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

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- 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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