[Sca-cooks] English Food

[Johnna Holloway]

Given costs these days, don't you want to choose your meats first and 
get those
prices locked in? What can you realistically afford in terms of two meats
on $6.00 per head. How many ounces per head? If the meal will be chicken
and something else, why not ask for chicken to start?

How many are you serving and when? Do you want a seasonal meal or are
you willing to mix spring dishes with fall ones? Where do you live and 
what will
be in season locally? What kind of kitchen will the site have and how 
complicated
a meal can be prepared onsite? Grills? Roasters? Cafeteria style?

There's several thousand medieval English recipes available. Browsing 
through
Hieatt & Butler or Austin would be a great start. You could read the new 
Peter Brears
book or check out the recipes indexed in the Concordance of English 
Recipes to see
what strikes your fancy. Hundreds of English medieval recipes have been 
redacted afterall,
and one can google recipe titles and find those redactions.
After 1500 and the start of printing, there are even more recipes added 
to the mix. Think
of all the Shakespearean dinners that have been done.

You ought to have enough time to choose your own menu and recipes and 
taste test it at home over the
next few weeks. What often appeals to one person may not be suitable for 
your event, costs, or kitchen
at this time. Hand raised pies of veal and ham are quite good but you 
may not be able to turn
out a hundred individual meat pies for this feast. Likewise you didn't 
mention hand baking the breads
and that could take several hours or possibly a couple days. Great 
salads if prepared properly are quite
spectacular but they too take time and a good selection of large 
platters. Sweets range from small cakes
to raised yeast cakes with fruit.

Hope this helps

Johnnae llyn Lewis


Barbara Benson wrote:
> Ciao!
>
> I am getting started in planning my next "feast" and it is going to be
> an English one. I have put the term "feast" in the scary quotes
> because it really isn't a feast. It is being billed as a "Tavern Meal"
> so that we can keep the cost at $6 a head. My intent is to serve 2
> meats, a couple of sides, a starch and a sweet all in one big course -
> Tavern Style.