Tips on Organizing a Successful Feast
Donna Serena da Riva
This
is not an article about food. What I mean by this is that I am not going to
discuss recipes or redacting, period vs. “peri-oid” or any such concepts. This
is about planning and organization, crafting a successful feast from planning
stage one. It would not have occurred to me to write such an article, but when
requested to do so I am happy to oblige. I do not believe that I am the holder
of the
When it comes to selecting a theme for a feast I have one primary opinion. Yes. The options available are endless. You can select a specific time period and place or you can select a Saint Day to celebrate. It can be fun and crazy or highly educational. Whatever you choose, choose something. This will provide a framework on which to base your feast. Otherwise it is possible to founder in the vast sea of possibilities and end up with an incoherent mish mash of dishes that do not hang together as a feast. I could go a great deal further in selecting foods that balance out with each other in taste, texture, ingredients, preparation methods… but I said No Food and I am going to stick with it. And were I to get into that we would be wandering into the realm of Zen and the Art of Feast Preparation according to Serena, which is beyond the scope of this article.
Five Points to Address with the Autocrat
You may have a feast theme already percolating when you approach/ are approached by an Autocrat; or an Autocrat may approach you with theme in tow. Either way will work fine, but know that this first encounter with an Autocrat is one of your first potential stumbling blocks on your path to a successful feast. Good communication here is Key. Have a serious discussion with the autocrat and hammer out all of the pertinent details. I have found that the perception of the roles and responsibilities of the Head Cook can vary from person to person within the same group – and from group to group can vary wildly. Here is what I tend to stick to, but remember be flexible if need be.
1) The Kitchen is
the domain of the Head Cook. Yes, there will be others that need to utilize the
kitchen facilities (including but not limited to: Traveler’s Fare, Breakfasts
and Luncheons) but negotiations for use of said facilities must go through the
Head Cook and not the Autocrat. All arrangements for use of kitchen facilities
must be made well in advance of the event. If someone arrives at
2) Feast count, here is a point on which you can be flexible. Work with the Autocrat to achieve a number that makes you both happy. Keep in mind that you do not want to cram as many people in the Hall possible. Even if you plan a perfect feast, if the patrons are crammed in with barely enough room to breath and the servers are bonking people in the heads with their trays – all anyone is going to remember is how crowded the hall was.
3) Feast Budget, yet another negotiation. This will be based on the type of event and the type of feast that the Autocrat desires. One thing to consider is economy of scale, meaning that for $5 a head you might be able to feed 150 – 200 people a specific feast. But to prepare that same feast for 100 or less you will need $5.25 or $5.50 a head. When purchasing food in bulk there is a point where things become much cheaper because of volume, 100 is usually below that cutoff. Another thing to be aware of is the difference between “Food Budget” and “Feast Budget”. The Food Budget is the amount of money budgeted for all of the food to be prepared at the event. Believe me, it is quite a surprise when one is working with the assumption that the Feast Budget is $6.50 per head and then find out that number is actually the Food Budget. The reality is that the numbers are $6.50 minus $.50 for Traveler’s Fare and $1.50 for the two breakfasts which leaves you with $4.50 per head for feast.
4) Staffing the feast. In addition to the good gentles that you convince to assist you in the kitchen there are other staff requirements. Some Head Cooks prefer to control these other aspects themselves, some do not. It is important to make clear who is responsible for recruiting the Hall Steward, Servers and Clean-Up Crew. If both the Autocrat and Head Cook are doing so, things can get bad. If neither do so, it is even worse. A secondary point within this point (point 4.1 if you will) make clear the responsibilities of the Hall Steward. I prefer to select my own Hall Steward, and that person is the Feast Hall Steward, not the Site Steward. My Feast Hall Steward is responsible for working with me to ensure that the Hall is set up properly for feast and for managing the service of the food. This person does not set up chairs for court, nor do they arrange to have tables hauled down to the Children’s Cabin for activities. It is important to have someone to do those things, just not my Feast Hall Steward.
5) Arrange for a site visit. This point doesn’t really fit in with the others, but it does make a nice segue way to the next item to be addressed. And I do not like lists with an even number of points.
Equipment Survey: Take Stock of your Domain
From the moment you begin selecting recipes you should be thinking about not only how the food will taste, but also how you are going to prepare, hold and serve it to the patrons. To do this one must have a thorough understanding of the capacity and capabilities of the site kitchen. And to have this understanding you must visit the site if at all possible. Take note of the number of ovens, burners, refrigerators and freezers. Evaluate the condition and availability of the site’s pots, pans (especially sheet pans) and utensils. Determine if there are any specialty preparation items such as stand mixers, microwaves, steam tables or convection ovens. Make sure that all of these appliances are functional. Determine the location of available electrical outlets and test them for electricity.
Once you know the capabilities of the kitchen, you can either work within the parameters or augment them if necessary. If there is not enough oven space to cook all of the meats consider rounding up Turkey Roasters from member of your populace. Another option for meat cooking is renting/borrowing a grill. This will free up your ovens for things that must take place in an oven – like baking pies, tarts and breads. Another area where many kitchens fall short is the number and usefulness of range eyes. Frequently one will have the need to heat up a huge pot of water to boiling, which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the BTU’s available. Usually these pots overlap onto other eyes and for that period of time you have restricted the amount of sautéing etc… that you can do. One easy fix for this is to round up several Turkey Fryers and use them to boil large amounts of liquid outside. And because you are thinking about all of this when you are selecting your recipes you can plan ahead and make sure everything you need arrives on site ready to use. (A side note, if you use Turkey Fryers – make sure you bring plenty of propane tanks to use).
So, you have figured out how you are going to prepare all of the food you have planned. Regardless of how well the food has been prepared, if it does not reach the patrons efficiently and at the proper temperature it will not be appreciated as well as it should be. You should arrive on site with a plan in place for holding the prepared food at the appropriate temperatures for both serving and safety. Also in your bag of tricks should be a game plan on how you wish the food to be served. Do not assume that there will be sufficient trays, plates, bowls and serving utensils at the site for your service needs. If you must use the site’s ware for serving, include an accurate count of available items in your site visit survey. When I prepare a feast I beg, borrow and, well, borrow serving items from surrounding groups and individuals. I have also accumulated a fair collection myself, which I loan out when requested.
People and Pre-Prep
An addendum to point 4 above (I believe this would be point 4.2) on staffing your feast. Make sure to recruit several individuals that you have experience working with in a feast kitchen. I try to have firm commitments from at least 4 individuals that they plan on coming to the event specifically to help with the feast. While I usually only expect to convince one other person to spend the entire weekend helping out, the others will have committed to spending the Lion’s Share of their time as kitchen slaves. In addition to your 3 - 4 core lackeys, recruit as many other people as you feel the kitchen will hold. These other people will most likely give you several hours, and make sure you thank them for any time that they may be able to give. Do NOT assume that you will have enough people “wander in” to properly prepare your feast. Most likely you will have people wander in, and you should not turn anyone away, but if you plan on volunteers you are planning to fail.
The other half of the battle on recruiting help for the kitchen is making sure that there is not more to do than the people you have can handle. And this is something I cannot stress enough. If there is something that can be made ahead of time, MAKE IT!!! Sauces can be prepared and sealed up in mason jars. Meatballs can be formed and frozen raw. Roasts can be cut into large chunks and frozen in their Marinades. Spices can be pre-measured into baggies and labeled accordingly. Spice mixtures can be premixed and labeled. Bread can be pre-baked and frozen. Casseroles can be preassembled and frozen. If you didn’t notice, frozen is a theme here. Pre-cook as much as humanly possible, but make sure to schedule enough time to thaw your pre-made items. The week before the event things that will hold for several days can be prepared and refrigerated. If you are serving meatballs with 3 sauces it will look very fancy to the patrons. They will never know that on the feast day all you had to do was boil the meatballs and open up three jars. And believe me; opening up a jar is decidedly easier than firing up the food processor.
Of course, to determine if an item will hold or freeze, you have to test it. And I am a big proponent of testing recipes. Things that seem simple on paper can often confound in execution. If you have not test cooked a recipe, properly planning preparation becomes quite difficult. Only after you have prepared a dish do you truly understand how long each step will take and what it involves. When you test each recipe, make sure to take note of the tools and time the preparation required. You need to know how many bowls, pots and pans you will need to prepare each dish so that you can plan your usage. I could rant for an extended period on the benefits of testing recipes, but I believe I have made my point.
Another time saving method is combining tasks for recipes. If you have 3 recipes that call for chopped onions then chop them all at the same time. Measure out and divide the onions according to your recipes, pack them into bowls or bags and label them. This is an excellent thing to do on Friday night and hold overnight in the ‘fridge. Then, when it comes time to prepare that dish all you have to do is dump in the onions. Apply this technique to ingredients whenever possible and it will save time.
Plan of Attack – The Binder of Doom
Prior to each feast my plans are contained in a series of Word and Excel documents. I use spreadsheets to tally ingredients and determine shopping lists. I keep my recipes in Word and create menus with ingredient lists. I find it very helpful to organize the finalized menu with each dish on a separate page. On each page will be the original recipe with ingredients and proportions along with the ingredient list and measurements for the amount to be prepared on site. There will be enough on your mind the day of the feast without adding in math.
There are many ways to manage your recipes; I like to put them into a 3 ring binder arranged by course and I make 3 separate binders, just in case. Also included in this binder can be any plans you have already arrived at concerning cooking and plating. I like to draw little pictures of the platters with arrows pointing out what goes where and on/in what. I did not do this for my most recent feast, and boy did I regret the oversight. Another thing to have handy in this binder is a page of measurement conversions such as 4 T = Ľ cup as well as proper cooking temperatures for meats and such. You may think you have such things memorized, but why risk it? Writing “Don’t Panic” on the front of the binder in nice friendly letters wouldn’t hurt either.
Creating
a schedule can be a very useful tool. Writing down on a list or in a
spreadsheet in chronological order things like “
All of this binder stuff brings me to a point that should be obvious by now. As the Head Cook you should not plan on doing very much cooking on the day of the feast. It is your job to manage all of the various tasks that are being accomplished. You are in charge of matching up people with projects and monitoring their progress. You must know what is going on at all times and where on the schedule things are. In addition to preparing and presenting the feast, you have another important responsibility – which is teaching. Many times volunteers with little or no experience will wander in and it is your responsibility to encourage and teach them. They have shown the initiative to venture in; you must make it fun and educational so that they will not fear volunteering again. The best case scenario is that they leave your kitchen with a new skill under their belt and a number of new friends. That way, they will wander into yet another kitchen on another day. Who knows, the good gentle that you teach the difference between a liquid and dry measure might be your group’s premier Cook in a few years time.
Super Secret Tips on how to be a Better Feast Cook (this will explode
in 5 Seconds)
You will forget something. Just come to peace with that and let it be. If you do not flip out over it, no one else will. Whenever I take my small kit to an event to help in a kitchen I always pack the following items: Can Opener, Corkscrew, Meat Thermometer, Band Aids, Large Lighter, Sharpie Pens, Kitchen Scale, Timer, Oven Mitts, Pot Holders, Vegetable Peeler, Very Sharp Knives, and Honing Steel. All of these things I pack because they are items that are easy to forget, and can sometimes be catastrophic if forgotten. If you have purchased 4 #10 cans of Black Eyed Peas and forgotten a can opener then you might be able to understand what I mean by catastrophic.
This kit leads to what I feel is the best way to become a better feast cook, and that is working in other people’s kitchens. Of all of the kitchens I have worked in, I have never failed to learn something new and useful. This in turn makes me a better cook. Keep in mind that however much experience you have in the kitchen, when you are in someone else’s feast kitchen you are a lackey. I do not care if you are the head chef at a 4 star hotel and the Head Cook is a first timer, you are a lackey. If the Head Cook is wise they will take the time to understand your experience level and apply you in the best manner they can see. But if you wander in as an unknown and they ask you to chop a metric ton of onions then chop the onions.
Being a lackey is great fun. You get to cook and be in a room full of other cooks. You chat and chop and learn things along the way. One of the fringe benefits to being a lackey is accumulating enough lackey points to redeem for lackey service from the Head Cook. Once you have worked in someone’s kitchen enough that they know (and hopefully love) you then you can cash in your points to con them into coming to be a lackey in your kitchen.
My final suggestion for being a better Head Cook is that you should never be afraid to ask for help. This is an educational organization, and I have not yet met a SCA Cook who was not willing to chat at great lengths with others who are interested in Feast Preparation. Find out who are the cooks in your area and pick their brains. If you attend a feast and really like the food, find out the Cook’s email address and pick their brain. There is a great community of cooks in this Kingdom and they are all willing to bore you to tea… speak with you at length about their thoughts regarding cooking in the SCA.
All of the research that I have done to date for feasts, including the recipes, is located on my website: http://www.serenadariva.com/. If you have interest in such things, I encourage you to take a look. Many members of the Known World culinary circles have posted their recipes online for any and all to utilize. The vast majority of them (including myself) would be honored for someone to include their research in a feast as long as proper credit is given. If you wish to investigate these SCA wide culinary circles further, please feel free to contact me and I will point you in some interesting directions.
In Conclusion (yes it is almost over)
There are as many different approaches to crafting a feast as there are Feast Cooks. Presented here have been some tips and tricks that I use. In summary they can be considered as follows:
Pick a theme and stick with it. Begin your relationship with the Autocrat with good communication and maintain that communication throughout the process. Know your kitchen intimately and utilize it to its maximum capacity. Supplement your kitchen with portable cooking devices electric, charcoal and propane. Test your recipes to understand how they can best be prepared. Plan for both preparation and service during the development stage. Pre-cook, pre-cook, pre-cook. Arrange for plenty of help at the event for cooking, serving and cleaning. Be highly organized for the event and have all of your information written down. Make multiple copies of your recipes, just in case. Become a better Cook by working in other people’s kitchens.
I
will not say that being a Head Cook is easy. But the more organized you are and
the better you plan the easier it will look to outsiders. And if you look
relaxed and under control, then people will believe you are relaxed and under
control.