[Sca-cooks] Pennsic Camp Cooking

euriol euriol at ptd.net
Mon Aug 11 13:02:40 PDT 2008


I just got back from Pennsic late Saturday night and have caught up with
emails. (Luckily I could manage a lot of the daily traffic with my cell
phone). These past two weeks I was the meal plan coordinator for the West
Kingdom camp, cooking for about 11 the first week and 24 for the second
week. I know that other kingdoms/groups closer to Cooper's Lake have very
elaborate camp set ups, but the West Kingdom is slowly building its own set
of infrastructure just for Pennsic. It was quite challenging, since the
infrastructure I inherited was just two tables and a set of 4 benches from
the previous year. This year the new kitchen infrastructure include a steel
gazebo (which we called the kitchen pagoda), a 20 pound propane tank,
implements for washing dishes, a frying pan, two 8 quart stock pots,
glasses for 24, flatware for 24 (although some of the flatware was taken to
make ... I dare not say), kitchen utensils, two more tables and two sets of
plastic shelving. I brought 3 coolers, two coleman stoves to have 3
burners, and a 20 quart stock pot, plates & bowls for 24, and serving ware.
The logistics in cooking for 10-25 people 2 meals a day (breakfast &
dinner) were certainly a lot different than the logistics for feast
cooking. I was limited to how much food I could keep on hand on any given
day. Thus there were a number of grocery shopping trips that occured.

However, the fun part I had was making a variety of period inspired dishes
and watching everyone enjoy the food. I did have a couple of nights of
"modern" cuisine. So when I was asked if Chili Dogs were period, my
response was "Yes, to the 20th century".

Anyone else have Pennsic cooking experiences to share?

I am also pleased that all my classes appeared to be well attended at
Pennsic. If anyone on this list happened to attend any of my classes, I
would appreciate some feedback.

Euriol



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