[Sca-cooks] Vegetarian & Vegans was Re: lethal drinks

[Lilinah]

I hesitated to jump in, because i've said most of this before, but, 
well, here i am.

VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS

I was a vegetarian back in the late 60s and early 70s, and i still 
don't eat a lot of meat.

My daughter, all on her own, gradually became a vegetarian, starting 
when she was fairly little, around 10 (she'll be 28 this year). She 
began by eliminating beef, of which she was never fond, and lamb, 
which made her gag - i'm not fond of the flavor, but at least i'm not 
that sensitive to it. I raised her to at least taste everything, so 
eating other things was not a problem. In the next couple years she 
eliminated pork and fowl, and then all fish and seafood. By the time 
she was 12 she was vegetarian (i.e. includes eggs and dairy, excludes 
flesh). She said it made her feel better. She still wore (and wears) 
leather and silk. In the last year or two she added fish and seafood 
back into her diet (i.e. pescatarian), but still doesn't eat it often.

I'm in NoCal and we have some vegetarians at feasts. I'm happy to 
cook so they can eat. It's easy. I just use a rich flavored vegetable 
broth in non-meat dishes that call for meat broth. So they can 
generally eat everything except the meat. Simple. I've never had any 
expect special treatment, in fact they are often thrilled to find 
they can eat the feast!

I do not cater to vegans (no fish, no eggs, no dairy, and usually no 
honey), as that is difficult to do with Medieval/Renaissance recipes, 
unless it's Lent, and that's only, what? 40 days a year? I've never 
had one contact me, so i don't yet have a reason to prepare purely 
vegan dishes for one or two, on the off change a vegan will show up.

ALLERGIES

As for allergies, my first feast had almonds in a huge percentage of 
recipes (i love almonds :-). I can only hope no diners had almond 
allergies. I realized what i'd done on the evening of the feast. Now 
i just plan a feast so that common allergens are usually not featured 
in more than one dish per course. AND i keep a hawk eye on my cooks 
so that there's no cross-contamination. By autocrat request, i have 
made feasts that were light on gluten - not gluten free, but those 
with celiac disease could at least eat some of the grain dishes.

As for allowing those with allergies to have a few clues, i print up 
"menus" for every diner that list all the ingredients in each dish, 
so people can figure it out for themselves. (i'm in a college town 
and photocopying is cheap - usually only 3 cents/person.) This is 
becoming fairly standard practice here in the "Central West".

I have always requested that potential diners with food issues 
contact me before a feast, but hardly any ever have.

Only one Principality feast was tricky. I planned a Greco-Roman 
feast. Then not long beforehand i discovered that the Prince kinda 
kept kosher (so no dairy and meat together); the Princess did not, 
but was deathly allergic to nuts and honey (and honey was in nearly 
every dish); and there were the usual vegetarians and some people 
with fish allergies (and fish sauce was in nearly every dish).

So i added a non-pork meat dish into a course featuring ham. Then 
on-site i had the cooks make every dish up to a certain point, 
leaving out the honey, nuts, dairy, and fish sauce. Then we separated 
out a serving for the Prince w/o dairy (but added everything else), a 
serving for the Princess w/o nuts or honey (but added everything 
else), and one table's worth for the vegetarians and fish-allergics 
w/o fish sauce (but with soy sauce for flavor, and added everything 
else). Then everyone else got all their food with everything.

I figured that there would be about a table's worth of vegetarians 
and fish-allergics (i.e. 8 diners), and i knew they would not all be 
sitting together. So made sure i had a sharp person as their server 
who'd remember where they were.

It required some planning but was not difficult. I still only made 
one feast, not a whole bunch of tiny servings of special dishes.

RESERVATIONS

When i joined the SCA 9 years ago, people almost never reserved 
tickets for feasts. They just showed up. The Feast Cook had to assume 
a certain number of diners based on how many came the previous year. 
But a couple years ago, for financial reasons, we began limiting 
feasts to 60 paying diners (royalty being comped theirs) and that 
meant people really had to reserve a place. We still don't always 
require the money ahead of time, and if someone doesn't show, then 
someone else can get a place. This is only a problem when feasts are 
during bad weather season - some folks who didn't pay don't show, and 
often there are no others to take their places.

That happened to me last fall. More than 60 people requested tickets, 
so at the autocrat's request, i planned to serve about 72+Royalty. 
Then the day of the event, the weather sucked - we had only about 48 
paying diners... Fortunately i planned a more modest feast than is my 
usual - anticipating this problem during rainy season, and we still 
made money on the feast. We just tossed out the extra noodles and 
bulghur.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

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