[Sca-cooks] First feast menu

[Spices at Spicewells]

Best wishes for an easy day!
I would suggest that you take a project planning approach to your cooking day, 
if you don't already.  Meaning, look at what time you want to serve each 
course.  Then, backtime the dish to determine when you should start cooking it.  
For example, in course 1, you want to serve at 6 PM.  The ham takes three hours 
to cook.  Add another half hour to rest it and then plate, because it's fussy 
and you have to slice it.  So, at the latest, the ham would need to go into the 
2:30.  Let's say the beans need 6 hours to cook.  They need to go in by 11 AM.  
Schedule a 4 PM break  for yourself.  Take a sandwich for that break.  

Also, you want your more exotic foods toward the front, so people are hungrier 
and willing to give it a try.
These following ideas are just ideas.  Your Mileage May Vary.

Course 1 could be served entirely cold and on the table when your guests 
arrive.  To do this easily, have guests come in about 4:30, set their places and 
then by 5 lock them back out of the dining hall.  Then, equip your tables with 
the items you want them to have immediate access to.

Plan to serve course 2 about a half hour later.  
With the saffron rice, in course two, you could probably skip bread in that 
course.  You might also want to skip the pickled and raw veg.  If you have 
vegetarians you're trying to supply, serve the accompaniments for the chicken or 
salmon on the side, so it could be added to the rice.  Or, instead of raw and 
pickled items, I might suggest a hot veg in course two.  Or even some sort of 
eggplant dish or summer squash dish could be fairly hearty.
Plan course 3 45-minutes after that.

Keep in mind people have allergies.  Nuts, wheat, dairy, mushrooms, seafood, 
milk and eggs are the big ones.  Consider dropping the almonds out of the 
chicken dish.  Or just make a nice simple roast chicken that you can serve cold 
with sea salt.
You could drop the chicken dish in course 2 all together.  You have a lot of 
meat in your menu.  It would be all right.

One idea... 
Course 1 (on the table) could become:
Moretum
Breads
Tarte de Bry
Honey Glazed Ham with Prune Sauce or Lombard Mustard
Salad of Fragrant Greens

Course 2
Cazuela de salmon- Salmon baked with Pine Nuts, Raisins & Herbs
Roasted Asparagus
Saffron Rice Pilaf
Pickled and raw vegetables

Course 3
Lihammurakipperas - Finnish Meatloaf
Viaunde of Cypress Ryalle - Chicken with a sauce of Currants, Almonds, Honey, 
Mace & Ginger or simply roasted chicken
Spring Peas
Potage of White Beans & Leeks

Dessert
Almond Macaroons 
Gesufel Hlaf - Spice Loaf with cream
Fresh fruit

Best wishes!  You have good ideas.  Enjoy yourself!
Caitriona
Shattered Crystal
Midrealm


________________________________
From: "tudorpot at gmail.com" <tudorpot at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Mon, May 2, 2011 9:06:48 AM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] First feast menu

Here is my very first feast menu. I am serving 64 on the first weekend in June. 
As a newbie to cooking feast, I didn't have time- planning started in March, to 
make this a themed feast or have each dish documented/researched. I am doing a 
lot of work learning how to plan, prepare and present a feast. I hope if all 
goes well, to be able in the future to be able to create a documented, themed 
feast. But we all must start somewhere. Without this list and Stefan's 
florilegium and some books on loan to me, I would be lost.

Due to some feedback, I have had to move items between courses. The concern I 
have is that there are now two items with dried fruit in the second course. I 
need to serve a cold chicken dish in the second course due to very limited 
cooking facilities on site. I was thinking of not putting raisins in the salmon 
dish or finding another cold chicken dish to serve. I have already purchased the 
pine nuts for the salmon dish, so would prefer not to change it.
I would have like to set this up with four courses, but I am told by my local 
group that people here would find four courses too long. It will probably be 
served as four courses, salad, bread, soup - then the ham, tart and meatloaves, 
then move on to second and third courses.
The theme of the event is Arthurian- Last days of Camelot.

*First Course*
Potage of White Beans & Leeks
Salad of Fragrant Greens
Moretum
Breads
Tarte de Bry
Honey Glazed Ham with Prune Sauce or Lombard Mustard
Lihammurakipperas - Finnish Meatloaf
Roasted Asparagus

*Second Course*
Cazuela de salmon- Salmon baked with Pine Nuts, Raisins & Herbs
Viaunde of Cypress Ryalle - Chicken with a sauce of Currants, Almonds, Honey, 
Mace & Ginger
Saffron Rice Pilaf
Spring Peas
Pickled and raw vegetables
Breads

*Third Course*
Almond Macaroons
Gesufel Hlaf - Spice Loaf with cream
Fresh fruit


Theadora
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