[Sca-cooks] newbee cook attempting feast for the first time in december

Jenn Strobel jenn.strobel at gmail.com
Fri Jun 5 07:12:21 PDT 2009


Elisande,

It sounds like you have a large, pleasant task in front of you with
re-activating your Shire and cooking your first feast.

When I am calculating the amount of food to cook for people, I use
slightly modified catering ratios.  Using the number of adults, add up
all of the protein in the meal (all forms of protein including nuts,
cheese, etc) and make sure that each diner gets about 1/2 lb.  Only
use adults for this estimate as the amounts eaten by children are
usually absorbed in this calculation.

Catering ratios usually say to only allow for 1/4 lb of protein per
diner, but since we have a percentage of people that are engaged in
significant physical activity during the day, I want to allow for that
in my estimates.

Vegetables should come in about 1/3 cup or more per person.
Starches (bread, rice, etc) should come in at about 2/3 cup per person.

I tend to throw everything away when it comes to drinks as I make sure
that cold water is available all day and then I plan something special
for feast (typically some kind of juice) and estimate about 12 oz per
person and everyone gets at least a glass of whatever it is and then
it's back to water.  This is done for cost reasons, pure and simple.

Your plan to do several smaller dishes is how I prefer to plan feasts
and it does work out very well.  People get a little bit of several
different things rather than two or three dishes made in massive
portions.

I hope that this is helpful to you.

Keep us apprised of how things go with your planning.  It sounds like
you're going to be just fine and have a great time doing it.

Odriana

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 7:22 AM, brooke white
<traumspindel at googlemail.com> wrote:
> good and most gentle of ladies,
> please let me, Elisande Walters from the shire of Drei Eichen in the
> glorious realm of Drachenwald, express my gratitude about being able to post
> on this list. I am sure you have hosted a great many successful feasts one
> way or the other. Our shire was formerly a barony and we are currently
> *reactivating* the group, but what we bear, is the great footsteps, without
> people to sublement them with experience. Thus, it will be our first feast,
> when we are going to host an event with royal presence on the first weekend
> of december this year (called the Dragon in Winter).
>
> NOW; I have been called a great cook, numerous times when it comes to
> contemporary cooking but I have little experience with period food though
> lots of *cooking*knowledge. So, apart from the dificulty to identify these
> *yummy* recipes (here the meat is often dry and the flavors don't usually
> compelment each other but mostly I think that is due to financial concerns
> and bad cooking choices like making *broiled meat and not serving it on
> time) I have to deal with the following problem:
>
> HOW DOES ONE ASSESS THE AMOUNTS OF EACH DISH.
>
> Is it really sensible to make *1* per person? how much such *each person*
> have per meal? I find that my old cooking infos usually overdo it these
> estimates. Ususally because the servings are considered to be part of a one
> course meal with maybe dessert. But I am feeding everybody the whole day,
> and IME the need for calorie intake depends on what you had during the day
> as well as on your activities. I did a fairly good estimate for 35 people
> over a weekend but that did NOT include a feast (we did a byob) now, I am
> dealing with a prospect of 60.
>
> Is there any rule of thumb? I was considering making more diverse dishes in
> smaller portions. but that might actually result in some people not getting
> some dishes which your survey pointed out as *difficult*.
>
> I would very much appreciate any advise on this matter. I am going to serve
> a big sotelties-cake from a modern recipe covered in blackened Marzipan so I
> know that nobody needs to go to bead hungry but I *of course* want to do it
> right , sigh. Thank you for any pointer to other resources or direct advise
> that you can give me
>
> Yours
> In service to the dream
> Elisande
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