[Sca-cooks] feast organization/service question

[Susan Fox]

Aislinn wrote:
> I have a question (several actually) about feast service. Do you folks use
> a hall steward in your Kingdoms to set up the hall and decorate it?
Oh gosh yes.  Not enough time, energy and hands to do it all alone!

>  Is this
> person seperate from the one who organizes the servers? 
Yes.  That is an entirely different skill set.  The chief server needs 
serious people skills and a loud voice.  The decorator needs asthetics 
and permission to do pretty things to boring walls. 

> Is there a seperate
> person who puts the food into serving dishes (the co-feastcrat perhaps)?
> When I cook I like to stagger the courses so that everything comes out hot.
> That means I am still busy cooking and can't do the food presentation part
> myself.
That is an interesting idea.  I usually do my own plating when I'm 
cooking, because I already know what I want the finished product to look 
like.  But when I run a feast, I have "course captains" in charge of 
each timed phase of the meal.  They talk to each other to co-ordinate 
access to the range and other equipment but otherwise work 
semi-autonomously on their staggered course deadlines.  It works for me.

>  I like to have a seperate person than the hall steward be my
> "server organizer" because by the time feast rolls around, my hall steward
> is exhausted from all the hall duties and it makes for a much longer day
> for them. Plus we always camp here in my kingdom, so the hall steward works
> Friday night too. 
That's serious business! Possibly your hall stewards need deputies to 
whom to delegate some of the workload.  This is supposed to be fun for 
everyone, after all!
> Which means that running the hall for me takes four
> people - me as feastcrat, food plater, server organizer and hall steward.
> How does it work in your Kingdoms? Anybody have another term for "server
> organizer" that is more period yet still describes what the job entails?
>   
Head Server is the best I can do here.  There is a touchy balance 
between the roles we play in the Society and our 21st Century Egos.  Who 
wants to be called a "scullery" nowadays, even if that's what he is 
doing?  I got in Such Social Trouble by playfully referring to my 
household members as "Evil Minions," even though they were playing 
along.  I tried to switch to "House Elves" but there's this problem, I 
keep giving them clothes.  <grin>  Seriously though, I am sure someone 
here will post a list of those "period job descriptions" any moment now.

Selene