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12th-N-Oertha-art - 7/7/00

Oertha 12th Night Feast, Jan 2000. Doing a feast at an event site without a Kitchen by Mistress Cedrin Etainnighean, OL.

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Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2000 22:32:21 -0900

From: Kerri Canepa <kerric at pobox.alaska.net>

Subject: SC - 12th Night postmortem - part the first

Well, it's over and I'm still standing. Just barely, mind you.

The short report is this; the food was a hit but the event needed more direction

in the form of a schtickmeister.

The more elaborate report; we ended up with 19 dishes served (20 were made but

one of them got lost in the shuffle) in three courses with hypocras, wafers,

quince jellies, and candied lemon peels to close. Here follows the menu:

12th Night Feast

Ist Course

Bruette Saake

Egurdouce of Fish

Chicken Lombard

Perre

Rapeye

Pies of Paris

A Disshe of Skirrets

2nd Course

Compost

Ham

Armored Turnips

Daryoles

Fish fresh boiled

Tartlettes

Wardonys in Syrup

3rd Course

Winter Squash Tart

Salmon roast

Pork roast with 3 sauces (2 actually since one was ditched because of time

constraints)

A Disshe of Rape (this wasn't served because it got lost)

A Disshe of Beterotes

Losyns

To finish

Hypocras

Wafers

Candied lemon peel

Quince jellies

Here's my comments which might seem a bit out of context if you weren't there.

Sorry.

Even though I knew I was getting us into a big pile of potential problems, we

held the feast at a site with no kitchen. This was due, in part, to the

difficulty in finding a site on the weekend we wanted and this site was

available and reasonably priced. Not having a kitchen on site can be both a

blessing and a curse. A blessing in that all cooking will be done on your own

equipment, in your home where you know what to expect. A curse in that you have

to cook off site, transport it, and figure out a way to keep it warm or cool.

However, this site had a second floor loft area which made a terrific food set

up area. There were plenty of tables available plus 3 electrical outlets and a

couple of large garbage cans. Also windows on two sides and open on one side

overlooking the lower area. We brought in a whole slew of heating equipment,

some borrowed, some rented, to the tune of 3 crockpots, an electric frying pan,

an electric roaster, a chafing tray which held 3 8 qt trays, one 8 qt chafing

pan, 1 small chafing dish, a warming tray, and a Coleman two burner stove.

Needless to say, we didn't have a problem with cold food. All food was made off

site although wafers were made using a hand held pizzelle maker over the Coleman

stove which came out rather well.

I have to say that if money is not an object (and in this case, it really

wasn't, more on that later), checking into what facilities and equipment can be

available to you through rental companies is something to look into. The barony

we live in owns a gazillion matching plates of two sizes, plus a mess of coffee

cups and saucers and miscellanious bits and pieces. We ended up buying a bunch

of bowls since there weren't any, but we rented forks and spoons. We also rented

the 8 qt chafing dish and the large chafing tray, a large insulated food

transport box, and 2 standing brass colored candelabras which held 7 candles

each. And we used everything we rented. It beat the heck out of trying to buy

those things and then trying to figure out where to keep them.

The original idea was to have a staging area, a dresser, at the bottom of the

stairs to the loft. There was a table set up in a convenient place which didn't

effect movement back and forth but we discovered it was right under a very

breezy vent which could not be closed. So we brought all food directly from the

loft to the diners. Without overhead lights, the stairs were a bit of a

challenge, but after one server announced that it was seven stairs to the

landing, then ten stairs to the bottom, everyone got into the swing of it. We

also had 4 teenage young ladies who served with more enthusiasm than I've had in

many a year; I don't think the stairs where much of a problem for them at all.

The food, overall, was well received. Since I wasn't able to spend time keeping

an eye on the diners, my husband reported that most of what food came back, was

after the first course. He also said that foods with a high "goo" factor were

the ones he saw the most of. We did serve perre which is a green pea mush and

couple of other mushy things but for the most part, the diners ate most of it.

The servers, on the other hand, tried everything and then asked for more. The

word "awesome" was used more than once. They were the ones who took home the

extra tarts, fish, and chicken lombard (actually, there were 3 packs of 4

chicken lombards; I kept one, our senior ranking server, a knight, Viscount kind

of guy, got one, and the premere pair o' cooks, Bjarni and Annora, got a pack).

A worthwhile note: The reconstruction of armored turnips that we did (using

Gruyere cheese and a powder douce recipe we now can't find anywhere) was a hit.

In fact, many people had no idea that they were eating turnips at all. Ha HA!

The secret, peel, cut up and cook the turnips for about ten minutes in boiling

water, then throw out the water. Turnips lose a lot of their bitterness that

way.

As to the money is no object thing I mentioned earlier, that's not technically

true. However, after some discussion between myself and my apprentice Claire, we

decided that we'd provide the feast at no cost and just ask for a site fee.

Especially since 12th Night is the weekend before Winter Coronet, traditionally

a rather expensive event, and we were pretty sure nobody could afford two spendy

events in a row. This also gave us a lot of leeway as to what we were willing to

serve.

Note to self: Fish may have been inexpensive to medieval people, but it isn't in

these parts these days. We easily spent the most money on fish over any other

item or ingredient. However, the diners (and especially the servers) enjoyed the

three different fish dishes that were offered. Of the three, Egurdouce of Fish

was the most popular (fried fish with a fruit sauce), followed by the Sauce Vert

we prepared for Fish Fresh Boiled. In the future, I'd buy less in amounts but

still keep fish on the menu.

Except for the first course coming out, there wasn't a lot of time between

courses. We were on a limited time schedule; we had rented the site from 11:30 a

to 6:30 p so we had to keep things moving. I'm happy to report that while it

took us longer to set up than I'd wanted (no real surprise) we were out of there

with the place spotless a little before 6:30p. A big round of thank yous to all

the folks that helped clean up, took home extra food, or acted as sherpas. What

a crew.

Kerri

Cedrin Etainnighean, OL