dayboards-msg – 2/21/08
Comments on SCA dayboards - meals generally served in a continuous fashion during the day. Usually much simpler fare and less formal than 'sit-down' feasts.
NOTE: See also the files: feasts-msg, breakfast-msg, feast-ideas-msg, feast-serving-msg, finger-fd-fst-art, finger-foods-msg, prim-sit-fsts-msg.
************************************************************************
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
************************************************************************
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 06:59:44 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Dayboard?
lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
> What sorts of events have dayboards - breakfasts and lunches? Are
> dayboards a function of weather? location? event type?
>
> Most of ours are outdoors, often camping. The only primarily indoor
> events i can think of are the various Collegia and 12th Night.
Speaking from an Eastern perspective, I'd say it has (or originally had)
a lot to do with event location and type. Dayboards seem primarily to
correspond to lunch, and in a case where there are a lot of morning
activities, and no place to go for lunch, with the nearest McPoopie's 20
miles away, a day board is a good idea from the convenience perspective.
We've also had situations where an evening "feast" is for some reason
impractical, due to site limitations and/or sheer numbers of gentles
arriving at a one-day event. So, for example, a fairly common scenario
is an EKU with 650 people on a site we have to vacate by 6 PM.
I would say a dayboard is also characterized (at least around here) as
being used to feed people with difficult scheduling situations, as with
the aforementioned EKU (regardless of any "lunch hour" built into the
event schedule). As a result, the day board has a tendency to go out
around 11:30 AM, to be actively replenished until around 3 PM, and not
actually removed until perhaps 4 or 4:30 PM.
I think perhaps with the increase we are all experiencing with site
fees, and the general reality that events overall are more expensive to
attend than they used to be, there is an increase in people's
expectations as to what they'll get for their event money. The growing
frequency of the day board is, I think, a part of this, and people seem
to be expecting it more as a matter of course than as a welcome
convenience. There also seems to be a distressingly growing attitude
which assumes that event staff are servants, but that's another topic.
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2000 18:58:34 EST
From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Confession is good for the soul
jenne at mail.browser.net writes:
<< Suggestions, comments, criticism welcome. >>
A friend of mine was rhapsodizing about your dayboard later that day. She
said that, although it was not the largest or most elaborate she had ever
seen, it was by far the most logically and best laid-out dayboard she had
ever seen (and she does not use words like that lightly). She particularly
appreciated the clear labelling of the sauces and the handwashing bowls of
clove, sage and rosemary(?) water at the starting end of the table, so that
you could rinse your hands before picking up your food. She said she plans
to steal the idea for use in her own events.
Congratulations!
Brangwayna Morgan
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:35:19 -0500
From: "Mike Macchione" <drkael at home.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Day Boards
> You're from the NJ area of the East Kingdom, aren't you? Hartshorn-dale
> (Bucks County PA) does some interesting dayboards involving fruit, nuts
> and other nuncheon-type foods. Kyle McCue (sp?) did an excellent dayboard
> for the Southern Region Arts Exhibition two years ago in Rusted Woodlands.
> One of the outstanding features was Savory Toasted Cheese.
the spelling is close... its Kael (short for Mikael)
Having done a number of dayboards, and been told that some of my "dayboards
have been better than some of feasts", I have learned a number of things.
First off, people like variety. They want a varied spread of foods.
Likewise, they want different foods from one dayboard to the next.
One of the tricks I have used is to serve some broiled chicken legs, thighs,
and wings. I make them up in a variety of fashions, seasoning them with
different spices. They're cheap, easy and people think its cool that there
is "real meat' on the day board. Meat loafs also go over well.
Kael
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 23:32:23 -0800
From: "Bonne of Traquair" <oftraquair at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Dayboard for University
>I'm putting together the dayboard for a Kingdom University, and I'm a bit
>unsure as to quantities of food.
>
>If I was putting together a full feast, I'd be fine. But what about
>dayboard?
>I'm told to anticipate about 200 people. ... not sure
>how to calculate how much I can expect people to eat for the dayboard.
> - Rowen
I don't know really what procedure is implied by 'dayboard'. Is this pay in
advance and be allowed to serve yourself/be served from a buffet table? or
is it more like a cafeteria (choose items as you go down the table, pay by
the item after choosing).
When I organized a 'cafeteria style' lunch, I was advised to expect to sell
about 150 lunches. I brought about 100 of each item, except for bread. I
had 250 six-inch rolls as I figured to sell bread with every combination and
I thought that if I ran out of bread, I'd see sales of everything else drop
to nothing. And that's what happened, no matter what else people bought,
they wanted bread and even extra bread.
Bonne
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 08:40:13 -0500 (EST)
From: Jenne Heise <jenne at mail.browser.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Dayboard for University
> I don't know really what procedure is implied by 'dayboard'. Is this pay in
> advance and be allowed to serve yourself/be served from a buffet table? or
> is it more like a cafeteria (choose items as you go down the table, pay by
> the item after choosing).
In my part of the world, an additional fee for dayboard is unusual. This
of course leads to fun and excitement in food estimation. ;)
- --
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 17:55:12 -0000
From: "Olwen the Odd" <olwentheodd at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - What would you do? or 2 months to freak out
>Question: how many places have an 'included' dayboard as opposed to the
>'pay extra' model everyone is working on...
>--
>Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise jenne at mail.browser.net
Here in Bright Hills we usually include a light lunch which is usually soup
and bread and perhaps some cheese sometimes some fruit. At some of our
weekend events one of the Guilds may opt to do a breakfast for donations to
help raise a little money for that Guild. The childrens Guild does that a
lot. Sometimes the armours Guild. Then at some events if our Cooks Guild
is not cooking for the event we usually ask if we can have a bake sale which
is mostly sweets so as not to interfere with any lunch or feast plans of the
cooks.
Olwen
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 09:15:44 -0400 (EDT)
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Dayboards
> I still can't imagine how everyone doing a dayboard can figure out the amout
> of food to make if you don't know how many will be there. Is a dayboard a
> meal or just things to knosh on? Dayboards and offboards are unfamilar in
> Trimaris. Guess it goes back to tradition.
Dayboards are usually something between a meal and a nosh. You figure that
you have to feed as many servings as you expect to get attending-- you
just make it a 'light lunch': bread, cheese, soup, nibblies, etc;
sometimes pies, meats and other protein sources.
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 19:25:58 -0400
From: Tara Sersen Boroson <tsersen at nni.com>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboards
> << Is a dayboard a meal or just things to knosh on >>
>
> Think of dayboard as a buffet. Lots of carbohydrates to fill the stomach with
> protein and vegetables/fruits to round out the table.
Buffet, yes. But, the makeup of it really depends on the kind of event.
For fighting events, people often try to go a little heavier on
protein, salt and water content foods. For more genteel indoor events,
people may try for a very period spread with many neat things. If there
is no feast, people will often make the dayboard a little more
extravagent. Cold-weather events will often provide lots of hot soups
and things to keep people warm as well as fed.
As for, is it a meal or just munchies, I'd say it's usually meant as a
light meal served buffet style. It's more than munchies, but not quite
a fill-your-plate and sit down for a big meal kind of thing.
-Magdalena
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 06:24:19 -0500
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Imaginary list was Re: Irish Stew recipe
I confess I haven't the patience to do really spectacular dayboards.
Maybe if I only had to do a dayboard and didn't see them as a
distraction from the feast, it would be different. I generally
provide a meat pottage and a vegetable pottage, garnishes to dress
them up a bit, bread, and fruit. I've occasionally made large
herbolastes, not exactly to order, but large ones in 16",
oven-friendly saute pans, about every 15 minutes, so they don't sit
out and become slimy concrete.
Adamantius
From: "Randy Goldberg MD" <goldberg at bestweb.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Imaginary list was Re: Irish Stew recipe
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 07:22:28 -0500
> I confess I haven't the patience to do really spectacular dayboards.
> Maybe if I only had to do a dayboard and didn't see them as a
> distraction from the feast, it would be different. I generally
> provide a meat pottage and a vegetable pottage, garnishes to dress
> them up a bit, bread, and fruit. I've occasionally made large
> herbolastes, not exactly to order, but large ones in 16",
> oven-friendly saute pans, about every 15 minutes, so they don't sit
> out and become slimy concrete.
We did something similar for dayboard at our MSR Valentine's event... I
wouldn't call it "spectacular", but it was more than the average dayboard.
Homebaked bread, a beef-and-mushroom soup (the leftovers we turned into
gravy for the roast beef with more beef base and some thickeners), a
vegetable soup (the leftovers got turned into a vegetarian stew for dinner
with some additional different veggies and a torn-bread thickener),
red-colored hard-boiled eggs (it WAS a Valentines event), cheese cubes and
sausages, and sekanjabin. The rest of dinner was the aforementioned
hunks-o-roasted-beef... and I've gone brain-dead on the rest of the menu.
Dessert was baked apples, cherry bread pudding, sugared almonds, candied
orange peel, and some gorgeous heart-shaped molded anisette cookies.
Avraham
From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 16:55:00 EDT
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Lady Brangwayna's Feast
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
kingstaste at mindspring.com writes:
> I'd like to hear more about the dayboard. We are planning one for our
> upcoming Baronial 30th Anniversary event, and the gentleman in charge is
> open for lots of ideas at this point.
The dayboard consisted of pickled hard-boiled eggs made with cider vinegar,
brown sugar, dill, and tarragon; Compost, from Forme of Cury; individual-size
Pie of Parys tarts made in little foil cupcake liners; small pasties of the
so-called Icelandic Chicken (made with diced chicken and bacon and ground
sage); dill pickles; plain hard-boiled eggs; fresh cherries and cantalope
slices; and a small amount of bread and honey-butter, served with Syrup of
Lemons. The tarts and pasties were served cold for the most part, although
there were some being made during the time the dayboard ran, so I'm sure some
got eaten warm as well.
If you do the pasties and tarts, set up a production line to do them; we had
a hard time getting enough done because we really only could manage one
person to cut/form the dough and one to fill them.
The Compost redaction we used was Ras', which should be in the Florilegium;
the Pie of Parys redaction was the one from Pleyn Delit; and we didn't really
do one for the Icelandic chicken - I'd guess we used about 1 pound of bacon
to 4 or 5 pounds of parboiled diced chicken, and added about a teaspoon or
two of rubbed sage and a little salt. The dough used for both pastries was a
basic pastry recipe using flour, a mixture of butter and Crisco, water, and a
little salt. We could probably have used wonton wrappers for the pasties, but
I didn't think of it until we were halfway done.
Brangwayna
From: "Kirsten Houseknecht" <kirsten at fabricdragon.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboards?
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 10:24:05 -0400
Organization: Fabric Dragon
> I am in Meridies, and have never heard of a "dayboard". Can someone please
> explain what these are exactly, where they began, historical references,
> etc?
>
> Madhavi
around here, Dayboard ranges from just breads and butter spreads........ to
breads, pickles, butters, jams, cheeses, vegetables and dips, hardboiled
eggs, cheese bisquits and anything else that can be served cold......up to
and very occasionally including cold meats (rare, but i am happy when they
can manage it)
as a merchant, who doesnt get much time to go away from the event and look
for lunch, i naturally like events with good dayboards.
most of our events do NOT serve breakfast or lunch, just dinner.......
especially the one day only events... and the dayboard is what is available
for other food on site. This is for the Bakhail area, but also for a lot of
other events in East Kingdom and Atlantia, as a merchant i go to events in
both kingdoms routinely
Kirsten
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 10:32:48 -0400 (EDT)
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboards?
> I am in Meridies, and have never heard of a "dayboard". Can someone please
> explain what these are exactly, where they began, historical references,
> etc? What is the practical purpose? Are they easier or more difficult to
> plan for and prepare than the traditional 3 meals? Around here, the event
> rarely provides lunch, just Friday (traveler's Fare) and Saturday dinner
> (feast) and Saturday and Sunday breakfasts. I'm really interested in the
> dayboard idea.
Dayboard is usually a substitute for 'lunch'-- it can be a short dayboard
(only over lunch) or a day-long one... People like it if you concentrate
on stuff that they can carry away-- pies, lumps of meat, cheese, fruit,
veggies. Soup is also very popular.
There is an anecdotal tradition that complains that dayboards are always
bread, cheese and fruit but I really don't see that many dayboards done
that way-- I see a lot of pies. I'm going to start collecting dayboard
menus from the East kingdom and try to do a collection on the web to try
to give an idea of how broad this is.
Saturday breakfast isn't as common at events I've been to as Saturday
dayboard-- in fact, I love the idea of not having to haul a cooler full of
stuff around so much that I'll choose an event with a dayboard over an
event without a dayboard.
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 16:00:15 -0400 (EDT)
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Dayboards?
> I love this idea! Can you give me an idea of when dayboards start usually
> and how they are arranged? I love to do weird things around here... maybe
> I'll do a dayboard for Fighter's Collegium....
Rule of thumb: don't bother with anything but coffee (if you serve coffee)
before 11, 'cos at camping events most people won't be awake enough and at
day events most people won't be _there_. At least in the East.
Dayboards can be very simple, or very elaborate. Hrim Schola in the East
has a dayboard that includes lots of tiny pastries, pies, mini-hedgehogs,
etc. I did one for an embroidery schola that centered around cheese, beef,
chicken and bread with multicolored sauces
(http://www.lehigh.edu/~jahb/jadwiga/A&;S/thimble1.html if you want to see
the menu). I also do a big one-- the one for war camp-- that's just fruit,
pickles & pretzels, bread and stuff-to-go-on-bread, cheese and veggies
(Stefan has a file about that). The dayboard for Sword and Chrysanthemum,
a Japanese event,
(done by a talented local cook, Lady Rowan of Meikledale) is going to
have a noodle bar with soup and stuff to put in it:
http://www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Japanese/japfeast.htm
I keep meaning to write an article about dayboards. One of the most
important things-- if you have a big dayboard with a lot of people and
want it to last a couple of hours- is portion control. Don't put all the
food out at once. You can make 45 pounds of cheese last 5 hours at an
event with 750 people if you put it out in soup-sized bowls so people feel
guilty taking a double handful!
You can put stuff out either in a fancy way or just stick it in bowls on
the table-- but dayboards are a great chance to set up a buffet-style
table that looks really nice (as long as you aren't trying to feed the
hordes...)
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 06:29:31 -0400
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboards?
Also sprach Avraham haRofeh:
> > Our "traditional" feast package is usually lunch and dinner the day of
>> the event, although the lunch is more commonly served if the event in
>> question's being held somewhere where folks can't easily go get a
>> hamburger, or pick up nibbles at a grocery store. I don't know that
>> I've ever seen a breakfast provided, outside of perhaps a basket of
>> rolls and fresh fruit for the Royal Room.
>
>Dayboard is basically lunch, except it's not a served, sit-down meal, it's
>usually just set up buffet style.
When I was a lad, back in A.S. Nuffink, we 'ad it towf. We 'ad to
'oont down oor own mastodons by diggin' pit ootside yon event site,
an' roost 'em oover fire built outta oor own legs. An' we were 'appy
to get it. Noone o' yer bloomin' dayboords.
But yes, I remember when dayboards were either nonexistent or a
rarity in the East; now they are pretty much the norm. They can range
from the minimalist bread-cheese-fruit thing to the more elaborate
ones with little pies and such. I imagine that with a relatively
large number of events taking place on a given weekend within 200
miles or so of most people, and massive competition from real life,
it's become very difficult to plan to attend an event too far in
advance, and when this occurs, a decent lunch (or at least the time
to prep one offsite) is one of the things that suffers.
Things learned from putting out dayboards (I'm sure Jadwiga and
others can help me out here): portion bread. It sounds ridiculous,
but there seems to be a tendency for people to tear a large loaf in
half, eat about a quarter of that, and throw the rest away.
I've never done a dayboard when I was not also cooking a feast at the
same time, so my approach has been rather minimalist -- see
bread-cheese-fruit above. When feeling elaborate, I'll add a meat
soup, a more-or-less vegan soup, and perhaps a frittata every half
hour or so. These last work rather well for small events; they don't
take long to cook once the bulk prep is done, you cook them for a
very few minutes on the rangetop, and then you can finish them in the
oven, and a decent-sized one serves maybe 20 people, depending on
what one considers "decent-sized". It may be the perfect combination
of industrial, bulk cookery and a la minute service.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 13:25:34 -0500
From: Jim and Andi <icbhod at comcast.net>
Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] large dayboard feast: need advice from those who have
done this before
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
While I've never done a dayboard per se, I have done lunch spreads for
fighters on an extremely limited budget, and there are a few things that I
can suggest that are extremely filling and fit the "looks medieval" rule
rather than being 100% authentic.
Stuffed rolls- if you just put out sliced meat, it'll be eaten very
quickly... you can stretch it by baking things like stromboli or pepperoni
rolls. Just buy frozen white bread dough, roll out like a jelly roll, cover
with sliced ham and honey mustard, roll up, and bake, then serve sliced.
Variations I have made are spinach, herbs and ricotta cheese; shredded
smoked turkey with spicy horseradish and cream cheese; and pepperoni and
mozzarella with pesto. really makes the expensive ingredients stretch, but
doesn't require assembly like a sandwich would or utensils to eat.
You can also make quiches in large pans and cut them into squares to serve.
Quiche is CHEAP. Quartered oranges sit well and fighters love them, but
quartered apples get icky-looking quickly. Trays of cut-up vegetables look
so modern to me as to be unappealing, but veggies can be snuck into foods
everywhere to fill them out and make them cheaper and healthier. There is a
stuffed meatloaf recipe I got off an SCA site a long time ago and has become
a family favorite and a favorite for events... stuffed mea