[Sca-cooks] fancy feasts

[Stefan li Rous]

Cailte asked:
<<< we have had off since dec 23 and go back on jan 5.  starting to get
a bit bored, even with prepping a menu for a cooks' feast event in
the barony.  four or five of the (considered) best cooks in the
barony, each does a course, whatever you want, and one of them known
for baking, will do a dessert buffet with desserts requested by the
invidual cooks.

question is, how much would you pay for a five course feast
concocted by some of the best local cooks?  not the autocrat, but
curious what other folks might think the going rate is.   ;) >>>

I remember my barony doing something similar for our 25th anniversary  
event or some such, where different cooks were cooking a baronial  
favorite for each course. I don't remember the price being any higher  
or any of the other logistics though.

I remember the feast that I flew up to the East Kingdom and helped  
with, that Adamantius did seemed pretty fancy to me, compared to what  
I was used to.

While prices vary over time and from region to region, so these  
reviews might not help, I think some of the feast reviews in the  
FEASTS section of the Florilegium might be useful for ideas. Here are  
a few which come to mind:

Good-Fd-Feast-art (26K)  3/30/98    Description of a fancy feast done  
in Lochac.
Just-a-Feast-art  (32K) 11/ 2/03    "Just a Feast" by Lady Katherine  
Rowberd. An
                                        SCA event organised around  
just a feast.
Tavern-Feast-art  (14K)  1/13/99    An all-day tavern-style feast.
   (an all day feast like this one, with gaps between the courses  
might ease the logistics of coordinating a bunch of different  
headcooks and kitchen facilities and clean pots and serving utensils  
etc.)

I like your idea of doing the handwashing if you've got the  
manpower.  This is something which hasn't seemed to have caught on in  
Ansteorra. It sounds like you've done this before, but just in case  
you haven't or in case others might be interested, I recommend this  
article by Mistress Jadwiga.
Handwashing-art   (22K)  2/24/02    "Scented Handwaters For Feasts and
                                        Dayboards" by Jadwiga Zajaczkowa

One thing that can dramatically affect the individual cost of a feast  
is the number of people being comped the feast. At our last event I  
was working gate and it sounded like they were comping 16 or 18  
people by the time you added up all the various champions, the King  
and Queen, the Prince and Princess, a retainer for each, the Baron  
and Baroness, the headcook and the event steward. The feast was  
limited to only 100 paying people. However, it was eventually made  
clear that only the site fee was being comped and not the feast fee.   
I was still a bit concerned even then since the event was only  
expected to have 200 attendees. Luckily the count was actually closer  
to 400 and the event made a significant profit.

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 ****