[Sca-cooks] Bad Cooking at Feasts - was Re: good taste

[Micheal]

Sounds to me like a lot of you were at the same cinnamon festival.
 Cealian
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Huette von Ahrens" <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 9:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bad Cooking at Feasts - was Re: good taste


>
> --- Micheal <dmreid at hfx.eastlink.ca> wrote:
>
>>  Greetings
>>   Most of the bad cooking stories I have heard of begin with the oven 
>> didn`t
>> work, the grill, the stove top, or some such other kitchen equipment
>> failure. Which leaves me wondering why we rent such places in the first
>> place.
>
> The very first 12th Night banquet I went to had a case of a bad dish, 
> although
> not a bad feast, because they made the assumption that all stoves work as 
> they
> are supposed to.  They forgot to check the oven and the roasted chicken 
> didn't
> get cooked when it was supposed to.  They found out how to light the ovens 
> and
> all the chickens got 1/2 hour of cooking instead of 1.25 hours, before 
> being served,
> instead of either holding back the course until they were actually done or 
> changing
> the order of the courses.  The chicken was cooked about 1/4 of an inch and 
> was raw
> everywhere else...
>
> At one of my feasts, one of the two ovens died while I was roasting the 
> pork.  But
> I just held back the dish and course until everything was thoroughly 
> cooked.  I was
> not about to serve raw pork.
>
>>  Third type is the old but I bought it on sale, sorry but if it was on 
>> sale
>> there usually is a reason.
>
> Yes, but sometimes the reason is that they got more than they ordered and 
> sold it
> for less in order to get rid of it before it spoiled.  I bought 100 lbs of 
> salmon for
> $1 per pound.  It wasn't totally cleaned, but it was very good meat and it 
> was
> worth all the effort to clean it ourselves.  Even the salmon haters loved 
> what I made.
>
>>  Fourth never trying the recipe or recipes at home before cooking the 
>> feast.
>
> I made that mistake at my first banquet, but I was lucky and everything 
> came out okay.
> But I afterwards realized that that was a dumb thing to do and so I never 
> did that again.
>
> Another banquet that I learned from was one that I was a guest at and not 
> a cook at.
> Everything was sweet... Everything!!! Even the bread was sweet.  Almost 
> everything
> had cinnamon in it.  So the taste was pretty much the same for every dish 
> and every
> course.  And almost every dish was brown in color.  Even the peas were 
> brown...
> Each individual dish was well prepared and tasted good, but with the 
> sameness of taste and
> color, you craved variety.
>
> Even though this concept may not be pre-1600, I always make sure that each 
> dish is
> different from the other in their course.  If I repeat a flavor, it will 
> be in a different
> course, not the same one.  Every dish will have a different flavor and 
> will not all be
> sweet, or sour, or spicy, or piquant.  There will be different spices used 
> in each
> dish.   Each dish will be a different color.  And, if I can, each dish 
> will have a
> different shape.  Not everything will be in a pie. Not everything will be 
> round, or
> square, but that course will have round things in one dish [like peas] and 
> another
> will be square [like beef y-stewed] and another pie shaped or triangular. 
> But this
> is just me.  My recipes will be pre-1600 but I will pick and choose that 
> which will
> present this.
>
> Huette
>
>
> Remember that while money talks, chocolate sings.
>
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