[Sca-cooks] First Feast Execution was Calontir's Jubliee Celebration
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at att.net
Thu Mar 5 09:43:33 PST 2009
The first thing to understand is a feast is not about recipes and cooking.
It is an exercise in planning and logistics. An average meal on time and in
good order is worth more than the grandest feast executed in a ragged and
haphazard manner. At the same time, the food can't be badly prepared. Bad
cooking is bad cooking and it will cause any feast to fail.
The first thing to do is to know the hall and the kitchen. You need to know
the size of the hall, the type and sizes of tables and charis available.
You need to know what kind of cooking the kitchen will support and how many
people you can use without getting in each others way. From this
information, plan the layout of the hall including access control and
service flow. Layout and acoustics will largely dictate the type of
entertainment, if any. Use your knowledge of the kitchen to plan the menu
and preparation. Something that should be done, that I often neglect, is to
write down the information including menu and recipes and make sure copies
get to the site.
Plan for the kitchen equipment to fail. The worst feast I have ever
presented occurred when four ovens failed in the three hours before the
feast and I didn't have some charcoal and a couple of grills packed away to
cook the chickens. A successful feast often has a belt and suspenders
approach to execution.
Do not hesitate to ask for help. Listen to all ideas and be willing to
incorporate any that will improve what you are offering. Take command of
your endeavor. Make sure the autocrat, seneschal, B&B, etc. know the limits
and parameters in advance and make them agree and adhere to the plan. This
tends to put a kibosh on the whole, "we need to add 50 people to the feast
three hours before it goes on the table" schtick, especially if the autocrat
believes you're willing to hand them the spoon and apron anytime the
autocrat breaks the agreement.
Read the Florilegium. And of course, join this list and ask for help.
Bear
> All of which begs tht question that needs to be revisited every year-what
> should the First Time Head Cook do, when awarded the Feast?
> Besides joining this list and asking lots of questions <G>
>
> Helen
> Asking for others who are even newer then I am at this Head business....
>
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list