[Sca-cooks] Helewyse's last feast

CHARLES POTTER basiliusphocas at hotmail.com
Wed Sep 23 09:58:57 PDT 2009


   This just looks wonderful!  Wished I could have been there!


                                 Master B

> From: johnnae at mac.com
> To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:39:08 -0400
> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Helewyse's last feast
> 
> 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
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