Unicorn-Feast-art – 5/31/11

Feast of Unicorn in Atlantia in 2004 headed up by Lord Nichola Buscelli.

NOTE: See also the files: Food-Safety-art, headcooks-msg, out-fst-safe-msg, high-table-msg, sauces-msg, kitchen-tips-msg, Fst-Managemnt-art, feasts-msg.

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NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:42:21 -0500
From: kattratt <kattratt at charter.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Feast Report for Feast of Unicorn My first feast
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

My apologies that there are NO PHOTOS for this email nor for this
event.... sorry Lady Olwen but I didn't even think about the camera the
day of... Yes it was there.... but we were way to busy....
So here are a couple 1000 words.....

The event was Feast of Unicorn in Atlantia.  It was supposed to be a
nice quite little event for the local group.  Not my local group mind
you but close by and at least in the same Barony/State...And then King
Janos got involved.... hehehe....

He tells the autocrat oh hey btw, WE are coming to the event, and the PRINCE.
Then of course the Baron and Baroness chime in that they are coming....
Oh yeah we are going to have two vigils going on.

One of those vigils will be for a knighting for a squire that has been
on the journey for some time.  (Read a big deal for many friends)
The other vigil will also be for someone long deserving.... (Read yet
another big deal)

Then of course it is my first Feast so I had let my local friends know
as well as the Corsairium group that I am a part of and the Acadamie D'Espee.
So what started out as a small local event and very comfortable first
feast turned into a larger event and still a fairly comfortable first
feast I am happy to say.

We started out cooking for 100 people and raised the number 3 days
before the event to 125 including high table.
Not a huge deal as I had overcompensated in my prep work by prepping for
120.

Other items of interest for you folks...
I started out by charging $7.00 a head. but then the autocrat took out a
breakfast from the feast budget...(Yeah I know I should have stamped my
little feet but I didn't, I just worked with it...) So we ended up at
around $6.00 a head for feast.
(Next time I will stamp my feet)  ;)
We actually made money for their local group... about $45.00
I think my total food cost was around $655.00 maybe a bit more or 
less....
and Breakfast was around $100.00

When I initially agreed to cook the feast we had a site with a fairly
good kitchen... Indeed a rather good kitchen.
That site fell through.  The site that was finally settled on was odd in
that it had a kitchen but if we rented the kitchen then the site would
cook the feast... not the SCA.  However we could use the site and use a
field kitchen and every thing would be fine....

So here I am the young fledgling cook with my first feast, with no
kitchen, and royals coming.....
Some quick phone calls and I secured an incredible field kitchen,
(fantastic would have included the refrigerator, and washing
station...) ((Hey he had some major flipping house repairs going on as
it was...))

So our cooking areas were a 3'x1' 3 burner camp stove (older than I am),
a turkey fryer unit, 4 flipping huge steel burners and stands of Lord
Bruno's, and a really huge wok burner unit.
Refrigeration was lots of dry ice and lots of coolers....
Washing station was some buckets full of super hot soapy water (boiled
water), cold rinse water, and water with bleach to sanitize.

With all of that under my apron myself and my staff fed 125 folks the
following....

First Course

Fresh Raw Vegetables as subtleties.... from
The _Arte de Cortar_ (The Art of Carving) by Enrique de Villena

We served Cucumber baskets stuffed with carrot sticks and green onion
brushes surrounding

Cheese from
Scott, R. (1986) In: Cheesemaking Practice, 2nd edition, Elsevier
Applied Science Publishers Ltd., London, UK.
with more fresh Raw Vegetables...

Carrot Birds
  No documentation other than the aforementioned raw veggies.... but they
looked really good.

Shrimp
England, 15th century | SOURCE: Harleian MS 4016

Crab
England, 15th century | SOURCE: Harleian MS 4016

Sauce Noir
France, 14th century | SOURCE: Le Viandier de Taillevent

Marinated Mushrooms
Not in anyway documented.... I just found them and decided to run with
it..... served them in bell pepper bowls.... (Cut peppers in halves
scoop out the innards and pour in the mushrooms)

Second Course
Garlic Soup Not Period Not documented.... but really tasty....

Fried Gourds

Platina book 7    Special note here we did not use yellow squash nor
zucchini we used butternut squash.... try the guords they can be fun!!!!
This was a very fun experiment....
And very well received!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roast Chicken

Platina book 6
The one variation I took from this was I used the original sauce as a
marinade; so I soaked the chicken in the orange juice, cinnamon, and
rose water mixture before cooking it.... maybe not period but very
tasty....
I was going to serve this with the Sauce Jaunet but we missed it....
the chicken went out with the beef....so the feasters ate the chicken
with the Sauce Poivrade...

A dish of roast beef served with Sauce Poivrade - contributed by Rebecca
A. C. Smith

Cous Cous
Andalusian Cookbook
Soldier's Couscous (Kuskusu Fityani) (A55)

I used the boxed mix as I got it on sale.... It ROCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Palate Cleanser...
Sugared Grapes..... Not period and not what was served,.... but we were
going to do it.... and I will one day....
What we served was

Marinated cucumbers....

Not really sure of the documentation but I know that it is there....

Third Course

Greens
Lenten foyles
Ordinance of Potage p. 38 (no. 9)

Roasted Duck
England, 14th century | SOURCE: Utilis Coquinario

Sauce Pikkyl pour le Mallard
England, 15th century | SOURCE: Harleian MS. 279

Partied Rice

Not a proven period recipe....
Both Rices were around though....
Standard white rice mixed with "Emperor's Rice or Forbidden Rice"

I can prove that both were around and that both were in use but I cannot
document that they both were mixed together in a dish...

Palate Cleanser
Hais

al-Baghdadi p. 214/14 (GOOD)

Fourth Course

Iced Fruit
The Icing Process is a little confusing and is questionable as to being period or not...
For my purposes I took it literally and am serving the dessert fruit
frozen...

We had Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and melons literally frozen.
I at least tried to live up to the homage of frozen fruit....

Cheesecakes
Minis

England, 14th century | SOURCE: Forme of Cury
We broke period and used a mix.... sorry folks....

Snow Stuffed Swans
SOURCE: Original is from the Forme of Cury, # 204, as transcribed in
Curye on Inglysch, p. 145. This recipe refers to the previous one, # 203
for "The pety peruaunt". A note in the index/glossary under payn, p.
204, indicates that there is another recipe in MS Ashmole 1393 which
gives cream, flour, egg yolks, and sugar for the ingredients of the
pastry and which also suggests that the dish should be in the form of a
loaf.

Well we made creme puff swans.....

Finally we did all of that with a field kitchen, my own personal
freezer, and my work refrigerators and freezers...

I will report what I learned tomorrow.... (Trust me there was a lot learned...)

But all in all it was a great experience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I urge all of the new cooks to get into the kitchen.... volunteer and
the get your own event..... it is awesome!!!!!

Lord Nichola


Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 23:55:32 -0400
From: "The Sheltons" <sheltons at sysmatrix.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Looking for further info on the Feast of
	Unicorn
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

<< From: Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Looking for further info on the Feast of Unicorn
last November.

Last night I started editing this message to create a Florilegium
file about this "Feast of the Unicorn" cooked by Lord Nichola:
But I don't see any further report in my files, nor in the next two
months which I checked in the SCA-Cooks archives...Also, I had it
down as the "Feast of the Unicorn", but I see you referring to it here
as the "Feast of Unicorn". And a description of where the feast was
held might be nice for folks outside of the  kingdom, as well as your
full name and title, so you get proper  credit for this feast.

Thanks,
Stefan>>

The event in question was "Feast of the Unicorn" hosted by the Canton
of Cyddlain Downs [greater Columbia SC area], Barony of Nottinghill
Coill [everything west of I-95 in SC], Kingdom of Atlantia.  The head
cook was Lord Nichola Buscelli [mka Greg Wardlaw].

John le Burguillun


Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 22:35:55 -0400
From: kattratt <kattratt at charter.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for further info on the Feast of
	Unicorn	last	November.
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Thought I would reply to this here on list...
Sigh boy was that an exhausting nap... ;)
Nope actually it seems that I forgot to actually report what I learned
after my first feast.  Sigh sorry folks it has been a rough year, the
good news is that things are looking up now.

My report from my first official SCA feast.
Feast of the Unicorn was the Event.
The site was Camp Fellowship located on Lake Greenwood SC.
Head Cook was Lord Nichola Buscelli.
Assistant Cooks were Lady Anastasia Bellasare`, Katrina d'Henge, Lord
Bruno, Lord William, There were 2 others but I can not remember their
names... it has been to long sorry.  If someone can fill those in I
would appreciate it.

(Master John if you can give your Duchess Simone's son's name I would
appreciate it.  Also there was someone working on pastries whose name I
cannot remember.. if someone can fill in that blank it would be great.)


Now I gave the menu way back then and I cannot remember all of the
details... but I will talk about what I learned.... THAT I still  
remember.

First off most of what I learned can be fixed in one simple statement...
Make sure you have a kitchen if you are someone that insists upon
"Wowing" people.
I tried to pull off way too big of a feast for a field kitchen even with "Bruno's Magnificent Traveling Kitchen" tm.
All of this is IF this is Your FIRST Feast and your First time using a
field kitchen....

1) IF using a field kitchen for your kitchen then go ahead and set up in
the covered area and don't worry about trying to use tents.  Chances are
it will rain anyways.

2) Don't go overboard.  Don't try and do a four to six dish per course,
four course feast without a kitchen.  You probably won't have enough
dishes to serve the food with.

3) Watch your sauces... in a meat heavy dinner I had used all vinegar
based sauces... since those were what was recommended in the recipes...
We used a Vinegar Sauce, Poivrade Noir, Beef in a Sauce Poivrade,
Chicken in a Vinegar Sauce.   Now Me I like the vinegar sauces... but I
can see how all of those could overwhelm an normal SCAdian feaster.
Next time I think a sweet sauce or two.

4) Keep your cool.

5) Pastries even when prepared ahead of time are probably not a good
thing if you don't have counter space.  Which occurs when you do not
have a kitchen.

6) Especially if they are cream filled pastries.

7) Every thing needs to be timed out ahead of time.

8) Which means every thing needs to planned, planned, planned.

9) Which also means a run through of everything.... even if you don't
think it needs a run through.   Do it anyways.  You will appreciate it
in the end.

10) Chicken can be flash fried in a wok but will probably come out not
done.  Ie Burnt on the outside and still underdone on the inside.  So
start your chicken first thing when cooking your meats.

11) Rare beef is ok.

12) Folks are getting tired of duck.

13) If you are extremely careful you can serve allergy free shellfish.

14) AND Folks appreciate it.

15) Arrange for servers months ahead of time and lock them in a week
before the event.

16) Double check everything ahead of time.

17) Locate the nearest stores before the event occurs.

18) AND THIS IS IMPORTANT...  Don't let the autocrat take breakfast or
lunch [dollars] out of your budget... (In this case breakfast...)   This can kill
your promise to make shortcuts that will save money... since the money
that you have saved is already gone before the event.  And was not due
to you.

19) Never yell at your crew no matter what.  (Didn't happen just good
advice...)

20) Always relax after you are done with the kitchen but make sure that
you stick around so that everyone gets their stuff back.  Someone else
can clean up but you have to stay to ensure that everyone gets what is
important to them back to them... knives, pots, bowls etc....

Ok That is my first list
This time it won't take a year for me to follow up.

Nichola


Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 21:12:24 -0400
From: kattratt <kattratt at charter.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for further info on the Feast of
	Unicorn last	November.
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Stefan li Rous wrote:
>>  Now I gave the menu way back then and I cannot remember all of the
>> details... but I will talk about what I learned.... THAT I still
>> remember.
>>
>> 3) Watch your sauces... in a meat heavy dinner I had used all vinegar
>> based sauces... since those were what was recommended in the recipes...
>> We used a Vinegar Sauce, Poivrade Noir, Beef in a Sauce Poivrade,
>> Chicken in a Vinegar Sauce.   Now Me I like the vinegar sauces...  but I
>> can see how all of those could overwhelm an normal SCAdian feaster.
>> Next time I think a sweet sauce or two.
>
> I can think of honey mustard sauces, but what other medieval sweet
> sauces are there? Perhaps some of the pomegranate sauces?

Pomegranate was exactly what I was thinking. 

>> 5) Pastries even when prepared ahead of time are probably not a good
>> thing if you don't have counter space.  Which occurs when you do not
>> have a kitchen.
>
> Was this served buffet style or on to serving platters which were
> then taken to the tables? Why do you need much in the way of counters
> and tables for this if the food items are pre-prepared? How did you
> bring them to the site? Why couldn't you just unpack them directly
> from whatever they were shipped in, directly onto the plates or
> serving platters?

Ah ok the pastries were prepared ahead of time however these particular
pastries were actually Creme Puff Swans.  So we had baggies full of
neck/head peices, bodies, and wings.   We needed the table space so that
we could assemble the crazy things on site.  Which meant placing the
bodies on the trays, then filling them with the creme filling, and then
sticking in the wings and necks.  When I say prepared ahead I meant that
we prepared the pastry dough pieces and froze them.

>> 6) Especially if they are cream filled pastries.
>
> What difference does the cream-filling make? Was it because they more
> fragile than non-filled pastries would have been?

Nope we piped them on site.  Which took lots of time and needed lots of
table space.

>>  12) Folks are getting tired of duck.
>
> You're kidding, right?  I guess you aren't. But I've seldom seen duck
> served here in Ansteorra.

I just think that some of the folks that said something had been to
several feasts that had duck.  I know that including my feast I had had
duck about 4 other times that year.

>>  13) If you are extremely careful you can serve allergy free   
>> shellfish.
>
> Where are the allergies coming from? The shellfish? If so, how do you
> serve them allergy free? Or do you mean the other foods were allergy
> free, because you were careful about contact between the shellfish
> and other foods and between the shellfish utensils and the other
> food? Or do you mean you bought allergy free shellfish? If the
> latter, what kind of allergies do shellfish get? :-)

I had been warned by several folks that if I was serving shellfish then
it would scare others away.  I had several others express concerns about
allergies. (Humans being allergic to the shellfish not the fish having
allergies.)  I must say that the way we served in a way that insured
Zero Cross Contamination.  Hands were sanitized before gloving, the
shellfish was served, and then hands were resanitized.   Then we served
the remainder of feast.  The trays of shellfish went into a separate
bucket and were hosed off after feast and cleaned off site.  In other
words NOT reused for the feast.
As far as shellfish and allergies, I would never begin to try and fathom
that one.

>>  15) Arrange for servers months ahead of time and lock them in a week
>> before the event.
>
> If you didn't have a kitchen, what did you lock them in until the
> feast?  I do wonder though if this will impact the number who will
> volunteer to serve your next feast...

I had a really big cooler.

>> 18) AND THIS IS IMPORTANT...  Don't let the autocrat take breakfast or
>> lunch [dollars] out of your budget... (In this case breakfast...)
>> This can kill
>> your promise to make shortcuts that will save money... since the money
>> that you have saved is already gone before the event.  And was not due
>> to you.
>
> What kind of shortcuts did you promise that would save money? I'm
> used to shortcuts which usually trade time for money or ones that
> save money at the cost of more time.

I did my shopping over about a 7 month period.  Catching sales and great
bargains.  I also shopped a couple of stores in Atlanta Ga, (we have
already talked about them... Intl. Farmers Market and Oriental Market.)
over that 7 month period catching some good deals as well.  This
allowed me to bring a feast that I asked $7.00 a head in for about $5.50
a head. Thus giving me some playing room for fun things to be served...
special garnishes, a chocolate piece for High table, (quit fussing she
begged me to let her do it and I can't say No to her.)  and a few other
fun things... which brought us up to $6.00 a head.  Thus we would have
made some money for the Canton, however add in the breakfast and there
goes the extra.

Not a big deal really as it didn't affect me but we didn't "make"
anything and I had bragged that I could probably make them an extra
$100-150. I simply must ask next time if there is being a breakfast
served and if that cash is coming out of the feast money... if so I will
factor that into my budgeting and per head price if we wish to make
money to go into the bank.

Please note that I am not fussing about this occurring I simply remember
us all talking about it last year before this feast and then dang if it
didn't happen.  I wasn't upset that it happened as it didn't affect me.
I just wanted to make them some money.

> Thanks for the report.
>
> Stefan

Nichola

Edited by Mark S. Harris	Unicorn-Feast-art	9 of 9