[Sca-cooks] 14th Century French Feast in January

Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Mon Dec 7 23:01:02 PST 2009


Baroness Bebhinn asked:

<<< I am new to this list, but I have a question for you all.>>>

Welcome to SCA-Cooks!

<<<  I am doing a feast in january for the 25th anniversary of my  
Barony as well as the investiture of the new baron and Bariness.? It  
is a once in a lifetime feast.? It also happens to be my first.? I  
have cooked for approx 60 before, but I will be cooking for 160 this  
time and I just wanted to know if anyone had any tips for me that  
might make my time of it a little easier >>>

What are your kitchen and hall facilities like? Or is this being done  
outside with almost no facilities and the running water coming from a  
hose? What is does your current menu look like? Are you pre-cooking  
some of it? Or doing all of it the day of the feast? These kinds of  
answers will help us advise you better.

<<< My biggest problem is planning and timing.? Any tips?? >>>

We have had various discussions on this before. I have tried to  
capture much of these comments as either files of messages or articles  
in the FEASTS and other food sections of the Florilegium. If you've  
never been there, the address is given in my signature line below.

Here are a few that specifically come to mind:

This one has a bunch of short comments and things to keep an eye on  
from members of this list:
kitchen-tips-msg  (22K) 11/ 4/08  Practical, short kitchen tips for  
SCA feasts

A lot of cooking successfully for large feasts has as much to do with  
logistics and leadership as cooking.
headcooks-msg    (180K) 10/ 9/08  Advice for SCA headcooks. Planning  
feasts.
Run-a-Feast-art   (14K) 11/ 2/98  "About Running a Feast" by Minna  
Gantz.
bread-for-fsts-msg (42K) 5/15/06    Baking and buying bread for SCA  
feasts.
child-kitchen-msg (25K) 11/22/00    Having children in the kitchen  
during feast preperation.
fd-kitch-staf-msg  (8K) 10/23/08  Feeding your kitchen staff.
Food-Safety-art   (12K)  7/27/09  "Food Safety in the SCA" by Lady  
Avelyn Grene.
Fst-Menus-art     (11K)  8/22/04  "On Rules for Feast Menus" by Lord  
Daniel Raoul le Vascon du Navarre.
kitch-toolbox-msg  (8K) 11/30/02  Suggested items to put in a kitchen  
toolbox.
kitchen-clean-msg (16K)  5/26/08  Cleaning the kitchen after an SCA  
event.
kitchen-knives-msg (36K) 4/21/08  Kitchen knives for the modern  
kitchen and feast preparation, Knife care.

practice-fsts-msg  (7K)  2/14/01  Using practice feasts.
   Good comments on what you can learn from doing a practice feast of  
your menu. You may be running out of time to do this, however.

Good files for your head server and server crew:
Servng-Roylty-art (10K)  1/ 1/06  "When Royalty Graces Your Head  
Table" by
Dame Alys Katharine, O.L., O.P.
high-table-msg    (38K)  7/21/07  Setting up and serving the High Table.
servng-drinks-msg (14K)  8/30/07  Serving drinks and beverages at SCA  
feasts.
serving-soups-msg (18K)  4/14/07  Serving soups at SCA feasts.
feast-serving-msg (134K) 2/24/08  Ideas for serving feasts. How to  
organize.
feast-seatng-msg   (6K) 11/28/09  Comments on seating at feasts.  
Seating charts.

There are also a number of reviews of different feasts including  
comments about what the headcooks would do differently next time. But  
I wouldn't try to recommend any specific ones of these without knowing  
more details about what you already have planned.

I hope this helps.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****




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