Toothpicks (covered with aluminum foil for baking) would be 
inserted in the sides to hold the "shields". The shields would be made 
from apple "rings" cut from apples that were not cored. The shield boss 
would be the ends of the radishes saved from the pilaf. If time 
permitted, a couple of talented Laurels had offered to paint the 
longships with food coloring. The pork would be cut into chunks and 
piled into the boats. The plates would be covered with kale (everybody 
probably wondered what the kale was for) and ships would be placed on 
top of that. Furled sails would be made from cheesecloth and bamboo 
skewers and laid across the pork. The course would be introduced as "A 
fleet of Viking Swine."

The fourth course was just the pears in wine and the custard. It would 
have been introduced as "A gang of drunken pairs."

As Serena said, the only information on the sheets was a time slot for 
making the long ships, the furled sails, and a recipe for the pastry 
dough that I got from this list. It was just a last minute idea that 
never made it out of my head. All of the components were not even on 
site, since I went down before finishing.

The ships will definitely make it into another feast someday.

Aoghann