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

[Deborah Hammons]

With all due respect to this learned list....
23 years ago at my first bardic, an entertainer sang a song about "proper"
feasts.  Since then I have heard the gist of the song in plain speak often
enough.  :-))  A pelican feast is good food, hot if it is supposed to be,
cold if it is supposed to be, served on time in copious amounts.  A laurel
feast is documentable food, inedible, served when all proper steps have been
taken, and luckily there is never enough to go around.  A knight feast is
brats and beer, served and cooked by someone else.

We have come SO far in the past 23 years.  Thank god.

Aldyth

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Terry Decker <t.d.decker at att.net> wrote:

> My personal rule of thumb for a feast is 12 dishes (in three courses) and
> roughly 4 ounces of each per person.  Of the 12 dishes, two or three will be
> some kind of meat and two will be bread.  One will be a sweet and the rest
> will be some kind of appropriate side, often vegetable or fruit based.  I
> try to establish a pleasing mix of tastes, texture and colors, with enough
> variation that both carnivores and vegetarians can eat and be satisfied. Yes
> this usually produces more food than can be eaten, but if the feast is break
> even or profitable, I'm not greatly concerned.
>
> As for advice, a great feast is more about logistics than cooking.  Good
> plain fare, served on time and and at temperature, is superior to the
> fanciest fare that doesn't quite make it to the table in good order.
>
> Bear
>
>
>
>  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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