[Sca-cooks] Affording a period feast

[Joel Lord]

On 9/20/2016 2:58 PM, Laura Minnick wrote:
> On 9/20/2016 10:05 AM, David Friedman wrote:
>> On 9/18/16 11:37 PM, Volker Bach wrote:
>>
>>> Most of our events could neither afford nor manage a period feast
>> Why "afford?" I don't see any reason why a period feast would have to 
>> be more expensive than a not-period feast. Some period recipes use 
>> expensive ingredients, some don't.
>>
>
> That's just what I thought. Unless you're serving generic brand canned 
> chili and kool-aid, there's no reason why a period feast would cost 
> more than the non-period food. I know I certainly don't spend more for 
> period food in camp than I would if it was all modern stuff. Prep 
> might be different, but not cost.
>
> And 'manage'? Why would that be any different?
>
> I really can't think of a decent reason why you shouldn't offer a 
> period feast.  Unless they're expecting canned chili, it's not like 
> the food is _that_ foreign. People would pay far more to get weirder 
> food, and less of it, in a nice restaurant setting.

I've now been either co-head cook or solo (just working on my first solo 
outing now) for 6 feasts, and as far as I know only 2 of them were not 
an attempt, on every single dish, to be period with it.  I think it 
*does* raise the price a bit, dish by dish, but not because "period food 
should or should not cost more".  I can't bulk out a period stew with 
potatoes, for example.  But that's an incremental difference, not a 
massive one.

HOWEVER, if the original intent of that statement was to talk about a 
real *period feast*, I will largely have to agree with it.  I'm working 
on a full-on Elizabethan immersion at the moment with a budget of 
$40/plate, and even that doesn't really do it.  Doing it right, I'd 
probably have 4 courses of 30 dishes each.  I couldn't fit that in the 
budget, and I wouldn't be able to crank out the food even if I had the 
money, and that both for facilities and personnel reasons.  I'm going to 
end up with more like 4 courses of 5 dishes each, and that's going to be 
very, very difficult.

Going further, take a read through Chiquart again.  That's two menus for 
ONE FEAST, depending on whether it landed on a feast or fast day.

Depending on which way you want to interpret this, "period feast" is 
either quite manageable, or very much not.

-- 
Joel of Vestfell
mka Joel Lord