[Sca-cooks] Field Kitchens for Feasts was Re: Camp kitchen feast was: Re: Camp cooking challenge

[Karstyl]

Thank you, this does help.  I am reasonably confidant that I will be 
able to do this, but I am always a bit nervous that I might be 
forgetting something, or their might be some issue that I did not think 
of.  I will have several grills, and a couple of burners, a smoker, and 
a small 'cook shack' but I will be making a feast for 80.  We also have 
water, not sure about the hot water (I think we have hot water, but I 
have not gotten the full site tour yet.) And we have electricity, but I 
don't want to overload the breaker so I am not planning on over-using it.

I might be more nervous because I have had to do a feast using a dorm 
kitchen and it was a very annoying one to do, even with pre-cooking and 
crockpots.

-Hrefna



euriol wrote:
> I like to refer to the type of kitchen I had as a "field kitchen" because I
> took more precautions than I would if it was just me cooking for my family
> at camp. You have to take into consideration all the "food safety"
> guidelines you would with any feast.
> 
> Pre-cooking as much as possible is always highly advisable.
> 
> A couple of the things I focused on was:
> 
> I kept the recipes simple. All the meats were simply seasons with salt and
> black pepper prior to grilling.
> 
> I tried to make the best use of conservatively using the serving ware.
> Meats and the accompany side dishes were served on the same platter. Which
> I like for the presentation. For those with known allergies, servings were
> made separately to accomodate their needs.
> 
> The most complicated dish was a deep fried filled pastry (made with won-ton
> wrappers), this was served as part of the appetizers to limit the quanity
> that had to be deep fried. These were deep fried on a skillet on a propane
> stove.
> 
> I had a couple of people who managed the grills (they just love grilling at
> home). The meat was served hot off the grills, so although some tables got
> served a few minutes later than others, they got the meat hot. (Did I
> mention this was all served outside on picnic tables?)
> 
> We kept a stock pot going with hot water in it so we could clean dishes as
> necessary.
> 
> I would also like to add that the teenagers in my Barony were completely
> AWESOME the night of this feast. Not only did they do all the serving, but
> they cleaned up all the dishes and packed the kitchen!!!! (with one of the
> mom's keeping an eye on the process).
> 
> I did insist from the autocrat the use of a gazebo that was on site. Last
> year we tried to do it in one of those 10'x20' portable garages. A storm
> came through last year that had 7 of the 8 kitchen staff holding onto the
> poles as one continued to cook. I didn't want to have to worry about sudden
> gusts of wind this year.
> 
> If you have access to some electricity, make sure you know how many
> electric appliances you can use at a time without constantly tripping the
> breaker.
> 
> Euriol
> 
> On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:31:08 -0400, Karstyl <karstyl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I would love to see the menu. I might be doing something similar in the 
>> fall, so any insights on how the camp kitchen feast worked (or didn't) 
>> would be a big help.
>>
>> So far my plans include doing as much pre-cooking as possible, but I am 
>> still in the early planning stages.
>>
>> -Hrefna
>>
>> Euriol of Lothian wrote:
>>> The end of last month I cooked an entire feast on 5 propane grills, a
>>> couple
>>> with side burners. All the recipes that I redacted were inspired from
>>> Spanish sources.
>>> If anyone is interested I could share the menu.
>>>
>>> Euriol
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: sca-cooks-bounces+euriol=ptd.net at lists.ansteorra.org
>>> [mailto:sca-cooks-bounces+euriol=ptd.net at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf
>>> Of
>>> Bronwynmgn at aol.com
>>> Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 8:08 AM
>>> To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>>> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Camp cooking challenge
>>>
>>> I think we all probably like to cook period food in camp, and a lot of
> us
>>> like to cook over the fire as well.  But given the fact that
> Pennsylvania
>>> is
>>>
>>> being unusually rainy so far this summer (at least in Central and
> Eastern
>>> PA), outdoor cooking at Pennsic might be iffy.
>>>  
>>> So I had a rather selfish thought (because I plan to mine this thread
> for
>>> ideas for our own camp's meal planning):
>>>  
>>> Can we come up with a meal or even a single dish that would be able to 
>>> either be cooked outside on the fire or cooked inside on a camp stove or
>>> two
>>> in 
>>> the same form?
>>>  
>>> Or, a meal that could be cooked on the fire and an alternate meal
>>> involving
>>> the same main ingredients (primarily the perishable ones) that could be 
>>> cooked on the camp stove indoors if it happened to be raining that day?
>>>  
>>> As an example, Drye Stewe for Beef in a dutch oven in the fire pit
> (beef,
>>> onions, pepper, mace, cloves, red wine) could easily turn into a period 
>>> soup/stew on the camp stove by adding some broth or water to the wine,
>>> cutting up 
>>> the meat, changing the spices slightly, and maybe adding some vinegar or
> 
>>> bread crumb thickening, etc (I don't have a specific named dish in mind,
>>> but
>>>
>>> it's probably close to a Bukenade.)
>>>  
>>>  
>>> Brangwayna Morgan
>>> Shire of Silver Rylle, East Kingdom
>>> Lancaster, PA
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