[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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