[Sca-cooks] Helewyse's last feast

[Johnna Holloway]

Here is the feast report for Baroness Helewyse's feast last weekend.

Johnnae

I did my fourth ever SCA feast this weekend at one of our small local  
events (Pounce).  To make matters more complicated while working at a  
temp job on Tuesday I fell off a ladder and jammed my shoulder, this  
meant, limited ability to lift, carry, roll, etc (in fact do anything  
that used the shoulder). Thank heaven for willing friends, students  
and ex-apprenti.
Lady Vashty bat Abraham - who helped me make over 100 wafers on  
Thursday, and the ginger drink, then helped me shop, tote, load my car  
and set the pavillion up on site
Master Giles fitz Alan - who came to help out with prep, cooking and  
service along with his charming partner
Faoileann - who also helped majorly with prep and kept the kitchen  
clean and the dishes to a minimum.
Lord Godfrey Thacker of Northumberland - helped with some of the prep  
on Saturday, then served as expediter for the feast, he also mopped  
the kitchen on Sunday.
Lady Magrat - another splendid expeditor, she also helped out a lot  
with cleanup after.
Lord Yoseph - My hall steward, organized the servers so that everyone  
got everything, and made sure that all servers helped with clean up  
and dishes too. It was so nice not to have to struggle for help after  
feast.

The meal served was as follows (with commentary after each dish).

First course:
Green salad - This took more time to plate than it did to make, baby  
green mix with a oil and vinegar dressing, total no-brainer.  We only  
served 2.5lb of salad to 80 people and I was still throwing it away,  
2lb next time.

Fresh melon - I hit the local farm market and picked up local  
watermelon and musk melons, these were cut by 12 on Saturday (cheap  
too).  There was one 9x13 pan of this left after feast.  But it was so  
cheap that I'm not sure it was a huge waste.

Stuffed eggs - these were boiled on Friday night, peeled on Sat am,  
then stuffed and plated around 5pm so they were ready to go with the  
service.  These were popular, what few were left after service were  
quickly grabbed up and made off with.

Salmon pie - I made pastry on friday am, and smoked the salmon in my  
stovetop smoker.  On site Vashty rolled out the dough (apparently  
rolling dough makes my shoulder hurt) and then blind baked the  
crusts.  The filling was mixed (parmesan and ricotta cheese, eggs,  
marjoram, mint, ginger, cinnamon and black pepper), put into the tart  
shells and these were baked.  The fridge had plenty of space (with a  
little re-organization) and these were put in to chill.  Sat am. the  
tarts were taken out of the pans, sliced and then wrapped.  All ready  
to go for service. This was the first time I had ever served fish at a  
feast, I bought a little under 7lb and it made enough pies for 1/6th  
of a pie/person.  About 40% of the pie came back.  I got feed back,  
those who liked fish and ate fish loved it.  Some who tried it said it  
was good, but not their favorite dish. And then of course there are  
the people who just don't eat fish.  Given the chance to do it over I  
would probably cook about 8 pies (instead of 13), cut them into 10  
pieces a pie and just let people know that there are some extras.   
However, I only ended up with 2 pies myself, the rest got bagged up by  
servers/feasters and taken home.  All in all I'm not unhappy with how  
it went.

Orange sauce - made on Thursday,orange and lemon juice with sugar.   
Simple renaissance sauce, meant to be eaten with the fish pie, but  
many people weren't sure where it belonged, I have a quart of it in  
the fridge.

Bread of milk and sugar - Made on Wednesday, and frozen, I had to have  
my husband help me with the rolling out bit, again shoulder did not  
care for it.  It all went away, people like it.

Second course
Sauteed squash - thank heavens for new world foods in renaissance  
cuisine, butternut squash (4 giant ones for $4 at the farmers mkt)  
cubed, parboiled for 5 minutes then sauteed expertly by Giles on a  
newly scrubbed flat top grill with lots of butter.  Thats it.  What is  
amazing is the number of people who want to know what you did with the  
squash that made it so good.  No leftovers.

Roman maccaroni (locally called weezi mac) - commercial noodles cooked  
and layered with cheese, sugar and cinnamon.  I probably could have  
got away with only 5lb dried noodles instead of the 7lb I used.  The  
almost wo 9x13 pans leftover rapidly disappeared in ziplocs to servers  
etc. No leftovers for me.

Roast beef - giles butchered the sirloin removing all of the nasty  
gristle that this cut often had, resulting in 6 x 5lb roasts.  I was  
lucky in that there was a butchering place across the road that gave  
me some twine so I could tie them up.  I had originally intended the  
roasts to be in the oven at 5pm but in the end they didn't go in until  
nearly 5.30 and didn't come out until 6.45, but fortunately court ran  
over so we were fine.  They were pulled between 120-125 and got  
rested, so they were medium rare when sliced, but after sitting in  
pans before being plated they went to medium, they were still juicy  
and edible (thank goodness) next time I may pull ealier, that much  
mass of meat can hold a lot of heat.  Given the amount of meat left  
over I could probably have got away with buying either 3 smaller  
roasts or 2 larger ones.  Again though the servers were happy to take  
stuff home leaving me with a scant 1lb.

Onions cooked under the roasts - these were simply quartered and  
served as the bed on which the beef roasted, I bought 20lb and used  
15lb, this should have been reduced to 10lb.  I have about 7lb of  
roast onions in the fridge right now.  On the plus side I also have  
two quarts of the most amazing pan juice.

Sweet mustard - went over well, I had a little leftover.

Third course
Wafers - made by me and Vashty on Thursday, all gone

Pears cooked in wine syrup - canned over two weeks ago, we used four  
quarts, two quarts were unopened and not used and there was about a  
quart left over after people grabbed them.  I don't mind the canned  
pears will keep and as the only thing the feast budget paid for was  
the sugar and some of the wine (it was supplemented from my stocks) I  
don't feel bad.
Snow - I made an error and did not pack a big bowl to whip the snow  
in, but it came to peaks finally and went out with service.  There was  
a little left over after feast, but this was eaten with bread for  
breakfast on Sunday by a couple of people.

Overall impression - Probably one of my best organized feasts, I kept  
it simpler than normal, tried to plan ahead and make as much stuff in  
advance as possible.  This kept food prep and cooking on the day to  
minimal, and also made for a less stressful kitchen. The feasters as a  
whole enjoyed everything (the exception being the salmon pie) and left  
the table satisfied.  There were still a few overestimations in the  
amount of food needed per person, but nowhere near the amount of  
leftovers as compared to some of my earlier attempts. Having a few,  
highly qualified, self motivated staff was sufficient and goes to show  
how well a feast can run if you plan appropriately. There were no  
disasters, all the ovens and facilities worked as advertised, the only  
spanner in the work was my dodgy shoulder which let me know on Sunday  
that I had overdone it the day before.

Helewyse