dayboards-msg – 1/6/12 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 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" 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" 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 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" 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: 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 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 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" To: 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" To: 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: 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: 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" 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 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 meatloaf. You make a meatloaf mixture with ground meat (I use turkey & beef) then add a grated zucchini, some minced fresh mushrooms and lots of dill and parsley. Spread it out on some aluminum foil to about 9x13, then lay slices of swiss cheese on top, then cover with a layer of shredded fresh spinach. Roll it up and bake. It's really good cold. I think the original recipe called for a pastry crust over the whole thing. Madhavi From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 14:27:40 -0400 (EDT) To: Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] large dayboard feast: need advice from those who have done this before > 2. the fighter bisquits i had at an event.. made with cheese. were very > filling. and you can use cheap cheese, because you dont taste it much. The doggie, I mean fighter, biskets, are either loved or hated. Besides the fact that they are baking powder biscuits, they can come out dry and, well, like doggie biskets, if you aren't lavish with the cheese. Some stores that do baking do a cheese loaf or a cheesy bread and we've had good luck with those. -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 14:34:46 -0400 (EDT) To: Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] large dayboard feast: need advice from those who have done this before > We are planning a clear soup (based on fighter > needs), 2 varieties of pickles, vegetable stix/slices > of carrots, cucumbers and celery, bread (in 29" > French loaves), hard boiled eggs (30 dozen), cheddar > and swiss cheeses (cubed), kielbasa sausage (diced), > apples and/or pears, and sliced ham. > Our budget is $500-$700 and we have been told to > estimate for 500 people. We would like to have cold or > room temperature foods to minimize the > hot-food-not-hot-enough complaints. With the soup, be sure to get some crock pots (and some place to plug them in). That solves the 'not hot enough' problem. > What quantities of meats/cheeses should we purchase > to adequately feed the throngs? Dayboard at EK War Camp in late july (750 attendees on site), used 45 lbs of cheese and 10 lbs of ham and we could have used more. The trick, as I've said, is to put the cheese and ham out in SMALL BOWLS but replenish often. That way the piggies will not gorge their plates in one swoop. Having Swiss and Cheddar, you could reduce the numbers-- swiss and cheddar aren't as popular as the soft cheese like Farmer, Muenster, etc. But since it's a winter event, keep those numbers relatively high. >The veggies and eggs > are cheap, but the sausage, ham, and cheese are the > most expensive items at $1.79 per pound. Buy more eggs. :) 45 dozen eggs were eaten up at the dayboard referred to above. Buy the flats of 2.5 dozen. I know regular size eggs by the 15 dozen case look appealling at Sam's, but I find that I do much better pricewise buying the flats, and small eggs are a better serving size. Serve meat and cheese in small chunks or strips. Slices are for when you've got $150 to do dayboard for 40 people. Bread: buy a goodly quantity, and have someone slice it at the table, or pre-slice it. People waste less but eat more that way. Don't forget the butter and other things to go on bread. > I have heard a person consumes about a pound of > food to feel full. One of the strategies I am thinking > of is making a vegetarian pea soup in addition to the > clear soup to fill up tummies. Or should we buy > smaller quantities of meat/cheese and be sure > everything is eaten without leftovers (like 60 lbs of > meat and cheese combined) and stay with clear soup > only? The Crown that we did, we had chicken soup (with meat in it -- Hen in Broth) that went well. The Lentil soup just wasn't as popular. Are you making your own broth or buying it? If you are making your own broth, just cut up the chicken bits and dump them back in. If people want a clear broth, you just dip out of the top! Remember hot cups to serve the soup in, people-- fighters, fencers and such especially-- resist getting their feastgear out. Oh-- and having chicken in the feast doesn't preclude a chicken soup. You may want to do 2 soups, like a veggie one and an non-veggie one, but don't worry about making too much veggie soup-- even with something like lentil we didn't get a lot of takers. > Bread runs $1 per loaf and will feed 8-10 people. > Any and all advice and dire warnings will be > welcomed and greatfully accepted. The most important thing, if you are going to do a dayboard like this, is to have someone who is in charge of the service and go with putting out small quantities, constantly replenished. It makes people happy if you plan to have it open longer than an hour (2 is good, 4 is really helpful, unless it's crown, because the bhoys that can't eat until after they fight will be so busy watching after they get eliminated that they won't eat anyway-- then they will come and bitch nastily at you at 5 pm because they are hypoglycemic and you've Moved The Cheese *sigh*). What people have said when I asked about this on the EK list is that they like stuff they can eat with their fingers and/or don't need feastgear for. -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 14:03:59 -0500 From: Jim and Andi Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] large dayboard feast: need advice from those who have done this before To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Oh, another one I just thought of; that *is* medieval and fighters love, I have served this at a cold dreary blustery event to great success. It's called Miszkulancja or Bigos (I think pronounced Bee-gauche). It's from the Maria Dembinska book "food and drink of medieval poland" and the original recipe calls for all kinds of exotic roast meats (including pheasant and boar) but I made it like this: Bigos for 12 2 lbs shredded sauerkraut, drained and rinsed 1 lb cabbage, grated 1 package dried mixed wild mushrooms, snipped with scissors or broken up into small pieces (don't skip this) 1 lb sliced onions 1 package of dried cherries and 1 of dried apples 1 lb of Polish kielbasa, sliced 1/4 lb bacon, browned and crumbled 1 ham steak, sliced into strips I think 1/2 lb 1 lb beef roast cut into stew chunks 3 cups of strong beef stock 1 cup dry red wine 1 tsp pepper (recipe calls for cubebs) 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp cumin This has to be the easiest recipe ever. You just dump all the ingredients in an electric crockpot (I used 2 electric roasters) or you could bake it in aluminum roasting pans, covered *tightly*. This must cook at a low temp (250 or 275) for as long as possible, at least 5 hours. It should come out like a thick stew. I served this with thin buckwheat pancakes, sliced Italian bread and LOTS of sour cream and chives. It smells incredible while cooking, too. Madhavi From: "Lynn Hunter" To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 15:04:19 -0400 Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: large dayboard Okay, sounding a bit like a one-noter, I can only recommend pasties in lieu of diced cheese and sausage. You get more bang for the buck, you can make them up ahead of time (Pre-cooks are not only your friend, in Bright Hills they are an excuse for a party - as if we needed one!), freeze them, then thaw and cook on site or cook and then freeze and nuke them in shifts as needed. You can offer veggie pasties (Mushrooms of the First Night from Menangier (and I bet I just butchered that)) and meat and cheese. I also recommend a dedicated server for these. While most folks will feel free to overload on diced cheese and sausage, they will only take one or 2 of the pasties. But it helps to have someone there to apportion them. As far as soups, in Bright Hills, we generally offer 2 soups at lunch. One veggie and one meat-bearing... And more eggs. Use smalls, you get a lower price and they are easier to handle. just my tuppence, Ro SCullion, Bright Hills Cooks' Guild From: Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] large dayboard feast: need advice from those who have done this before Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 12:24:28 +1000 At Valhalla one year (250 people) we served chicken legs, and sausages in bread for lunch. Pretty much nothing else, and boy did people love it. We documented the sausage recipes, found a local sausage making company and handed them a bag of spices; make X kilos of sausages please. It was great, and cheap. Madhavi's suggestion of quiches is a great one. You can make them in advance, which is a plus, there are heaps of period recipes for them, and they are inexpensive especially if you either make your own pastry, or go to a food wholesaler and buy a 5kg roll of pastry. Another very popular thing at any fighting event is frozen oranges; just cut them in 8ths and bung 'em in a bag in the freezer - they are wonderfully refreshing on a hot day. Jadwiga is right that how you serve the food makes a big difference - small bowls etc. Put out the bulky filling stuff first, then after they have done the first swoop you can put out the expensive stuff. (depends on how you are planning to serve the food of course) Something at another event I went to was a big pot of stewy stuff, with breadrolls. The breadrolls had the top dug out and were filled with the stew, making the stew feasting-gear free. Basically chunks-o-meat and chunks-o-cheese are popular but the least cost effective way of feeding people; any way that you can put that cheese or meat with bread, pastry or vegetables will reduce your costs. So pies, pasties, and meatrolls are all good. The mushroom pastries in Viandier are just fabulous and use reasonably inexpensive cheese to make - we did ours for Coronation with a mixture of ricotta and feta. On pastries: - Triangular pastries tend to have more pastry proportionately to filling. They are an effective way to utilise sheet pastry. - Rounds of pastry with filling folded over to make a kind of crescent shaped pastry have next smallest amount of filling compared to pastry. They aren't a very efficient way to use sheet pastry (although you can clump the leftovers together and roll out again), but are great for home-made pastry. - Squares of pastry with a spoon full of stuffing, that you then fold the corners of the pastry up into the middle (so that the effect is a kind of cross of pinched pastry on the top) have, I think, the tastiest proportion of filling to pastry, as you don't end up having empty corners. They work well with sheet pastry but are not as good for home made pastry. - open tarts minimise pastry and maximise filling, again best for home made pastry. With pastries (except open tarts) you will use a great deal less filling than you might think. I recall that 1kg of peas will make about 100 peas pies for example. Now THEY are a cheap dish, and sooooo yummy. Kiriel Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 21:49:11 -0500 From: Micaylah Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sideboards.... To: Cooks within the SCA > What kinds of things do you put out on sideboards/dayboards? > > Ru Last Saturdays Sideboard (Practicum, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere): Wastel Bread & Butter Kraftsman Dinner [1] Sausages from Little Italian Beasties Honey Mustard Torta of Onions [2] (with and w/o Pancetta) Strawberry Tarte [3] Apple Cordial [1] Makerouns, Forme of Cury, 1390 [2] Libro di Cucina del secolo XI, 14c, Ludovico Frati, editor [3] The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1585, Thomas Dawson Everything vegetarian friendly but the sausages and overall, not particularly period. I usually do something a little more authentic, but I was hurried on this one. I actually hate the typical sideboard faire (i.e.: Ploughman's Lunch - been done to death). Not that I hate the food, its just that I see this as a another venue to "stretch" a challenge so why not take advantage of it. Practicum is not a large event (130 attendees, 60 for lunch), and we had a budget of $200. Micaylah Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 10:25:38 -0500 From: "a5foil" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sideboards.... To: "Cooks within the SCA" This is the Brunch Buffet I served at Marinus Investiture in 2003. It was not meant to be a meal for anyone, more like a reception, and the food was chosen to be attractive to the food-challenged, instead of being strictly period dishes. Mostly it disappeared. We had paper plates so people could deal with the messy stuff. I don't remember what beverages were served, I think cider and coffee and hot water for instant beverages. Baked Salmon with Green Sauce -- salmon baked in crust with fresh dill Grilled Pork Sausages with Mustard Bacon and Cheese Pies -- basically quiche lorraine Cheese Tagine -- a crustless cottage cheese tart Cinnamon Puffs Panettone -- more popular with the kitchen staff than the populace Fine White Bread Butter Sweet Cheese Spread Compote of Fall Berries Cynara Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 12:25:37 -0500 From: Robin Carroll-Mann Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sideboards.... To: Cooks within the SCA Jonathan and Rebecca Barber wrote: > What kinds of things do you put out on sideboards/dayboards? Yesterday, I did a dayboard for Mudthaw, my barony's biggest annual event. I was told to cook for 500, but there may have been fewer attendees than that. I served: bread -- Italian and a rye/wheat mix. spreads -- butter and a soft cheese with chives. I made the latter with cow's milk, cream, and rennet. (I've made goat's milk cheese in the past, which is much tastier, but goat's milk purchased in stores is too expensive for a dayboard budget.) cheeses - cheddar and feta fruit -- grapes, apples, tangerines (non-period substitute for small sweet oranges), dried figs and dates lentil-leek-barley pottage. I used the redaction from Henry Marks' Byzantine cooking book. The pottage is seasoned with dill, and with a little vinegar, which wakes up the lentils marvelously. chickpea fritters (Counterfeit isfiriya of garbanzos) -- I started out with the redaction in the Miscellany, and made changes. Primarily, I reduced the amount of eggs, dropped the saffron and cinnamon, and increased the quantities of the other spices -- salt, pepper, cumin, coriander seed. I substituted parsley for the green coriander. Next time, I may just drop the parsley. I don't see any mention of herbs in the original recipes) It was extremely popular, and not just among the vegetarians. I served it with a garlic sauce, which most people avoided, and garlic-lovers rejoiced in. roast beef, thinly sliced. (Lady Jadwiga kindly made some cinnamon mustard to accompany the beef.) roast chicken thighs. beef summer sausage (Hillshire Farms brand, purchased at Costco) olives (two kinds), tiny dill pickles, baby carrots honey sesame candy -- I read in the Byzantine cooking book that they ate sweets made of honey and sesame seeds. I found a basic modern recipe (boil honey, stir in toasted sesame seeds, pour out in a thin layer and slice into small pieces) pomegranate drink -- pomegranate molasses, sugar and water. This is always very popular at events. One woman called it "addictive". Everyone seemed to enjoy the variety, especially the fighters and fencers outside. My budget was $800. I came in $20.96 under. -- Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 15:43:18 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] anthimus To: Cooks within the SCA Anthimus according to Mark Grant wasn't published and widely distributed until 1864. There are apparently 9 surviving manuscripts or portions thereof. These include one from the 9th century; one 17th century; another that differs written after 849; another 11th century; a very bad 14th or 15th century one that is judged to be useless; a 10th century one that is partially useful and a partial (first chapter and into only) one dating from the 11th or 12th century. Ok, so would they have known about him or not? Question would be of course did anyone in the Medieval period or Renaissance talk about him or his works? I don't know off hand if any sort of contemporary 13th or 14th century accounts mention him. My guess is that he too vanishes except as a curiousity of vulgate Latin literature. Grant does say that even after he was published in the 19th century, no one cared about the foods being talked about-- they used him as an example of late vulgar Latin. Johnnae Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote: > Also sprach Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise: > >> question: I seem to remember from discussion on this list in the past >> that people in our period might not have been familiar with Anthimus, >> but I may have mixed that up with something else. Anyone got input on >> this. > > > I don't remember the conversation, but after all, Anthimus' treatise > _is_ a letter, after all, so it's conceivable it wasn't something that > became public knowledge for quite some time. I mean, it's not a book > that was published, and while we have plenty of manuscripts that > scribes thought worth copying and disseminating, this doesn't > necessarily have to be one of them. > > On the other hand, if it represents a snapshot of contemporary eating > habits, even an incomplete one or one which is not consistent with > some as yet undiscovered snapshot/document, it doesn't mean people > didn't follow similar foodways to those described by Anthimus. > > There's a great variance between extant Roman sources, too, for > example, and as far as I know, no really compelling evidence that late > Imperial Romans were especially familiar with Apicius. Mostly what we > can surmise is that if he is indeed the author, we have a chance to > narrow his identity down to two likely contenders, and maybe a long > shot or two, which is much of what gives us a sense of when it was > originally written. > > In short, I don't think the phenomenon you're describing, if I > understand you correctly, is all that unusual. Or am I missing > something in your question? > > Adamantius > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 16:44:49 -0500 From: "Denise Wolff" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sideboards.... To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Here are two from my past sideboards: #1 Kings Hens Bacon and Cheese cakes ( Ein gut gebackenz) Chard and Cheese tarts ( Genovese tart ) Apple Tart Bolussen Pickles Herring Almonds,Walnuts Currants, Raisin,Dates,Figs Apples,Pears Cider And Another #2 Yrchouns Tarte of Chese Pyes of grene apples Alows de Beef or de Motoun Stuffed Eggs Confiture de noiz Lemon Water Pomegranate Water Almonds,Pistachios Figs, Raisins Andrea MacIntyre The recipes Ein buch von Guter Spise 28. Wilt du machen ein spise von hüenren (How you want to make a food of hens) Diz heizznt küneges hüenre. Nim junge gebratene hüenre. hau die an kleine mursel. nim frische eyer und zu slahe die. menge daz zu gestozzen ingeber. und ein wenic enys. giuz daz in einen vesten mörser. der heiz si. mit dem selben crute. daz tu zu den eyern. damit bewirf die hüenre. und tu die hüenre in den mörser. und tu dar zu saffran und saltz zu mazzen. und tu sie zu dem viur. und lazze sie backen glich heiz mit ein wenic smaltzes. gib sie gantz hin. daz heizzent küniges hüenre. This is called King's Hens. Take young roasted hens. Cut them in small pieces. Take fresh eggs and beat them. Mix thereto pounded ginger and a little anise. Pour that in a strong pot, which will be hot. With the same herbs, which you add to the eggs, sprinkle therewith the hens and put the hens in the pot. And do thereto saffron and salt to mass. And put them to the fire and let them bake (at the) same heat with a little fat. Give them out whole. That is called King's Hens. 44. Ein gut gebackenz ( A good pastry) Rib kese. menge den mit eyern und scharbe gesoten spec dar zu. mache ein schoenen derben teyc . und fülle den kese und die eyer dor in. und mache krepfelin. und backe sie in butern oder in smaltze. noch der zit. und gib sie warm hin. Grate cheese. Mix it with eggs and boiled small pieces of fatty bacon thereto. Make a fine dough (possibly freshly made as opposed to sourdough) and fill therein with the cheese and the eggs. And make small cakes and bake them in butter or in fat, near to the time (they are to be served), and give them out warm. Sabrina Welserin 30 To make Genovese tart Take eighteen ounces of chard or spinach, three ounces of grated and one half ounces of olive oil and the fresh cheese from six ounces of curdled milk [2]. And blanch the herbs and chop them small and stir it all together and make a good covered tart with it. 75 Another Peel the apples, slice them and roast them, cut the cores cleanly out. Chop them small beforehand and put beef marrow thereon and grated bread crumbs. Stir it together well, stir into it also cinnamon, sugar and raisins and let it bake. Bolussen- Dutch Brown Sugar Coils (Look like cinnamon buns) (I'll pass on the recipe if you want. To make a tarte of Chese. A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye (mid-16th c.) Take harde Chese and cutte it in slyces, and pare it, than laye it in fayre water, or in swete mylke, the space of three houres, then take it up and breake it in a morter tyll it be small, than drawe it up thorowe a strainer with the yolkes of syxe egges, and season it wyth suger and swete butter, and so bake it. To make pyes of grene apples. A Proper newe Booke of Cokerye (mid-16th c.) Take your apples and pare them cleane and core them as ye wyll a Quince, then make youre coffyn after this maner, take a lyttle fayre water and half a dyche of butter and a little Saffron, and sette all this upon a chafyngdyshe tyll it be hoate then temper your flower with this sayd licuor, and the whyte of two egges and also make your coffyn and ceason your apples with Sinemone, Gynger and Suger ynoughe. Then putte them into your coffin and laye halfe a dyshe of butter above them and so close your coffin, and so bake them. Alows de Beef or de Motoun Two Fifteenth Century p. 40 Take fayre Bef of the quyschons, and motoun of the bottes, and kytte in the maner of Stekys; than take raw Percely, and Oynonys smal y-scredde, and yolkys of Eyroun sothe hard, and Marow or swette, and hew alle thes to-geder smal; than caste ther-on poudere of Gyngere and Saffroun, and tolle hem to-gederys with thin hond, and lay hem on the Stekys al a-brode, and caste Salt ther-to; then rolle to-gederys, and putte hem on a round spete, and roste hem til they ben y-now; than lay hem in a dysshe, and pore ther-on Vynegre and a lityl verious, and pouder Pepir ther-on y-now, and Gyngere, and Canelle, and a fewe yolkys of hard Eyroun y-kremyd ther-on; and serue forth. The Making of Stuffed Eggs from the Manuscrito Anonimo, my translation (Stephen Bloch (John Elys)) "Take as many eggs as thou wilt, and boil them whole in hot water; put them in cold water and divide them in half with a thread. Take the yolks quickly and crush cilantro, put in onion juice, pepper and coriander and beat all this together with murri, oil and salt and mash the yolks with this until it forms a paste. Then stuff the whites with this, insert a small stick into each egg, and sprinkle them with pepper, God willing." I used six eggs, one onion, a few tablespoons each of cilantro and murri, and sprinkles of pepper, coriander, oil, and salt. I chopped the onion finely, then crushed it in a mortar, discarding the pulp and pouring the liquid in with the other ingredients. At various times I have used both cilantro and parsley for this dish; either must be very finely chopped and crushed, or the pieces will stick in the teeth and be unpleasant. It is said that the people of each country fear different devils; and in some lands the devils are apparently good cooks, for in those places this dish is called "devilled eggs". This article first appeared in Tournaments Illuminated number 96 (Fall 1990). The author, Stephen Bloch (John Elys), is on the net at sbloch at .adelphi.edu. This version is dated February 12, 1996. Confiture de noiz (Menagier de Paris from Early French Cookery, Scully). Prenez avant la saint Jehan noiz nouvelles et les pelez et perciez et mectez en eaue freshce tremper par .ix. jour, et chacun jour renoivellez eaue, puis les laisser secer et emplez les pertuiz de cloz de giroffle et de gingembre et mectez boulir en miel et illec les laissiez en conserve. Yrchouns (Harleian MS 279, c. 1420) Take Piggis mayws and skalde them wel; take groundyn Pork and knede it with Spicerye, with pouder Gyngere, and Salt and Sugre; do it on the mawe, but fille it nowt to fulle, then sewe them with a fayre threde and putte them in a Spete and men don piggys. Take blaunchid Almoundys and kerf them long, smal and scharpe, and frye them in grece and sugre. Take a ltytle prycke and pryckke the yrchons. An putte in the holes the Almoundys, every hole half, and lech fro sometimes. Ley them then to the fryre; when they be rostid, dore them, sum with Whete Flowre and mylke of Almoundys, sum grene, sume blake with Blode, and lat them nowt browne to moche; and serve forth. Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 23:07:40 -0500 From: "Denise Wolff" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sideboads.... To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org >> I recall her doing one of these for an East Kingdom Twelfth Night >> that had to be for more than 400. >> >> Adamantus (same group as Andrea) > > However, issues of Andrea's sanity aside, it's possible that these > particular sideboards were for smaller, local events. Even crazy people > can be limited in their excesses by kitchen resources and food budgets. So > I'm curious about numbers of people being fed, partly for practical > reasons. If she did make stuffed eggs or cheese tarts for 400, I'd > like to know more about how she managed it. > Lady Brighid ni Chiarain > Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdm > Robin Carroll-Mann *** rcmann4 at earthlink.net Well, one of the things Adamantius said is true. I am a bit crazy.... but I love what I do. The second menu was to feed 60. I had $75 to do it. The first menu was for 150. I had $250 to do it, and I came in under-budget. ( I had two weeks notice, I would have done more if I had the time) If you look, most of the things are relatively cheap in the ingredients area. I make my own pie crusts and bread. I rely on fillers (carbs) to bulk out the bellies an spend smaller amounts on the "interesting" things. I buy large bulk in flour, I have never bought chicken for less than 79 cents a pound (dark meat is cheap, but the whole bird is cheaper). I debone my meats myself, I get the cheeses in large bulk cut and chop myself. I spend about 4-6 months hunting down the best buys and store in friends freezers until I need it. I spend time about every night preparing something and putting it away. Stuffed eggs doesn't look so foreboding as it seems. I watch a couple of good dvd's while I work. The 12th night Adamantius is referring to was given to me with two weeks notice and $250 to feed between 400-600 people. I had no kitchen crew as the feast had taken the bulk of the volunteers and the kitchen was off limits as well. I did 3 soups. A chicken/Rice, a Beef/Barley, and a vegetable. I did four types of tarts (mini) sausage and apple, beef and onions, chicken and currants, and onion (all had cheese). I also had stuffed eggs then. I had pears and apples, pistachios, raisins, almonds, and walnuts. I also had the standard cubed-orange/white cheeses for the less adventurous. (My only regret is that I didn't make it more period - I had little time and a whole lot less knowledge back then) I mundanely have a large selection of chafing racks (catering style), a good quantity of oversize pots. and a good imagination. I took off three days before the event and spent a good portion of those days, elbows deep in pie crust and mini tartlet pans (I have mini tart forms - reuseable) I thrive on emergencies and adrenalin (I'm a nurse) and don't sleep much before an event anyway, so It's still fun. I PREFER small events, but I can and still do large ones. Did I answer your question, or does this look like rambling?? (just spent the last 12 hours smoking sausage in my fireplace- I'm a bit "toasted") Andrea MacIntyre Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 23:03:06 -0200 From: "Lady Ro" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Dayboard To: Can't tell you by weight, can suggest amounts (learning curve from Atlantian Crown Tourney May 05). Hard boiled Eggs: 4 dozen. They will either do or they won't, but what is left over can be recycled into eggs salad after the event, or even used at dinner, if enough. Pasties - plausibly period, possibly even period. Get pierogie presses, make your dough ahead of time, precook. I would suggest 150 (3 per person on a 2 bite pastie). If you have a grill you can bring, these can be reheated if the day is cold in an aluminium foil wrapped box. If the days is warm, cold is good. I'd suggest 2/3 - 1/2 ratio of non-veggie to veggie. We did Lady Cordelia fitzRobert of York's redaction of mushrooms of the first night, and added ground beef with just a little sauce (tomato - not trying at that point to produce a period food, and they were specially requested after being sampled at a wedding reception.) Cold fruit. Raw veggies didn't play well, jellied milk would have been a nice touch (thought of it way to late.). If you can have a grill there, then sausages on a skewer, figure 2 per person. Has this event been done before? IF so, get past Troll numbers and do a down and dirty estimate of the number you are likely to get. Try to get 3-4 times that amount of bottled water. If you have it, it will go..... Send your most persuasive speaker to stores to get the bottled water donated. Make copious use of the phrases Tax deductible, 501(c)(3) educational group., receipt for donation. Ro, who will NEVER EVER do this again. Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 21:20:45 -0500 From: "RUTH EARLAND" Subject: [Sca-cooks] Dayboard as warm-up for feast cooking To: Sometimes it's a couple days between email readings, but I just had to respond to this one. The suggestion was made that cooking dayboard would be good preparation for cooking a feast. I respectfully disagree, on the grounds that the two are rather different. True, both require a lot of planning and organizational ability. Both require research. But they really are different in a few significant areas. Why dayboard is easier: -The dishes are usually less complicated. -Less emphasis on presentation. -Lower expectations about documentation. -No one is going to complain about convenience foods (e.g. summer sausage) -Once dayboard is cleared, your day is free. Why dayboard is more difficult: -Smaller budget (always harder with less money) -Serving more people -Time constraints (you have to have it out about lunchtime) -Harder to get an authentic feel -Staffing issues -Sharing resources with feast prep can be quite challenging -Everyone likes portable foods that don't dirty the feast gear -If you think it's challenging planning a feast menu around various dietary needs, think about how tough it must be for dayboard ("Hey, Cook, we've got 15 people on Atkins who want to know if there is any more meat.") -People get bored with the usual bread, spread, pickles, eggs, and apples Your mileage may vary, but given a choice, I find feast easier. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people who excell at planning and executing dayboard. I hold them in awe. Berelinde Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:17:36 -0500 From: "Denise Wolff" Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Dayboard as warm-up for feast cooking To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org > Why dayboard is easier: > -The dishes are usually less complicated. > -Less emphasis on presentation. > -Lower expectations about documentation. > -No one is going to complain about convenience foods (e.g. summer sausage) > -Once dayboard is cleared, your day is free. My dayboards are always documented, presented especially nice, and people expect my documentation. I don't use convenience foods at all. In short, I spend way more time on presentation and documentation on my dayboards... But, I love to do luncheons. Keeps me nimble for the private caterings. Andrea MacIntyre Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 12:28:26 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Christiane Subject: [Sca-cooks] It's over ... and what I would do differently To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org I have successfully cooked my first official "feast." It was a relaxed event put on by my shire (Buckland Cross) called "Persephone Goes to the Underworld." The autocrat's vision was to have a fall-themed event with a bounteous dayboard with hot and cold dishes. We had an A&S display with fall-themed works, plus medieval board gaming and music. The autocrat left it up to me and my co-cook what we were serving, and we had a budget of $150-$200 to work with, which I realize is extremely generous considering there are folks who put on full-fledged feasts with the same amount of money. The first major challenge was we had no idea of how many people we were cooking for. Although listed in the Pikestaff, there were few pre-registrations. It was held on an offbeat day, a Sunday. We were sure folks would show up, though! The second major challenge was, of course, what to serve? And the fact was, it was just me and Giuseppina preparing the food. Being as the theme was Persephone's return to the underworld, and being that my persona is Florentine and my co-cook, Giuseppina, is Sicilian, I went with Italian dishes. Several folks helped inspire me, primarily Mistress Helewyse and THL Johnnae. I wanted dishes that were reasonably authentic, even though we were not having a proper feast with many removes, and we had limited kitchen access at the site. The menu was: cheeses hardboiled eggs homemade bread (Tuscan style, baked without salt) herbed butter raw vegetables with extra-virgin olive oil for dipping (but had forgotten the fennel, darn it) fruit (apples, oranges, grapes, pears) chicken baked in bread (based on the Emir of Catania's chicken dish) herbed roast pork (which I forgot the mustard sauce) chickpeas stewed with onions, parsley, pepper, salt, a touch of cinnamon, and olive oil spinach and mint ravioli spinach pie rice pudding with pistachios, almonds, and rosewater (based on the Turkish muhallebi) fave dolce (shortbread cookies shaped like fava beans) poached spiced pears to drink, pomegranate punch and water The ravioli were made two weeks ago, frozen, and boiled in vegetable broth the day of the event and tossed with butter and parmesan. We made the chicken baked in bread and roasted the pork the day before the event. I baked cookies and bread after work all through the week. The chickpeas were stewed overnight in a crockpot. What I would do differently: Make less chicken baked in bread. We made eight loaves, and had four left. Smaller amount of stewed chickpeas, which had to be stuck on a table away from the main dayboard, along with the poached pears (the folks we were renting the place from prohibited liquids from being used on the dayboard tables, for some reason) Get lots of help in peeling chestnuts. My plan to have braised chestnuts with the pork fell through spectacularly because as the chestnuts cooled rapidly after blanching, the buggers became impossible to peel. Don't panic while making rice pudding and pour in more rice. The pudding was tasty, but a bit dry. But all in all, it was a success, and lots of compliments were rendered. Gianotta Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:34:52 -0500 From: Adsiltia Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] laying out of dayboards To: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net, Cooks within the SCA Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise wrote: > Does anyone have good suggestions for setting up dayboard layouts for > 250 or more to minimize traffic jams? > > -- Jadwiga Hi Jadwiga, Since I have used your dayboard ideas here is what I have done with 2 of them. One for 100 was done outside so I had a hand washing station a few feet away and then a single line board. I put like things together thinking of how I would put things on my plate. I had bread, meat, cheese, condiments, veggies both fresh and pickled, fruits both fresh and dried, and drinks at the end. As it was out of doors there was no "pile up" at the end. I provided plates at the beginning with utensils and drink cups at the drink station. The one for 250 was indoors and I had several long tables in a single row and people started at one end and went to the other. The only thing I would have done different would have been to have the drinks table in a separate place. I placed the food in groupings as to how people may want them on their plate. People went down both sides of the table. Since the bread, which needed replenishing most often was at the start, it was easy to get to. If the staff had to replenish something else, it was easy to get to as every person in line was very polite and helpful, even in helping each other. I did not provide any plates, cups, or utensils. I did not find a traffic jam as much as I thought I might. The line was long at first but it went quickly. I owe much of that to the help I had watching to make sure the dayboard stayed replenished. Having places where people could go and sit helped, at least I think it did because no one hung out at the end of the line. Oh, and someone from staff helped with drinks as that can become a bit of a juggle, thus the idea of a separate drink table. Not sure if this helped but it is what I have done and feel it was successful. Adsiltia Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:01:20 +1200 From: Adele de Maisieres Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Alternate Feast Settings To: Cooks within the SCA Johnna Holloway wrote: > Are you seeking to provide a full meal with meats, vegies, sweets, > etc. or are you doing a sideboard of primarily sweets and nibbles? An aside about nibbles: my experience is that if given more-or-less free choice of snacks and nibbles, people will eat at _least_ twice as many savoury things as sweet, and maybeeven three or four times as much. > I would think the articles and postings on dayboards and revels > might be of value. One of the facets of these is that you must keep > the hot foods hot/cold foods cold and that requires equipment. Not necessarily. If you serve during scheduled breaks in other activities (rather than just putting everything on the sideboard and leaving it there), the and the food is really tasty, people will eat up pretty quickly. It also helps if you can put out more than one dish of each thing and make the sideboard as long as possible-- it cuts down on congestion. -- Adele de Maisieres Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:47:44 -0500 (CDT) From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] courtboard? To: "Cooks within the SCA" <<< Okay, we've discussed dayboards and sideboards before, but what is a "courtboard" and how does it differ from a dayboard? I'm assuming that a "courtboard" is different from a "court, bored". :-) >>> I don't know if anyone else uses the terminology, really. In Eisental, we have a long tradition that this particular event is the home of the Three Hour Court (sing along with me...). So, before court, we set up an additional light day-board type buffet near court so nobody passes out from being late to dinner. Mistress Thorkatla, the original autocrat, first thought of it, and had us bring the dayboard up there; now we just plan for it. If we feel fancy, we put some little fancy stuff out -- like Jordan almonds, or in this case pizelles and Food for Angels-- as an addition to the board that we didn't have during the day. -- -- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:53:59 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: [Sca-cooks] A little article I wrote on Le Menagier's sausages... To: Cooks within the SCA Last weekend I put out a dayboard for a smallish event in the Barony next to the one I live in. I don't often do dayboards, nor am I normally a big fan of them, so I ordinarily farm them out to people that like to do them. But on this occasion, the smaller numbers and the timing allowed for a slightly different setup and format than the one I normally encounter at events with dayboards, and the whole experience was terrific fun. All we did was cook medieval dishes one or two at a time, running it as an ongoing class, matching our pace to the skills of whoever was present in the kitchen at the time, and serving them when they were done. And then doing it again, and again, all day. It took some advance planning and prepwork, but on the day, prep work was minimal, stress zero, timing relaxed, attention to the questions of students pretty luxuriant, cleanup a breeze, and quality control very high. In short, an all-day medieval hot-food buffet combined with a full day of Medieval Food TV broadcasting. Dishes included hanoney and sawgeat, beef ystywyd, coneys in papdele, grilled saucisson, cabbage porrey, chewets filled with venison mincemeat, chyches, shortbread, and other sweets. Around 7PM I was asked to stop cooking and serve only the foods I had ready, so the creme yboyled became snow -- it required no cooking, after all... the most perioid dish was the shortbread, which I included because it was easy, quickly prepared in large quantities, universally popular, on the outer edge of periodicity, and the perfect tool to get someone who says they can't make period food to change their mind. I actually had intended to get some video taken to put up somewhere where it could be accessed by people like you, and then left my camera, which I wanted to pack last so it would not be crushed, home on my desk while I went on a 90-mile train trip with the other stuff I needed for the event. I do have a couple of snapshots of drying sausages and candied fennel and coriander confits, but nothing like what I had intended. Next time. Now that we've got a format that seems to work really well, there'll be more time to worry about other things. I do, however, have a little article I knocked together for the local newsletter on the sausages we served, which I include here: [ This article has been edited and placed in the Florilegium as its own separate, stand-alone article. See: http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MEATS/LeMen-Sausags-art.html -Stefan] Adamantius Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:51:18 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A little article I wrote on Le Menagier's sausages... To: Cooks within the SCA On Mar 24, 2009, at 2:24 PM, Euriol of Lothian wrote: <<< Rowan & I had discussed doing something similar here in AEthelmearc. It sounds like a lot of fun. Euriol >>> Oh, it really was. High points included my mentioning to a gentleman I know that, after cooking some of the sausages with eggs in the first round of service, and there being a few more people on site than we had originally planned for, I had only about 60 servings of sausage left with 75 or 80 people on site, to which he responded, "Oh, really? Well, the four I had were delicious!", and me stridently chiding the costumer-type lady who was having a little trouble forming standing pastry shells for the chewets, "C'Maaaaaan, if this were SILK you'd have no problem putting twelve billion annoying little pleats in it!" That one worked wonders, by the way... the pies turned out beautifully. All of a sudden, like flipping a switch, her hands knew exactly how to proceed... then her husband started doing it, too... Adamantius Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:00:52 -0400 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] A little article I wrote on Le Menagier's sausages... To: Cooks within the SCA On Mar 24, 2009, at 2:41 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote: <<< Before they disappear the event details are at: Schola and Dance at the River's Head Inn http://scaducks.org/schola.php Tentative Schola Class Schedule http://scaducks.org/schedule.php >>> That was it... <<< Can you tell us how many people attended and how many servings were prepared? >>> I had been told to expect at least 65 people, so I planned on about 75 servings for most things, figuring the numbers might increase as the day approached, and if there were 80 people and we ran out of something, there'd be more food coming within an hour or so (and there was bread and butter and fruit out all day, not to mention a certain brown intoxicating beverage much used by the Turks), so I felt fairly unconstrained in that regard. The two egg dishes (the hanoney and the sawgeat) I put out about 50 servings of each, at more or less the same time, since it was early in the day and not everyone had arrived onsite as of that time... Adamantius Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:37:21 -0400 From: Gise To: atlantiaatlantia.sca.org, brnsacstoneyahoogroups.com, keepwindmastershill.org, baronyofblackdiamondyahoogroups.com Subject: [MR] Dayboard Etiquette Thoughts Greetings to those who do read this missive from an occasional event steward and constant citizen of Atlantia! I would like to talk, my friends, about a recurring issue I've seen at events over the last two years. May have been going on before that, but I became aware of it about then. Food put out in a serve-yourself setting ... dayboards, lunches, evening social munchies, breakfasts at some events, dessert tables at others ... are part of everyone's event gate fee. They are meant to feed everyone who wants the food. The average cost per person for such a spread is going to be $2 or $3 a person. Well, that's what it is for my events. That should be enough to sate everyone's hunger. There are other meals or snack tables that are stocked by pot luck food or by donated food from event staff, local cooks and your fellow attendees. I have seen people walk away from the dayboard with plates heaping to the point of food rolling off the mount they've created. Some set the plate on their table and then come back for more. Sometimes they are taking plates to the table to be shared with several folks there. Ok, that's all good ... except often much of that food is thrown away. Or thrown on the floor by children who are not properly supervised. Or eaten by folks who have much greater appetites than the dayboard is intended to sustain. I've had reports of gentles who've tried to pick up so many slices of pork from a serving platter the plastic tongs snapped in half. Of others filling bowls with heaps of meatballs or cheese or cherries or strawberries or those nummy fried dough things covered in honey. Things that it is intended each person take a few of so everyone gets some. I've watched the Welcome Social at WoW with several hundred dollars of food take hours to prepare and set up then be literally wiped out inside of 15 minutes by a small fraction of attendees. Another event that was advertised to have an all day progressing snack, lunch and dessert board that should have easily fed the 100 folks in attendance stripped of all meat and the most difficult to make or expensive delicacies before the first two-thirds of the line had gotten to the table. Yes, the easy answer is to have servers at the table to do portion control, to have more food or to not have such food provided at events at all. But really folks ... really ... we're adults ... and this isn't the Golden Coral. As a mundane society many folks have that all-you-can-eat mentality. As SCA members our feast cooks have spoiled us by providing a seemingly endless flow of food at feasts. But feasts cost $8 to $15 a person, not $2.50. Folks, this isn't everyone but it's more than just a few people. I don't believe it's a matter of greed or discourteous behavior but a matter of being conditioned to think there's PLENTY of food and more to be brought from the kitchen when there's really a tightly measured amount of food. Which is why I'm bringing this conversation up. A problem only remains a problem if we don't address it. This is, I believe, a matter of education and just making people aware that it is an issue. Our event staffs try to provide a great experience for folks at the best value price that is reasonable and financially feasible. A portion of meat for a meal is supposed to be 2-4 ounces, the size of a deck of modern playing cards. Advice followed by caterers and party organizers is to have 3 - 6 ounces of meat per person. So think about your grandmother's deck of gin rummy cards, larger for easy reading but still just a big deck of cards, not four slices of pork, a pile of meatballs, bowl of cheese cubes and two drumsticks. Being a long-time 4-H kid, I find they often have good resources and that is true of this topic as well. Etiquette of the Buffet Dining Experience is a straightforward read on what could be a touchy topic but is really just a matter of thinking about it. http://aces.nmsu.edu/4h/documents/a204-hers20guide20to20buffet20line20etiquette.pdf And please, I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, I'm not accusing anyone of discourtesy. I'm just pointing out what I believe is an unconscious behavior that we should really get under control. Be a good member of the populace, be a good guest and take a ~reasonable~ amount of food ... one your grandmother wouldn't give you The Hairy Eyeball for ... Go back for seconds after everyone's eaten firsts. If you have a particularly large appetite, bring a snack in your basket or pouch. Don't take more than you're likely to eat. And thank the cooks. In respect and service to my kingdom, my guests and my event staffs, ~gise ... often called Mama Gise ... and I suppose this is why ... =o) Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:48:26 -0400 From: Siegfried To: atlantiaseahorse.atlantia.sca.org Subject: Re: [MR] Dayboard Etiquette Thoughts <<< Folks, this isn't everyone but it's more than just a few people. I don't believe it's a matter of greed or discourteous behavior but a matter of being conditioned to think there's PLENTY of food and more to be brought from the kitchen when there's really a tightly measured amount of food. >>> Gise, I agree with your statements overall. However, I don't think that one-size-fits-all in this context (bad pun, I know) Because you see, for as many times as I've seen exactly what you are describing. I've also seen just as many events, where there was an abundance of food, bushels of apples, a mountain of bread, all stored safely in the back and waiting to come out. And that the eventees didn't eat 'enough', and therefore multiple calls had to keep going out throughout the day that: "Really people, we have more food, come get it" So with enough of those happening, people get in the mindset you mention, of there being enough, so take what you can/will eat. ... Perhaps a middle ground, is when the dayboards are setup, instead of relying upon server-types to portion food. Just at least putting up a small signboard at the beginning of the line, that gives a suggested serving? I've seen this done before, where it said: "Everyone should be able to have: * A piece of fruit, a couple eggs, a few slices of bread, and one chunk of meat" ... or similar statements. That gives everyone the same mental guideline that the food-o-crat who cooked the meal had in mind. For obviously they did have something in mind when they made it all. And puts everyone in the same mindset, while still allowing the honor system to endure beyond that. Siegfried -- Barun Siegfried Sebastian Faust - Barony of Highland Foorde - Atlantia http://hf.atlantia.sca.org/ - http://crossbows.biz/ - http://eliw.com/ Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2011 16:25:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Becky McEllistrem To: atlantiaatlantia.sca.org Subject: Re: [MR] Dayboard Etiquette Thoughts Interesting... after have putting together many a day board myself for more than a decade I can say I have seen this on occasion but not frequently and when I raised an occasional eye brow I got a comment that the volume was there because the food was for several people not just one person. They were taking it to serve others who were busy which was OK with me. If it's getting to be a regular problem maybe a private conversation with the individual would be productive... Although I can't say that I have enough experience with the issue to know if this would work well or not. Rebecca <<< I have seen people walk away from the dayboard with plates heaping to the point of food rolling off the mount they've created. Some set the plate on their table and then come back for more. Sometimes they are taking plates to the table to be shared with several folks there. Ok, that's all good ... except often much of that food is thrown away. Or thrown on the floor by children who are not properly supervised. Or eaten by folks who have much greater appetites than the dayboard is intended to sustain. >>> Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2011 16:35:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Dessert Duchess To: "atlantiaseahorse.atlantia.sca.org" Subject: Re: [MR] Dayboard Etiquette Thoughts At my daughter's Montessori preschool they used signs on each dish with a picture of the food x how many they could have (i.e. a picture of 3 olives, 2 strawberries, etc.).? Maybe we should go back to the old saying "everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten". Seonaid Barbra E. Bolt Duchess Seonaid ni Fhionn