But above all, it must be edible, ample, and served on time.
If you’ve thought about putting your name in the hat for an SCA feast or want to up your game, there are a lot of things you should consider. After all, what we do when we feed people here might look like a simple catering gig or barbecue from the outside, but oftentimes it is far more complex. Why?
The dreaded budget.
While you may pay $20 for a feast in another kingdom, or $15-20 a head for a meal in a restaurant, the average Gleann Abhannite pays $5-9 each for the chance to sit down to what might be a sumptuous course of dishes. I wish I were kidding about that.
How can you recreate a splendid feast, or even attempt one, on a small budget? Thankfully, a lot of what we pay for when we sit down to a restaurant meal is labor. In the SCA, labor is usually free (there’s a catch to that) and with careful and smart planning, you can indeed create a memorable meal that captures that magic moment.
Step 1: Research
There are many that would argue that feast cooking is a service. I fall into that camp. The planning and execution of a feast can take dozens, even hundreds, of hours over several months.
Many feast cooks are asked to provide a menu when an event is bid; unless that bid has been considered a very long time, this is a pretty high expectation. Most feast cooks can at least give an idea of what they want to cook or tackle (ie, 14th Century French, or a broad Mediterranean feast covering many cultures), but you shouldn’t be expected to know just how much paprika you’re going to use.
Yes, you can just throw some food out there (this is common for fighting events where barbecuing might come into play). But there’s something incongruous about sitting around in finely researched and hand-sewn garb, chewing on a taco or a plate of ribs.
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This is where research comes in. Before you know what you’re going to cook, it pays to research what you want to cook. The SCA has come a long way since Take A Thousand Eggs or More, but it is a good start if you are interested in cooking a basic SCA-style feast. These days, there are so many other options. You don’t have to redact (that’s taking a medieval recipe and figuring out its modern equivalency) but you can find recipes that have already been redacted. Hooray, Internet!
It’s important to keep in mind the theme for an event. It’s one thing to have a non-themed fighter’s collegium or Kingdom Arts & Science event where there’s no specific time period stated – in these cases, your canvas is broad, and you can do anything within reason (and budget). But if you happen to have an autocrat who’s decided they want a specific time period (say, the reign of Henry VIII, or a Venetian salon, or a late period Japanese gathering), it’d do well for you to figure out what people ate at those times.
So do your reading and research before you get into planning your menu.
Step 2: Plan your attack
When deciding what you’re going to cook, you also need to think about how much to cook. The average person can consume 20 ounces in a big meal. However, those 20 ounces will be different from person to person. Some will want more meat and some will want more starch.
Variety is important in most feasts. With our ever-changing list of people who are allergic to different items, have dietary concerns such as diabetes, or who practice vegan or gluten-free lifestyles, it can be difficult to please everyone. Most are satisfied with knowing what’s going to be served so they can plan accordingly, so be sure to publicize your finalized menu at least two weeks before the event.
Research doesn’t just mean cracking the books. Research also means getting out into the stores. Not just your Kroger store, my friends, but to each of your local stores. Check out discount goods. Search out ethnic groceries. Scan circulars. Compare online prices. Become familiar with the resources available to you.
See if you can find an ethnic equivalent to help you out. Anything Mediterranean or Asian will have a correlating store in a bigger city. Not only will these options afford you a greater selection of items that might not be in your regular store, some items may be cheaper (such as noodles at an Asian store, or spices at an Indian store).
Keep an eye on sale circulars, especially if you live in a city where there are competing stores. Some grocery stores will honor prices in other grocery store circulars. If all these locations are nearby, it may serve you better to just hit each one.
For certain items you may need in large quantities, prepare to shop early and often. For example – for my last feast and the other meals to be served that weekend, I needed 40 pounds of chicken thighs. The local discount grocery store was offering said chicken for 77 cents a pound – a great deal less than the $3.29 a pound at Kroger. However, the store was only putting out 15 pounds at a time in its limited meat case – which required multiple visits.
There are other ways to save money and get things for free (or close to it), especially if you have plenty of advance notice of your feast. Consider these options:
Hunt or fish? Know someone who does? Arrange in advance to receive part of the bounty.
Grow your own herbs, spices and vegetables.
Ask for donations. I have a working relationship with Petit Jean Meats, and sometimes receive items through the company. A single whole ham will provide enough breakfast meat for 100 people, so that’s what I usually ask for. Riceland Rice will sometimes offer donation of its products, if you’re willing to drive to Stuttgart.
If you don’t have a lot of room for food storage, make a plan to pick up refrigeratables immediately before the event. Dry goods such as rice, beans, noodles, etc. can be stored anywhere in your home that’s dry.
Step 3: Service
We’ve fallen into a pattern with a goodly number of feasts these days – where the first course is bread, cheese and fruit; the second and third courses are meats, starches and vegetables; and the final course is dessert. It can be pretty repetitive and expected.
But the way we serve feast was not the typical service for most cultures. For instance, passed dishes and eating on banana leaves on the ground was common for central and southern India; a sideboard loaded with food where individuals picked up what they wanted was common in parts of norther Europe. When you research a culture, pay attention not only to what was served, but how it was served. Were there dishes that were made only from seasonal ingredients? Were those ingredients available at the same time of year for your feast?
Taking the effort to provide service in the style of the culture that begat the cuisine of your chosen theme can change a typical feast into an extraordinary feast.
One of the biggest hassle I see for new feast cooks is forgetting how a dish will be served. I do end up in kitchens a lot, managing plating – because while there may be enough food planned to feed everyone, dividing and plating said dishes (especially when there’s limited space) can be challenging.
How food will be served at table is another important thing to consider. A whole chicken for a table of eight sounds about right on the surface, but what if no one brought a knife to cut that chicken? How will you account for preventing cross-contamination? And can you manage for food allergies?
The preparation for serving your feast should be just as important as preparing the food itself. Create your game plan before you tackle your feast. Create lists of what you need to bring to site. Create a timetable to cook all items. And then make sure you send out every dish.
Step 4: Labor and Creation
There’s nothing sadder than watching a feast cook attempt to put together a big feast by themselves when they expected help. Calling for volunteers from the populace can work, but it’s not something you should expect. Things happen. There will be individuals who want to fight in that tourney or take that class or participate in that activity.
Just like if you were in a mundane kitchen, “hire” your staff. Find competent individuals to surround you. When I prepare for a feast, I contact different individuals to come help. I have a baker, a butcher (or cutter), and a dishwasher at the ready – and I make sure they’re in the know about my plans. Heaven forbid something happen to me, but between my feast recipes, my lists and the individuals on my team, I know the feast would go on even if I wasn’t there.
Having a team also makes other things simpler – such as making sure you have enough knives, bowls, and other kitchen equipment. Sadly, few of our site kitchens come complete with all the things we need for our feasts (it’s always good to take a site tour if you’re using a new site, and to compare notes with people who have cooked in site kitchens we often use). Team members also mean there’s someone available to make a last minute store run if you need it.
If you have the opportunity, choose your own hall steward and make sure that person is well informed of how you want to serve the feast as well as every dish. This person is your direct communication between the populace and your kitchen (and yes, I have hall stewarded three of my feasts!).
The most important thing concerning your staff – they’re volunteers, they’re not being paid in money, so please pay them in appreciation. BE KIND. Be alert, have a game plan and be prepared to make adjustments if you need to.
HERE’S AN IMPORTANT NOTE!
So, you hate getting a cold cheeseburger at a drive-thru, right? Or if your ice cream is starting to melt. Or… let’s face it, while breads and crackers and hard cheeses aren’t hurt by a few minutes of sitting, most foods need to be served in a specific amount of time.
The SCA is well known for its very flexible schedules. Add in a court or a ceremony and the sliding scale of time, and a feast might get started very, very late. That’s not good eats.
Talk with your sovereign or baronage before an event and express your food concerns. Many will work with you to ensure that proceedings have concluded before the scheduled point of your feast. I’ve been very fortunate to have crowns (Her Majesty Ilissa the Nightwatcher way back in 2001 told a crowd court would end on time whether people liked it or not because she wanted some of my stuffed oysters!) and baronages work with me to make sure we weren’t eating at oh-dark-thirty.
On that same note, be prepared on time. If this means you need to swap a course or dish out, that’s fine too. Just keep your hall steward in the know so they can share that information.
Step 5: PROFIT!
Er, no, not monetary profit. That’s not why we do SCA feasts.
In this case, I mean profit in the completion of a great feast. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of having a whole room of satisfied diners after a feast, or hearing about your feast (in a good way) from someone who wasn’t there who heard about it from others.
If something goes wrong, keep going. If a dish doesn’t turn out, don’t be afraid to scrap it (NEVER served burned food, unless it’s crème Brule, because crème Brule is burned to start with). Keep your cool.
And remember – you volunteered for this!
