[Sca-cooks] Pennsic on a shoestring

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

Here are a few ideas:

They might be able to find a camp that will feed them for free in 
exchange for a promise of extra work, or an individual who will pay 
their camp fee for them and help them out with some food in exchange for 
babysitting or something.

They could take jobs with one of the merchants.

If they're crafty and have a bit of spare time between now and war, they 
could make a couple of items that other local SCA folks need for war but 
don't have the time or skill to make for themselves, thus to earn a 
little spending money to stash in ye merrie olde Pennsic fund.

If they're bringing a cooler, they could pre-cook a bunch of meals, pack 
them flat in baggies (or better yet, vacuum sealer bags, if they know 
anyone with a vacuum sealer) and freeze them.  Keep those at the bottom 
of a big cooler, underneath the ice.  A meal will stay frozen for days 
like that, and even once it thaws, since it's precooked it'll stay good 
longer than raw meats.  Just remember to stay on top of replacing that 
ice!  The cost of ice would be their biggest concern.  For a big cooler, 
I recall using three eight pound bags to fill it in the first place, 
then topping it off with at least one, usually two, bags a day.  How 
much were they last year?  $1.25?  At that rate, one large cooler would 
run them, depending on the weather and how much shade they have, between 
$11.25-$18.75 per week.  Oof, you know, I never thought about it in 
those terms... here I've griped about the cost of turnpike fees to get 
out there ;)

Similarly, pre-make stews, meats in sauces, things like that, and can 
them.  They'd need a pressure canner for meats, but someone in your SCA 
crowd must have one.  We're wierd people like that ;)

Eggs are an easy source of protein, and can be had very cheaply.

If they think their tummies can handle the high mineral content of 
Pennsic water (that aspect isn't dangerous, but it can take some getting 
used to for some people), they could bring water purifier pellets from a 
camping store to take care of any nasties.

-Magdalena vander Brugghe

-- 
Tara Sersen Boroson

'Normal' is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. -Ellen Goodman

[T]o admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. -Virginia Woolf