taverns-msg – 5/25/06
SCA and period taverns. Serving food.
NOTE: See also the files: games-msg, games-cards-msg, beer-msg, cider-msg, wine-msg, Tavern-Feast-art.
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From: zkessin at shell1.tiac.net (Zach Kessin)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Running A Tavern
Date: 11 Apr 97 13:02:44 GMT
Andrea Benton <abenton at acesag.auburn.edu> writes:
>I have a question for those who have ever done such a thing. We are
>interested in running a Tavern, with an event we have planned for the
>fall.
>So anyone with any stories to tell, good or bad, I would be welcome to
>hear them.
>leona
Check out the web site for Le Poulet Gauche,
http://world.std.com/~cti/lepg.html
More info that you probably wanted.
--William Atwood
Carolingia
From: joylana at aol.com (Joylana)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Running A Tavern
Date: 16 Apr 1997 03:46:12 GMT
I ran a small tavern at what was suppose to be a medium event that
turned into a Royal Progress. It was fun (I think) but I definitely was
glad I did a lot of work beforehand. I had a limited menu: stew,
biscuits, drink (non alcoholic), and desserts.
I bought roasts which I cooked whole and then cut into cubes; had all the
veggies cut up (some were frozen..came in so handy); and also made a
vegetarian stew which was quite hardy.
Bisquits were easy with Bisquick or you could do a hearty wheat or rye
bread. I made lemonade, ice tea (herbal and regular), and also had hot
tea and coffee. We had some mulled cider at one point, also.
I would have loved having some help to take orders and carry the food,
but instead I just opened the dutch-door and had people come to me. I
hope this helps. With good planning you can do anything. Oh, yes, the
kitchen had a very old stove, a beaten up refridgerator, and one sink. I
was very tired at the end.
I kept the cost very low ($2 for stew, biscuit, and drink; dessert was
extra, ($1 to $2) as I was providing a service to my barony so I met
expenses with just $10 profit.
Jolanna
From: robin.hackett at wadsworth.org (Robin Hackett)
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 13:25:14 -0500
Subject: SC - Outdoor feasts
Sir Gunthar wrote:
>There's an early period outdoor feast that I've been thinking of where all the
>food is cooked either in the ashes (tubers, clay wrapped meat) and in a big
>kettle (meat and vegetables are boiled in the cauldron, the solids are
>lifted >out for one course and a pottage is made from the broth for
>another.
Outdoor feasts are alot of fun! :) Last year at the Gilded Pearl event in
Sterlynge Vale a few of us ran a tavern for lunch and for the experience of
doing so. We started early in the morning making bread and cutting up 25
lbs of onions for the sops. We spitted chickens and made a lombard beef
bruet plus a fried beans & onions recipe from "700 years of English
cooking". With premade pasties and fruit and cheese we were able to offer a
good variety of food. The tavern was open for roughly three hours and each
dish could serve ~50 people. When a dish ran out, it was taken "off the
board". I wasn't in charge of drinks so all I remember is ginger drink and
some sort of cider. It made me appreciate indoor kitchens when it started
to rain!
Leri
robin.hackett at wadsworth.org
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 97 13:38:29 -0500
From: Dottie Elliott <macdj at onr.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Russian Inns
When I run a luncheon tavern for food (which I have done twice now), I
generally prepare enough for 50 people for a 150ish person May event. Not
as many folks each lunch (many fighters do not, for instance) and I don't
want to end up with lots of left overs.
Clarissa
Subject: RE: ANST - Traveling INN
Date: Wed, 01 Apr 98 14:01:26 MST
From: "Weiszbrod, Barbara A" <Barbara.Weiszbrod at SW.Boeing.com>
To: "'ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG'" <ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG>
Tracy wrote:
> Maybe her foods aren't exactly "period", but I can remember being
> served roast turkey legs at an SCA feast once.
I can remmember being served turkey legs at an event too and I was very
dissapointed. At a Feast I want to have foods that are period and not
(as Daniel pointed out) glaringly Ren-Fair.
My shire does Black Wolf Tavern at Steppes Warlord and we do not do
period foods there. It is very difficult to do a tavern well, safely,
and at a profit. We have made the decission that researching period
foods is just not going to happen.
However we do try to do foods that are not glaringly non-period or that
jar us out of the "feel" of a period fair.
But none of the answers so far have really addressed the lady's
question. "What would you like to have available to you".
I want to be able to buy bottled water at a tavern. I also like the foods
to not require I get my feast gear. Other than that something other
than meat is also appreciated (can you tell that I wasn't born in
Ansteorra? No meat?!).
Alys Deriveax
aka Aelfric of Alburn
aka Barbara Weiszbrod
aka Shire Bitch
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 18:38:39 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - wanted: a marinade for spit roasting an autocrat
I would say you have just discovered why the cook does the buying for good
restaurants and why every SCA cook I know does their own buying.
I'm very leery of trying to do all meals for two days. You are talking
about a tremendous amount of work, usually without professional help, with a
hefty price tag. A quick estimate of the expenses is $10-12 per person to
do it right, which means charging $16-20 per person to recover the expenses
and turn a profit commensurate with the risk.
Running a tavern, you have no guarantee of recouping the expenses. Were I
planning to feed this event, I would run breakfast and lunch out of a tavern
which I would understock so that I would sell out. I would also check all
of the nearest groceries for stock and prices, in case I had to re-supply.
The tavern cook would run the tavern.
Saturday night's feast would be run as a feast. This is usually the best
format for recouping the expenses. This would be run by the feast cook.
Sunday night, I would get rid of the left-overs through the tavern.
Unless I am fronting the money and am willing to take the loss, the tavern
and the feast would be separately planned and budgeted with the group
agreeing to the funding and providing funds up front to do the purchasing (I
usually start with $200 to $300 a couple of months before the event which is
replenished as I turn in the receipts up to the amount budgeted).
Bear
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 07:09:02 EDT
From: WOLFMOMSCA <WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com>
Subject: Re: SC - wanted: a marinade for spit roasting an autocrat
Marinade suggestion: Lay on a heavy coating of tar, sprinkle liberally with
feathers of your choosing, impale on rail, singe completely.
With luck, this experience won't sour you completely on cooking for SCA
events. You have my sympathy. I thought the practice of having one person
front the money for a feast was eradicated long ago by changes to the
Exchequer system within the SCA. I remember the days when it was the only way
to throw an event, but we at least passed the helm at meetings and such so the
burden could be eased somewhat.
While I agree that pre-selling feast is a good idea, when you're doing tavern-
style feedings, it's not always practical, nor does pre-selling guarantee no
leftovers. Especially over a long, potentially hot, Memorial Day weekend.
Having done taverns for several years in Ansteorra, I know this to be true.
The unsolicited advice:
Never, ever allow an autocrat, especially one who has never been a feastcrat,
buy your supplies without your active participation. We the unwilling, led by
the unknowing....
Breakfast should be easy on the cook, unless a separate individual has agreed
to take on the job. When alone in the hot seat, I use pre-baked sweet breads
(fruit types with side dishes of preserved fruits), breakfast meats (sausage
and bacon are easily restocked when you keep an eye on the serving line),
bread and butter, and fresh fruits in season. Oatmeal is a quick thing, so a
small pot of it is kept on the back burner for the few, the proud, the
Scottish <veg>. I can always make more if necessary. Anything which requires
more than fifteen minutes of stove time is pre-cooked the weekend before the
event and frozen. Save your sanity and give thanks for modern technology.
Lunch can usually be dealt with handily by what we call traveler's feasts. A
bowl of stew, a baguette of French bread, and thou. Again, save your sanity
and make your stew the week before the event. Everyone knows that a good stew
only gets better for having aged a bit. If you cook it way in advance, freeze
it. If done on Wednesday night, it will be heavenly by Saturday afternoon.
Supper is where a feastcrat should focus their efforts and their creativity.
Roasted flesh of some kind, be it fowl or hoofed, is a safe bet. What doesn't
get sold on Saturday night becomes Sunday's lunch spread, with appropriate
additions of the cook's choice. A nice salat of greens with a selection of
dressings (both period and modern <I know, ***gasp*** heresy, but... a
spoonful of Hidden Valley makes the salat go away). Something hearty and
starchlike for the meat-and-taters crowd. A wondermous dessert, with which
the cook can truly shine and be remembered.
It's a tavern/inn/caravanserai. Sometimes we fail to remember that tavern
food has always been simple and hearty fare. Even a king passing through
would eat what was available from the kitchen, albeit on better plate and with
as many flourishes as the keeper could manage. Save the five-remove
fantasmagoric sit-down feast for another event where it is more appropriate.
Just my tuppence' worth.
Walk in peace,
Wolfmother
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 06:53:34 -0500
From: maddie teller-kook <meadhbh at io.com>
Subject: Re: SC - wanted: a marinade for spit roasting an autocrat
LrdRas wrote:
> 4. Seperate cooks should be in charge of each meal. For example, the main
> feastocrat does feast, someone else is responsible for lunch and another for
> breakfast.
> 5. NEVER let anyone else buy your food for you.
> 6. IMO, planning the feast as an integral part of the event is much better
> than the inn concept.
> 7. NEVER let anyone else buy your food for you.
I think your advise is excellent. I would just add that the lunch and breakfast
coordinators should coordinate with the cook. This will help with food purchasing (everyone consolidates items so there is no redundancy). And, scheduling of time in the kitchen so everyone doesn't need to use the same equipment at the same time.
I agree on the concept of the feast vs. the 'Inn' concept. One idea that I have seen used has been the 'faire'. We set up the different feast foods in booths and handed out coins for the populace to 'purchase' their dinner from the food booths. It was a lot of fun. The amount of 'coin' handed out was enough to purchase at least one of each item.
Meadhbh
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 16:48:24 -0400
From: Ceridwen <ceridwen at commnections.com>
Subject: Re: SC -taverns/2 day feasts
For Trimaris' Tenth Year Anniversary event, I was asked to provide a
Tavern, as the feast hall only seats 150 and we were expecting about
1200 people. It started (in the planning) to be only a feast supplement
on Saturday and Sunday, and by the time we were done planning it was
from crew supper on Thursday until Breakfast Monday, 3 meals a day, open
from 6 am to midnight each day. I had a crew of 3 that I could count on,
as our Barony was involved with the event in many other capacities. The
"kitchen" was a small building (screen house) with a sink! I cooked with
a fire pit, a bbq smoker (8 X 3 feet) and a two burner gas stove. we
brought along an upright freezer (12 cu. ft.)and many, many coolers. We
set up a 20x20 pavilion for seating and a 10x15 for serving area. (took
a large U-Haul truck to get everything there and back) The meat and
dry goods shopping was done ahead of time with price in mind and
pre-portioned if necessary. (ever see a meat manager at a grocery store
cry?... they advertised whole bottom round cut to order for .99/lb, and
I needed 120 lbs... shaved!) The rest of the shopping was done day by
day at the local grocery.
I got the barony to front the money for the supplies by promising them
the profit if there was any. We sold advance tickets at $14.00 for the
weekend and also advertised the tavern in the advance flyers in
Talewinds and the Seneshals' mailings for 3 months. On site, meals could
be purchased separately at $1 breakfast, $2 lunch, and $3 dinner. Drinks
were free to all because of the extreme heat. (went through 100 gallons
each of lemonade and iced tea, plus 30 gallons of my Lord's mead -yes,
we carded!) Sold 104 advance tickets, which put us in the black before
we ever got on site. With extra shopping trips for charcoal and produce,
we made a $700 profit for the Barony. Figured by the amount of food
served that we had about 300 customers a day. Had the most fun I've
ever had at an event... took me three weeks to recover! Made a few
mistakes, but nothing serious, and was "the" hang-out spot for the
event. I would gladly do it again, with one caveat... the whole Barony
cannot be on the crat crew for the event!!!!!!! I have done 3 of the
last 4 Trimaris Memorial Tourneys (Spring Crown Lyst- Memorial Day
weekend each year) as feastcrat, cooking all meals with little
difficulty. Here for Kingdom events your budget is preset by the Kingdom
(currently at $5 per head per day). I serve Travelers feast Friday night
, breakfast, lunch and feast on Saturday and Sunday, and breakfast
Monday out of that with no probs. I am not exclusively a period cook,
although about 80- 90% of my recipes are redactions of period recipes.
To see this year's menu , visit :
http://commnections.com/rurik/tmtfeast.htm
Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 08:05:05 -0700
From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: SC - What's cooking at the Tabard?
howdy all from Anne-Marie
"Lainie asks:
> A question came up the other day in my Chaucer seminar- and
>everyone looked at me because they know I'm into medieval food- but I
>really didn't have a decent answer- and the question was:
>
> What did they serve at the Tabard Inn?
>
> My best guess was sausage, cheese, bread, ale, wine, maybe pies.
>Does anyone else have ideas about tavern food?
According to the travel journals of Alexander Neckham in Paris, taverns
would often cook whatever foodstuffs the travelers brought with them
(picked up in the market just around the corner, say), for a small fee. He
talks about buying a chicken, having the goodwife cook it, and after dining
on it, he stuffs the leftovers in his wallet to eat on the road.
Margery Kemp describes carefully how she had to provision herself for her
journeys to the holy land, even on shipboard.
I'm wondering how medieval the concept of a tavern where you can buy a full
meal is? Or even if there's a hunk of meat you can buy a slab off of, how
common was it to have more than one choice available? I know the
"restaurant" is a fairly modern concept...
- --AM
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:27:40 +0100
From: "Oughton, Karin (GEIS, Tirlan)" <Karin.Oughton at geis.ge.com>
Subject: RE: SC - What's cooking at the Tabard?
I think it is in PA Hammonds "food and feast in medieval England", that it
has extensive descriptions of what would now be described as 'greasy joe
cafes ', stalls which provided the ability to buy pies etc for food.
Although the restaurant idea - being able to order to a table from a wide
range is quite new, the buy a standard takeaway over the counter is quite
old!
k.
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 21:25:09 EDT
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - What's cooking at the Tabard?
Karin.Oughton at geis.ge.com writes:
<< I think it is in PA Hammonds "food and feast in medieval England", that it
has extensive descriptions of what would now be described as 'greasy joe
cafes ', stalls w >>
Correct but these were not 'Inns'. There is a description in Le Managier
which says that if you find your self in an inn find yourself some meat
broth and add spices and then eggs for a soup. I suspect that from this
description inns, at least in the 14th century were not noted for an
abundance of food.
Ras
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 22:33:32 -0400
From: snowfire at mail.snet.net
Subject: Re: SC - What's cooking at the Tabard?
Some more info on taverns. Although again, I don't know how old these tavern
practices are (my mother remembers this from when she was a child). There
was a tavern open early for the early morning workers in the port in the
nearest town to my home village in Wales (Swansea). They'd have several
different meats available there for the workers, - a beef roast, a leg of
lamb, and some black sausage, as well as pies and crusty bread. "Everything
was on the counter and covered with tea towels.... They'd slice off what you
wanted, and you'd eat it with a big thick chunk of the bread. The pies were
pork pies, steak and kidney pies, and veal and ham pie".
BTW re: the Veal and Ham Pie.
Here's what I know about it. The pie was made in a loaf tin. The pastry
crust was made with a hot vs cold water pastry method. After rolling the
pastry out, a bottom/side crust was cut and placed into the tin. Then a
layer of the chopped up veal and ham mixture was put in the bottom and
pressed down firmly. A row of hard boiled eggs was added, end to end, "like a
train" and more of the meat mixture was added around and covering the eggs,
and up to almost the top of the dish. the filling was pressed down firmly,
the top crust was added, sealed around the edges etc., brushed with beaten
egg and the pie was baked. To serve, it was cooled, turned out upside down,
and sliced like a loaf of bread.
Does anyone have an actual recipe with a proper ingredient list etc. for this
type of pie I wonder? It seems to be in the same family as a pork pie.
Elysant
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:42:50 CEST
From: "Christina van Tets" <cjvt at hotmail.com>
Subject: SC - leeks, tavern food and galingale
<snip of leek info>
As to tavern food, I would look at one or two pictures - Brueghel for
preference (that lovely one which shows bowls served from a barn door