[Sca-cooks] pot luck feasts

[Stefan li Rous]

Dyonisia Buleheued asked:
<<< I am looking for some direction in preparing my first feast.
We are looking at doing a pot luck meal with us providing 1 or 2 mains, 1 side, bread, dessert, and drink.
Has anyone done this before?
How do you make sure that no one repeats the same items that they bring.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. >>>

Over the years, we have discussed pot luck meals numerous times.

It has become traditional in my own barony, that the group provides several types of sliced meats and everyone else brings various vegetable, additional main dishes and desserts. Are you talking about the group providing all those items? If so, where is the pot luck portion? Or do you mean individuals providing items in all of those categories? If the latter, we have sometimes said people with last names from A-H provide main courses. People with last names from I-N provide vegetable dishes, etc.

Sometimes having multiple people bringing the same dish, results in some competition, such as in who can produce the best "cheese goo".
cheese-goo-msg (44K) 10/31/06 Digby's Savory Tosted cheese. melted cheese.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-DAIRY/cheese-goo-msg.html

We do request that folks consider making period dishes, but it isn't a requirement.

To help folks who aren't confident of their cooking or who are new to period cooking, we sometimes point to various resources, such as the various food sections in the Florilegium such as these in the FOOD section:
DYKIP-Food-art (10K) 5/29/09 "Did You Know It's Period? - Modern Medieval
Food" by HL Rowan Houndskeeper.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/DYKIP-Food-art.html

DYKIP-Frid-Fd-art (18K) 7/ 4/09 "Did You Know it's Period? Part 4: Fried
Foods" by HL Rowan Houndskeeper.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/DYKIP-Frid-Fd-art.html

DYKIP-Pies-art (16K) 7/ 5/09 "Did You Know it's Period? Part 5: Simple
Simon's Pies" by HL Rowan Houndskeeper.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/DYKIP-Pies-art.html

DYKIP-Startrs-art (16K) 10/31/09 "Did You Know it's Period? Part 6: Starters
and Appetizers" by HL Rowan Houndskeeper.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/DYKIP-Startrs-art.html

DYKIP-Sweets-art (18K) 6/11/09 "Did You Know it's Period? Part 3: Satisfying
Your Sweet Tooth" by HL Rowan Houndskeeper.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/DYKIP-Sweets-art.html

DYKIP-Veg-Frt-art (14K) 6/ 2/09 "Did You Know It's Period? Part 2 - Vegetables
and Fruits" by HL Rowan Houndskeeper.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/DYKIP-Veg-Frt-art.html

easy-p-recip-msg (12K) 3/ 7/10 Some easy period recipes. Ideal for new
cooks or for cooks new to period cooking.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/easy-p-recip-msg.html

pot-lck-ideas-msg (20K) 3/24/09 Menu ideas for pot luck feasts and revels.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/pot-lck-ideas-msg.html

We also sometimes provide a list of period or period-like things that can be picked up at the local grocery such as breads or wafers or pepperoni or other similar preserved meats.

Here are a few for you, since you are organizing things:
pot-luck-fsts-msg (20K) 7/16/02 Handling 'pot luck' feasts in the SCA.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FEASTS/pot-luck-fsts-msg.html

There are lots of other good files in the Florilegium that include multiple recipes and often, multiple redactions for specific types of dishes. Redactions are recipes translated from period recipe style to a more modern phrasing including measurements, which modern cooks are more comfortable with.

If you let it be a mad rush to the serving lines, what usually happens is the first third get lots of the best dishes and plenty of food, the middle third gets some of the best dishes and enough food, while the last third gets little or none of the best dishes and sometimes go way hungry. Various good ideas to solve this have been discussed here, but I can't remember if they are in the above file on in this one:
feast-serving-msg (134K) 2/24/08 Ideas for serving feasts. How to organize.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FEASTS/feast-serving-msg.html

I hope this helps. I can provide examples of more specific files if I know a bit more about about you have in mind.
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****