fst-disasters-msg – 3/3/13
Tales of SCA feasts that were disasters.
NOTE: See also the files: feast-ideas-msg, feast-menus-msg, headcooks-msg, feast-serving-msg, p-menus-msg, Fst-Managemnt-art, kitch-toolbox-msg, Run-a-Feast-art.
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NOTICE -
This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.
Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).
Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: Uduido at aol.com
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 19:52:51 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SC - A Flopped Feast Tale
<< some humorous anecdotes of stuff we've come up with while trying
> to redact and weird things that have happened at feasts would be
> worthwhile as a little seasoning on this list. >>
2 yrs. ago. I decided to do a totally" authentic" feast. One of the helpers
was perparing a lamb meatball type thingy from al-Baghdadi. He was to chop
the onions into small pcs. He actually cut them into BIG CHUNKS and formed
the meatballs. He was so proud of this first attempt at cooking that I could
only praise his attempt as a perfect illusion of "porcupine eggs".
At mid-morning the ovens blew up into a huge fireball and we had to send to
the local deli for period looking bread because 32 loaves were charred black.
The ovens never would heat over 200 degrees after the explosion soooooooo the
tarts were sort of dried crispy things. The stove burners wouldn't go above
med low so the fried fish was "moist". Any way I was so ashamed that I
refused to go into the feast hall for the traditional "vivat" to the cooks.
A while later when the fighters were washing the dishes and I had secreted
myself in the storage room to get lost in a fine bottle of ale, King Ruslan
came timidly knocking at the door. He requested a container of the chicken
forsemeat with currants dish because he had loved it and wanted to know if
some were left so he could take some home; telling me that the feast was
wonderful and one of the best he had ever eaten especially the "sushi".
I am not one to get TOO emotional but that little gesture in the face of the
worst feast I had ever prepared made tears flow. And, it became the
overriding stimulus for me to continue in the kitchen.
Lord Ras (Uduido at aqol.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 12:07:42 -0700
From: kat <kat at kagan.com>
Subject: SC - horror stories (was re: fake intestines)
Drake asked:
> Has anyone else got horror stories of
> lovingly prepared dishes destroyed at someone elses hands at Feasts?
Welllllll.... now that you ask...
This one didn't happen to me personally; but I was there for the whole thing. A feastocrat asked the 12-year-old daughter of the head of my house (from a family of really great cooks) to "be in charge" of an entire course. She patiently researched and (with lots of help) recreated the recipes -- a lovely beef dish and a green olive soup; and no, Ras, I don't have the recipes or source <grin> -- and had us over for dinner a couple of times trying them out. I think they were perioid rather than period; but she worked her little heart out and the test runs were terrific!
She showed up the morning of the feast, armed with notes and information... and was told by the Great and Mighty Feastocrat that, since she was so young, she was not allowed to touch the knives or come near the stove. He refused to take her advice on the dishes and prepared the recipes HIS way.
And he made a few mistakes.
Like not draining the brine from the olives prior to making the soup.
<<<<<<<<<shudder>>>>>>>>>> I can STILL taste it...
- kat
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 17:15:14 -0500 (CDT)
From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Subject: SC - Re: Fake Intestines
Greetings! Drake wrote:
> Has anyone else got horror stories of
>lovingly prepared dishes destroyed at someone elses hands at Feasts?
At Pennsic 18 (or 19?) I made a dragon out of chocolate and rice
krispies and covered him/it with green chocolate coating. He had
slivered almonds for claws and a red marzipan tongue. The green
coating was "fluffed" up to look like scales. It was presented to
Their Majesties of the Midrealm to use as booty. I learned the
following year that they had thrown the whole thing away because they
didn't know it was edible. So much for the little speeches one gives
Royalty when presenting items. :-(
Alys Katharine, who knows better, now, about chocolate but still makes
stuff from it
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 21:56:06 EDT
From: kathe1 at juno.com (Kathleen M Everitt)
Subject: SC - Re: Illusion food)
> Has anyone else got horror stories of
>lovingly prepared dishes destroyed at someone elses hands at Feasts?
>
>Drake.
Yeah, but it was an accident. Many years ago, I made facacio on site for
about 125 people for a friend's event. He said the site had a couple of
big pizza ovens. I spent all day making batch after batch of bread dough,
because I have arthritis and can't knead more than one batch at a time. I
think I made 10 batches all together, got them spread out on these big
pizza pans that just fit the ovens, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled
with rosemary, then I gave the cook instructions on how to cook them and
went out to set places for my family for the feast. I got to talking to
people and didn't get back into the kitchen for a while. Another of the
cooks came looking for me. Seems one of the two "pizza" ovens was
actually a broiler. Rosemary flavored charcoal, anyone?
Julleran
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 11:58:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: Fake intestines (was: SC - Re: Illusion food)
<< Has anyone else got horror stories of
lovingly prepared dishes destroyed at someone elses hands at Feasts? >>
At the Herald's Collegium a couple of years ago a lady made a subtlety of a
lage castle out of gingerbread and marzipand with working draw bridges and
little archers in the battlements, etc. They had to tear the door frame out
of their house to get it to the site. :-0
It was placed on display for all to see . During the afternoon a child from
H**l appoached the table. She asked what it was for and it was explained that
it was for eating after the feast and she should enjoy looking at it for now
because later it would be torn apart. She seemed to accept this. An hour
later someone noticed that the castle was completely destroyed. The girl in
question was eating a piece of the castle. When asked why she had done such a
thing she calmly and naively replyed "Well, my daddy said we weren't staying
for feast so I tore it apart for you ahead of time". :-0
Ras (Who was reminded why he chose to stay childless that day.)
Date: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 08:12:19
From: Ginny Beatty
To: Middlebridge
Subject: [Mid] Why bad feasts happen to good people
OK,
It is well known that bad feasts have happened throughout our organization
for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes bad feasts happen to good people.
Here are some possible reasons that I have observed over time.:
Poor planning and resource management
The (person in charge of the feast -- insert favorite term here) is new to
SCA feasts.
It's their first feast and they want to do everything themself.
They are a good cook in a small scale, but anything over 50 servings freaks
them out
Improper preparation of food before cooking (proper defrosting of the
chicken before cooking)
Audience analysis ("what? all we get is fish?" "Where's the beef!?")
Bad lighting ("I can't see the food.")
Timing and scheduling of courses
Poor server management ("why didn't we get the roast pork? Other tables
did.")
Portion control (too much bread, not enough meat)
Stress ( the head cook is a babbling pile of goo in the corner. Now who's
in charge? Quick! Call in the Crisis Management Team!!)
Gwyneth
ginbeatty at compuserve.com
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 9:50:58 +1100
From: Robyn.Hodgkin at mailhost.dpie.gov.au
Subject: SC - disastrous kitchen stories
I reckon I just about top anyone in the equipment disaster area.
Here was I, catering a camping feast for 350 (Rowany festival).
The steward of the event tells me after I arrive, that there are actually
450 people at the event. Great start.
I am doing a simple menu: deboned chickens stuffed with
dried fruit and wrapped in pastry; a vegetarian soup; a meat soup;
rabbit stew; roast lamb; a small spitted deer; mixed vegetables in sour
cream; freshly baked bread (Masters Charles and John's bakery)
and rice pudding for dessert. (and something else, but I cannot
remember for the life of me what it was)
I asked that they hire two large gas ovens, 12 gas hotplates;
4x60 litre pots; 6x40 litre pots, and 6x20 litre pots, 8 ladles and
a spit.
I got 2 large gas ovens, only one of which worked; 3 gas burners,
an open fire spit, and 3x 20 litre pots - no ladles or spoons at all.
We ended up going around the camp fires and borrowing camp
ovens from everyone for the rabbit stew. The 450 people were
crammed into a space big enough for 350, so serving was a
disaster. We had left overs galore and people saying that they
had not gotten food. (I have to admit that this is a problem I have
little sympathy for, as it just shows that those people did not
volunteer to serve - don't you find that servers and servers
friends never go hungry?) The first batch of rice pudding burnt
on the bottom.
I still shudder to remember the whole thing. I am planning on
holding a feast at Rowany festival next year, to celebrate my
wedding. Things will be a bit different..... I thought we would pay
spit roast professionals to cook the meat (that is what they
do best, and it should cost less than $8 per head for 850
people) and pre-make heaps of pies and salads. Maybe not
the most 'period' option, but one that is workable.
Kiriel
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 23:45:01 -0700
From: ladymari at gila.net (Mary Hysong)
Subject: Re: SC - Kat's Whiteshield feast
kat wrote:
> > The feast started 1/2 hour later than it was "supposed to" which
> > merely whet all appetites. The kitchen I hear was a bit inadequate-<snip>
>
> Inadequate is not the word. I knew beforehand (thank the Gods) that there was only one oven and one 4-burner stove; but even with the preplanning and prepping we were able to do on Friday, it was still a logistical nightmare.
[greatly snipped]
Shucks, we'd give anything to have a site with an oven and a 4 burner stove......We've now done two 40-50 person feast out of a 6 x 6 concession stand which electricity and a fridge but nothing else, and two 100 person feast at a primitive campsite without building, ramadas, tables or running water or garbage service......I'm not sure we'd know how to cook without pre cooking
almost every thing before hand, hauling out 100 or more gallons of water, several large BBQ's and having such disasters as the cakes that sank in the ice chest [they drained the water off and rebaked them one at a time in Lyddy's camp trailer oven and dubbed them 'shipwrecked cakes'] the time the guys sat the dry ice on top of the lettuce for the salad....the time we *forgot*
to serve the pea salad and ate it next day for lunch, the time I was heralding court for TM at dusk, the fire tender having sent word to make it as long as possible, the dinner wasn't ready yet and His Majesty telling me to hurry up it was getting dark and everyone wanted their dinner... the time, well I suppose we all have disasters, being a good autocrat tho is planning for
them and hoping they never.... Sounds like you pulled off a wonderful feast.
Maistreas Mairi Broder,
Shire of Nathair Airgid, Atenveldt
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 13:06:01 EST
From: THL Renata <THLRenata at aol.com>
Subject: SC - Fabulous Feasts
Aoife writes:
>>>Q: How does one get the book Fabulous Feasts?
A: By being a very bad girl! It's a very bad book!<<
All too true! The recipes in this book are terrible!
My very first banquet in the SCA was what we now fondly call "11th Night",
when the King of Caid changed the date of 12th Night at almost the last minute
and some visitors from our far barony of Western Seas (Hawaii) could not
change their airline reservations.
So our barony put on a banquet in their honor. All who attended were assigned
a dish to bring, with 4 or 5 people assigned to bring the same dish. ALL of
the recipes were out of Fabulous Feasts. NONE of the recipes were tested
before being assigned. (This was a long time ago, when we didin't know
better!)
Aside from the roast turkey that was served to the head table, the rest of the
feast was uniformly horrid. None of the F.F. recipes came out as anything
approaching edible.
To cap off the evening, our host that night (a duke) had made his specialty --
split pea soup -- but for some reason had thickened it with arrowroot instead
of cornstarch. The soup started to expand and soon there were 2 caldrons of
soup where there once was but 1. I think he may have scorched it as well. And
as it was served, His Grace stood up from his place at the head table and
said with great meaning, "I hope you're all enjoying the soup."
Needless to say, it was disgusting. Now, this was not the fault of the book,
but I have not been able to eat split pea soup since.
Those few of us that survived the banquet laugh about it now.
Renata
Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 12:15:56 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: SC - Re: EK Crown Feast
<snip>
In the mean time, I can't let Lord Ras' touching comments go
unaddressed. I'm glad that people were impressed. I had hoped people
would get to see just how beautiful our work could be, and instead, I
gather I demonstrated what people regarded as an impressive ability to
handle (or at least continue to function under) what seemed like a
ceaseless barrage of emergencies. It's traditional at times like this to
assign blame to either the head cook or the autocrat. In all fairness
I'll do neither. Sometimes you simply plan for every conceivable
contingency, do absolutely everything right, and things still go wrong.
Lowlights include a fairly dangerous car accident, delivery of most of
the lunch foods at around 1PM, a set of new pots stamped from shiny
aluminum foil, guaranteed to make even water stick and burn after 30
seconds on low heat, badly calibrated ovens, and a populace who simply
refused to read the menu and feast notes posted all the heck over the
place (my usual kitchen "bouncer" was away squiring his knight and
fighting in the Tourney). There was also one minor and one significant
problem with the site contacts, who are absolutely lovely people in
every respect, but suffice it to say that there were misunderstandings
in areas we had all thought were clearly settled, resulting in there
being about 20% of the refrigeration space we had planned on. There's
more, which, for quite a few reasons, I won't go into.
As I say, we all thought we had planned for everything, and then
everything _else_ happened. Still, we managed to pull quite a few
rabbits out of our hats, so most everybody had a good time anyway, even
though the feast was, to me, the worst one I've done in 14 years. I
guess I'm just a bit, well, wistful over What Might Have Been.
Adamantius
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 02:53:12 EDT
From: Varju at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Guilty Conscience
<< Does anyone else have similar horror stories? I'm sure we would all
be amused by them! >>
Well, luckily most of the events I have done feasts for the autocrat was my
then boyfriend/ now husband and he knew he had to go home with me, so he never
made any bizarre requests.
My worst feast had nothing to do with the autocrat. I was one of four cooks,
at a Crown Tourney (the results of which have since been anulled so it is
reffered to around here as the Crown that never was). Two of us [each] had a single course, and the other two ladies had teamed up on a course and dessert.
Somewhere along the line I ended up as the liason to the autocrat and the
"head cook". I had one cook i had to continually beat into submission, and
try to keep the other two from killing. The site was great, kitchen was good
beyond losing a burner on the stove (and marauding chipmunks since we were in
the woods), and everything was going well. Then someone had to [come] rushing
in talking about a tornado touching down at the camping site (it wasn't, it was
either a microburst or a really big wind) somewhere around the end of the
first course, beginning of the second course. As a result half of the people
rushed out of the hall to check on their belongings. We managed to get the
second course out, and fast forwarded past the third course (mine) to get
dessert out while there were still people in the hall. I ended up with so
many left overs it wasn't even funny. . .
The moral for me. . .I want to be the only cook in the kitchen and I reserve
the right to roast anyone who comes in with an interruption like that again.
Noemi
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 09:16:00 -0500
From: mfgunter at fnc.fujitsu.com (Michael F. Gunter)
Subject: SC - Horror Stories
> Does anyone else have similar horror stories? I'm sure we would all
> be amused by them! Murkial, you should not feel guilty in the least. You
> have made a blow for creative freedom & acknowledgment for all of us SCA
> cooks! ;)
>
> Master Huen
I've got a cute horror story (and I won't even go in to 12th Night).
A Barony close to us asked me to do the feast for their Rapier Champion tourney.
Although it was just two weeks after I was to return from Pennsic, the autocrat
assured me that there would be no problems. After all the feast was only for
around 100 people and it was in a full commercial kitchen in a former steakhouse.
I had a decent budget and was actually looking forward to it since I rarely get to cook in a good kitchen or when I do it's for 300+. I'd gotten a menu planned and the budget all in order just before I left for Pennsic. The Barony had a work day the weekend after I got back so my co-cook and I went to get things sorted out in the kitchen. Upon arriving on site we discovered the steakhouse had been abandoned for quite some time and the "commercial kitchen" consisted of a sink, a gas grill, a warming drawer and a walk-in. Plus, it appeared the grill had never been cleaned. There was built up grease an inch thick on the blower, we had to clean it with undiluted bleach. I basically sat in a corner doing massive restructuring of my menu in my head and muttering "you're a genuis, this doesn't matter" as a mantra.
After cleaning the mess I made a new menu in my head and went shopping all week.
I did wind up feeding everybody and they seemed to enjoy the meal. One other thing happened, I was using a Cajun cooker as a water boiler and evidently the gas feed line had been plugged with mud so I'm busy cooking along and look to see a propane gas can on fire in my kitchen. We did manage to get the gas turned off and the fire out before anything exploded.
In case anybody wondered I did Berry Kuchens, proscutto wrapped honeydew, Sicilian grilled pork, grilled vegetable pasta, sweet & sour chicken in a loaf, peach & nectarine shortcakes w/homemade whipped cream, and another vegetable dish that I can't remember right off. This was before my period food craze.
Gunthar
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 09:20:56 -0500
From: allilyn at juno.com (LYN M PARKINSON)
Subject: Re: SC - Horror stories
We've all got 'em, don't we? There was the time one of our favorite
sites--despite having no frig and a kitchen the size of a cardtable--had
2 painters in it, painting the walls as we brought in the food to cook:
"Thought you'd like a prettier kitchen..." well, maybe, if you like
mustard and olive, and if you weren't dripping paint on our feast...
And the time the park management removed all cooking utensils from the
lodge and didn't tell us so we could bring our own...
And the time the queen cut out one of my courses because her kids were
getting sleepy, but it was OK because the promised venison didn't show
up..."Bad year for hunting..."
And the time there was a January thaw so that it poured rain on the
outside grills that were supposed to cook the ducks and the feastocrat
had to cook under an umbrella...
Allison
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 18:00:17 -0400
From: dy018 at freenet.carleton.ca (Micaylah)
Subject: Re: SC - Horror stories
Ever try cooking lunch outside on one propane stove for 70 gentles in
FEBRUARY in the middle of an an Ottawa winter because the site decided at
the last minute they didn't want us using the day care kitchen? grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Micaylah
We don't use that site anymore. Funny that?
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 09:54:36 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - walnuts
Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Adamantius commented:
> >opening a case of alleged shelled, blanched, and chopped
> >almonds...and discovering that they
> >were in fact shelled walnuts. We used most of them anyway, but not for
> >milk.
>
> So, for my knowledge and my file on feast disasters and recoveries, how
> did you handle this problem? Did you send somebody out for lots of more
> almonds? Or not make almond milk? What did you do with the shelled walnuts
> considering this was a spur-or-the-moment thing?
We sugared them in skillets containing an appropriate amount (hard to
describe in better detail) of hard-crack sugar syrup (just as it was
_beginning_ to caramelize, since we had no candy thermometer; thank
heaven for shiny saute pans), sprinkled on a tiny bit of salt as they
cooled, and served them in little bowls at the beginning of the first
course, just as Chiquart recommends. They are supposed to open the
stomach and chest, according to the prevailing medical theory of the
time. Sugar is considered a very mild expectorant, so that's probably
the idea behind it. The sugared nuts also had the advantage of being
more or less undisguised, so those who couldn't eat walnuts had a hard
time mistaking them for anything else.
As for our almond milk situation, we were just extremely careful to
extract everything worth extracting from the almonds we did have, and
made do with slightly less. We served smaller bowls of the porrey
chapeleyn and added slightly less almond milk to the blancmanger, and
omitted the fried almond garnish, and used something else, I forget
what.
Adamantius
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 21:19:13 EST
From: THLRenata at aol.com
Subject: SC - That Elizabethan Luncheon (LONG)
As some of you might recall, I somehow got myself involved doing a supposedly
Elizabethan lunch for a non-SCA needlework group doing a blackwork project.
That lunch took place yesterday.
Firstly, I must thank all of you -- reading about the feasts you've shared
with the list helped me overcome the many disasters which befell me yesterday.
And a special thanks to Anne-Marie for helping me come up with a wonderful
Elizabethan menu. Someday I hope to cook it, too, 'cause it ain't what
happened yesterday. Here's the story:
It seemed like such a good idea...
Back in August when all this started, there were 15 or so involved, including
a well-known (in Caid) chef and kitchen master. In the begining, he and I
were going to plan and cook the meal, with plenty of help AND a scullery crew
provided by the needlework group.
Well, life has this habit of getting in the way, doesn't it? I had to take
most of November, December and January off from the SCA due to a very sick
cat, a very sick father and then a reprise of the very sick cat.
While I was "away" other peoples' lives also got in the way of this project
and by the time I came back the group was down to 6 and I was head cook!
When I protested to the group organizer that I did not have the experience to
do this, having only worked on one feast prior to this, she (an ex-SCA duchess
with true talent for getting me into trouble) came back with "Nonsense! It's
only 25 people -- you served more than that at Thanksgiving. And you'll be in
complete charge -- just tell us what you want us to do!"
Valuable Lesson (VL) #1 -- When someone says you're in complete charge, don't
believe them.
OK, so with some misgivings I consult with Anne-Marie and come up with a menu.
And am then told that a) it's too much food and b) it's too "weird".
VL #2 -- period food belongs where it will be appreciated.
Soon the menu was whittled down to: Cornish Game Hens roasted with herbs,
Spinach Tarte (Rowen's recipe), Compound Sallet (from "To the Queen's Taste")
and jam tarts for dessert.
We did out shopping the night before (having scoped out the local Costco and
Smart 'n' Final in advance) and actually brought everything in for almost $80
under budget.
Did I mention that by this time there were 40 people to be fed?
Despite my repeated requests, we were unable to scope out the kitchen before
the day of the event. The needlework group uses the site frequently (it was a
church kitchen, by the way) and described the facilities in glowing terms.
"Big" was used a lot, "3 ovens" was mentioned along with "lots of counter
space." It was only that morning that I found out that, while the group used
the site a lot, no one had ever actually cooked there! Their usual fare was
either fancy sandwiches or was brought in by caterers.
VL#3 -- *Always* check out the kitchen yourself. Beforehand if possible.
By this time there was only me in the kitchen, so I drafted the aforementioned
ex-duchess and put her in charge of the jam tarts. There were indeed three
ovens on site -- none of which had a pilot light lit. So I had a rough and
ready course in how to light the pilot of a commercial oven. No permanent
damage done...
Leaving my helper to her jam tarts (which she swore she had made before --
there's another VL in here someplace) I prepared the hens for roasting. They
hadn't defrosted, of course, but I was expecting that -- my helper was in
charge of that and ignore my suggestion that the hens be purchased 2 days in
advance or left out on the counter overnight. A cold water bath soon fixed
that, then I cut each hen in half. Thank goodness for poultry shears, and
because I was working in cold water with partially frozen birds I never felt
the huge hole I wore thru the skin on one finger. Until later, that is.
When the birds were seasoned, I evicted the tart shells from the ovens (did I
mention that 2 of the ovens only had one rack in them?) and put the hens in.
My brother-in-law (a professional chef) had told me that if the ovens were
true the hens would cook in an hour. Since I didn't know the ovens
personally, I gave myself 2 hours. And a good thing, too, since 2 of the
ovens were *not* true to temperature and none of them heated evenly. So I had
to play some musical chicken there, but eventually all were cooked properly.
While the hens cooked, I chopped the ingredients for the salad, except for the
olives (I loath them, and one of my working conditions was that someone else
had to chop the nasty little things.) By this time the program of the day had
started -- we had 3 of our Laurels come in and talk about Elizabethan
clothing, including a "fashion show" where a lord and a lady were dressed from
the chemise out, with discussion of each piece of garb as it went on.
Then I got the spinach tartes ready to go into the ovens as soon as the hens
were done.
As the birds finished cooking, I gave them their final "sharpening" a generous
splash of lemon juice (verjuice or vinegar was deemed "too weird") and double
up the pans and put them in one of the ovens to stay warm, then put the pies
in. Due the uneven heating mentioned earlier, I had to play musical pies as
well, but they finally set, and lunch was served only 15 minutes behind
schedule.
While it was being eaten, my helper and I finished baking and filling the jam
tarts, which came out more like jam short cake. Oh well.
All of the dishes were extremely well received, especially the spinach tartes.
They want the recipe for their newsletter -- is that OK with you, Rowen?
After dessert was served and the kitchen crew got to sit down for a few
minutes and eat, we found out that the promised scullery crew had not
materialized. Fortunately, my ex-duchess helper has another true talent --
kitchen cleaning (Huette knows who I'm talking about now;) ) so we started at
one end and 2 1/2 hours later were done. Total time in the kitchen: 8 1/2
hours, including loading and unloading the car.
Every single one of those needleworkers made a point of coming to the kitchen
afterwards to thank us. I guess that's what makes it all worth while.
Renata (who is nursing a few burns, a huge blister and sore knee today, but
has otherwise had a pretty good weekend)
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 23:21:39 EDT
From: Mordonna22 at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - feast disasters
THLRenata at aol.com writes:
<<
Hey, MaggiRos -- does this remind you of "The Cockaleeky of Death"? Please
share that story with the list. >>
I'm not MaggiRos, and I don't know the cockaleeky story, but at the recent
Highlands War a cook in a neighboring camp cooked a special treat of "Wild
Onion Soup" for his/her group. Problem was the "Wild Onions" were a member
of the lily family, and poisonous. All but one of them wound up spending a
miserable night in the Emergency Room.
Mordonna
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 10:52:19 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - feast disasters
>We were in the Mountains in the Barony of Ered Sul, Kingdom of Atenveldt,
>(Flagstaff, AZ mundanely). Tall pine forest, swampy little lake. Altitude
>about 7000 feet. Average yearly rainfall around 12 inches. Brief dusting of
>snow the morning of June 3. Just a bit damper and cooler than the rest of
>this Desert.
>
>Mordonna
Hello! The plant may have been Death Camass, Zigadenus species. It grows
throughout the US in sandy pinewoods, bogs, meadows, etc. The plant
resembles wild onion, but does not have the smell of onions.
If it were an introduced plant, it may have been Fly Poison, Amianthium
muscaetoxicum. It grows in the sandy soil of bogs, and open woodland from
NJ to FL, and west to eastern OK and TX. This also does not have the smell
of onions.
Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:48:12 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - feast disasters
Mary_HallSheahan at ademco.com wrote:
> Have heard from fellows that there was once a novice cook who served
> "cauldrons" of soup out of garbage cans. Now they were *NEW & CLEAN*
> garbage cans but the concept so grossed people out that province rules say
> new cooks need to have co-cooks running with 'em! Adamantius do you have
> details?
All I can personally remember was a plastic garbage can of beef stock,
into which coffee grounds, egg shells, and various other unmentionables
were dumped, accidentally, after which the beef stock was strained,
boiled and served at an EK 12th Night feast. Comments from people who
sat at the feast, without eating much, were something like, "There was
no question of food-borne illness because the questionable dishes
smelled so bad no one would even taste them."
That was many years ago, though, and we've come a long way since then in
careful sanitation as well as research. I think our culinary standards
may have come up, also, but that's a matter of opinion.
I'm actually not aware of a rule about cooks holding other cooks' hands
in our provincial by-laws, but it certainly does seem to work out that
way in fact. The perpetrator of the beef-stock thing was not, BTW, a
novice cook. At least not in regard to years of experience.
Adamantius
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:45:36 -0700
From: Joan Nicholson <gryphon at carlsbadnm.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Distress in Trimaris
At 02:45 PM 2/28/2000 -0600, Gunthar wrote:
>Now when I first began this list I was of the "I feed 'em what they want
>to eat" crowd. I would make exotic food but 90% of the "Period" feasts
>I ever had were inedible. They were often done by artsy types who
>tried to show how artsy they were instead of cooks wanting to feed
>people.
This can be a HUGE problem... The most unfortunate feast I ever attended
in 18 years, was put on by a number of enthusiastic folk who truly desired
to show the populace how tasty period recipes could be. The food WAS
delicious, all 200 dishes. The problem? The good folk became so wrapped
up in authenticity, taste and numbers of different dishes that they forgot
that they had many people to feed. The different removes were served
buffet-style in medium bowls and small platters on an attractive pyramid
display. Most were gone after the first 75 or 80 people were served, the
remaining 120 or so folk had to make do with bits and pieces, bread and
cheese, because they only made one sample dish of each recipe. If there
had been sufficient quantity of food, it would have been a triumph, as it
was, it was a major disappointment.
Prydwen
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 23:56:13 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: Bad period Feasts (was SC - Re: Distress in Trimaris)
> At 4:10 PM -0500 2/28/00, Jeff Gedney wrote:
> > > They were often done by artsy types who
> > > tried to show how artsy they were instead of cooks wanting to feed
> > > people. I'll never forget the "raisin feast" ugh.
>
> And Brandu replied:
> >This sounds very much like out here in the East.
> >I'll never forget the Twelfth Night feast which was done entirely of
> >pickled foods, some of them rather poorly done. The rationale was "in the
> >winter that would be the only type of food available".
>
> How many of these are done by people who haven't actually cooked from
> period cookbooks, and are simply inventing period food on one or
> another poorly informed theory of what they must have eaten?
>
> David Friedman
I can't really answer that one, but I was actually in the kitchen for
the much-and-not-unjustly-maligned "Vinegar Feast". 12th Night in the
reign of Horic and Leah, about eleven years ago. Essentially, what was
done (or what was attempted) was tight focus. Not just medieval food,
not just medieval French food, but early fifteenth-century Savoyard in
winter, in short, Chiquart with a little Taillevent stuff thrown in.
Yes, it was a bit much for there to be something like four pickled
vegetables in the first course, two in the second, and a salad in a
vinegared dressing at some point. Several of the other dishes were
somewhat flawed; pork loins that were supposed to be seared on a grill
were witnessed actually in flames, or at least engulfed in the flames
from flaring grease. Rillettes that would have been lovely at the right
temperature were stored and served at approximately blood temperature,
acquiring the texture of dog food.
On the other hand, in defense of the guy in charge, he had his menu
changed several times by the autocrat in the last week before the event,
he had 100 people added to the on-board troll list about two days before
the event, and at least another 50-100 added on the day of the event.
The person who was supposed to coordinate the serving bailed out on the
morning of the event, and was replaced by somebody who simply didn't do
the job. The head cook's decision to serve several cold dishes in the
first course as a traffic expedient backfired when people arrived to
discover the hall was unheated (outdoor temperature in northern New
Jersey was a nice, brisk 22 degrees F or so at the time) because it
seems nobody on the autocrat team had thought to ask about heat.
Oh, and there was (I think) either a Court of Chivalry or some kind of
Court of Inquiry held in connection with everybody's least favorite Duke.
Consequently moods were not good, and I doubt ambrosia would have been
sufficient to raise people's spirits as they shivered. Oh, and to top it
all, the approximately 30 whole, unchined pork loins carefully butchered
single-handedly by yours truly, the one dish that might have saved
things had they not been incinerated on the outside by a cook who didn't
know the difference between roasting and an auto-da-fe, were the subject
of loud complaints because I insisted on cooking them to the point where
they still had some juice in them. Yes, after taking the internal
temperature of each one separately and pronouncing each one safe to eat
but still juicy, I discovered we were being accused of serving raw pork.
Seems it wasn't the dull grey plywood some people had been expecting.
Move over, deadly chickens!
But yes, that will probably go down in Eastern history as one of the
more disastrous feasts: a lot of things were done in ways I would have
done differently had they been my decision, and there were a lot of
things the person in charge would not do again, too. On the other hand,
as I recall not absolutely _everything_ was pickled ; ), but perhaps in
misplaced zeal to introduce vegetables out of season, the kitchener was
a bit overenthused. (The thought process was described by a friend of
mine as mental masturbation.) Add to that the fact that some of the
other dishes were sufficiently traumatic as to be wiped from the memory,
it could easily be remembered as being a very vinegary feast indeed.
Adamantius
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 14:01:45 +1000
From: Lorix <lorix at trump.net.au>
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: SC - How do you know a dish was well liked or hated?
Oh, I just thought of _another_ measure of success for a feast from the feast
steward side: that you have been able to successfully rectify any mistakes that
may have occurred.
<feasting disaster tale inserted can be skipped>
To take my buffet lunch for example, I had intended to serve smoked venison. I
have a butcher who supplies smoked venison at a reasonable price & the taste is
wonderful. Now, I have previously served this & watched it virtually inhaled.
Normally however, I have to buy a largish cut. As my buffet lunch was only for
35-40 & I only wanted to serve just a taste, I ordered a smaller cut. What I
hadn't realised was that every other time I have bought 'smoked' venison, was
that the venison had been smoked _and_ pickled, I merely ordered _smoked_
vension & that is all that was done!
Now I hear you all asking what was the problem there? Well, although the meat
was quite clearly smoked thru & cooked, without the additional pickling process
the meat colour & texture went from looking similar to slices of 'corned
silverside' . . . too, well, raw!
Basically, although it was not oozing blood, it _looked_ uncooked. Now, I was
pretty sure that I knew what the reaction to this would be - a few more
adventurous souls would taste it & enjoy it, the rest of it would not be eaten.
Now this was the last dish to be sliced/prepared prior to leaving from home to
the site & I had 10 minutes (while rest of food was being loaded) to rectify the
problem. So, I left a small plateful with thinly sliced pieces on it, the rest
I cooked.
Not having time to delve deeply into recipe books I roughly recalled a recipe
from Welserin (reprinted below FYI) that I thought would do. I adapted it to
what I had in the kitchen. Basically, I lightly stir-fried the venison strips
in oil in batches. I then put the mostly cooked meat in a pot, added port &
cherry jam, scattered pepper & various other spices in whatever measure seemed
appropriate to my smell & taste (galingale, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg &
mace), added some currants to the batch & stirred till the meat was fully
cooked, the currants had absorbed the liquid & expanded & the sauce had
penetrated the meat. To thicken the sauce (I had about 1 minute left till we
had to leave at this stage), I (hangs head in shame) added some instant gravy to
the mix (I was going to add bread crumbs but didn't have enough time for it to
be absorbed & break down satisfactorily. Once the sauce had thickened slightly,
I tipped it all into a crockpot wrapped in a towel to ensure it would stay
heated till we got to the site.
Now, the above had the potential to be an expensive disaster & I had very
limited to time to fix it & so did the best with what I had. When I got to the
site, I had the expected amused enquiries about the 'raw' venison. There was a
variety of other dishes prepared so no-one was _forced_ to eat the smoked
venison, but, after I explained what it was a number of the feasters (some
extremely tentatively) tried the meat & pronounced it OK to delish.
I told the feasters what had happened and also indicated that the majority of
the smoked venison (now nicely marinated & cooked in the wine & fruit sauce) was
only periodoid as I had not used an actual recipe to re-create it, merely memory
& what I know is a nice taste combination with venison (wine & fruit). Both
dishes were completely eaten, with someone going so far as to pinch the crockpot
(after seconds had been served) and wipe all the sauce from it with lumps of
bread ;-)
*******************************************
PERIOD REFERENCES FOLLOW FOR THOSE INTERESTED:
Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin . From handwritten manuscript, Augsburg, 1553.
ed.. by Hugo Stopp, trans. by Ulrike Giessmann. Heidelberg: Carl Winter
Universitv§tsverlag, 1980.
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html
Wild game marinated in peppersauce (4)
ìBoil fresh game in two parts water and one part wine, and when it is done, then
cut it into pieces and lay it in a peppersauce. Let it simmer a while therein.
Make [the sauce] so: Take rye bread, cut off the hard crust and cut the bread
into pieces, as thick as a finger and as long as the loaf of bread is. Brown it
over the fire, until it begins to blacken on both sides. Put it right away into
cold water. Do not allow it to remain long therein. After that put it into a
kettle, pour into it the broth in which the game was boiled, strain it through a
cloth, finely chop onions and bacon, let it cook together, do not put too little
in the peppersauce, season it well, let it simmer and put vinegar into it, then
you have a good peppersauce.î
To make a sauce in which to put a haunch of venison (7)
ìLard it well and roast it and make a good sauce for it. Take Reinfal and stir
cherry syrup into it, and fry Lebkuchen in fat and chop good sweet apples,
almonds, cloves, cinnamon sticks, ginger, currants, pepper and raisins and let
it all cook together. When you want to serve it, then pour the sauce over it. It
is also for marinating a boar's head. Then cook it in two parts water and one
third vinegar. The head of a pig is also made in this manner.î
How to cook a wild boar's head, also how to prepare a sauce for it (5)
ìA wild boar's head should be boiled well in water and, when it is done, laid on
a grate and basted with wine, then it will be thought to have been cooked in
wine. Afterwards make a black or yellow sauce with it. First, when you would
make a black sauce, you should heat up a little fat and brown a small spoonful
of wheat flour in the fat and after that put good wine into it and good cherry
syrup, so that it becomes black, and sugar, ginger, pepper, cloves and cinnamon,
grapes, raisins and finely chopped almonds. And taste it, however it seems good
to you, make it so.
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 11:45:17 EDT
From: Aldyth at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - feast disasters and recovery
I think that the most interesting disaster waiting to happen was last year
when I was asked to help with a neighboring groups's Midwinter feast. The
fella doing the autocrating was doing it because he had mouthed off once too
often about how the event was run, and none of the cooks would touch him with
a ten foot pole. He enlisted the help of his housemates, two moderately
nubile ladies, one almost divorced and one single. The tale starts when the
single one decides to date the soon to be ex husband of the other roommate.
Whallaa, no cooks. The autocrat was scrambling for someone to do the feast,
and asked me. Well, I just couldn't say no. There was to be no cooking on
site, but we could warm up.
After a week, we arrived at a menu (not particularly period, but peri oid).
His one request was that he get to do his favorite soup, Carrot Ginger.
The day of the feast, I arrived to an interesting set up in the kitchen, got
it straightened out, and assessed the damage. The autocrat pointed out that
the soup he made was in a plastic container in the fridge, duct taped shut,
and had been in cold storage since he finished making it about 24 hours
before.
The time arrived to heat up the soup. I untaped the green tucker tote, and
took off the lid. The soup had "separated", and there was a slight pooch in
the middle, with what initially appeared to be frost flowers on the top. The
smell was less than appetizing. The husband of my student was in the kitchen
at the time, and remarked that number one, if I served it people would think
I made it, and number two, shouldn't I taste it. I tasted it. It took a
long time to scrape that stuff off my tongue. When I dabbed the tip of the
spoon in the soup, the center erupted into the most interesting display of
green moldspore I had wittnessed. Upon closer inspection, the black spices
were discovered to be black animal hair.
Moral of the story. Never allow someone who has never seen the inside of a
kitchen before to cook.
He used an old plastic tote he found in his spare room, where the dogs and
cats slept. Did not wash them out, and then stored the soup in his garage
for a day (or so). Gee, it was cooler there.....
Aldyth
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 14:18:02 -0400
From: "Jim Revells" <sudnserv5 at netway.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Welcome Olaf/ feast disasters
The best recovery from a feast disaster I witnessed was at an event in
Meridies about 4 years ago. The event was held by Thornegill (Montgomery,
AL) I believe. The event was being held at Kolomokii State Park near
Blakely, GA a very small town in the County where my family is from & where
I was living at the time. The Feastocrat had done all the prep work &
precook at home & was driving the 100 or so miles to the site when disaster
struck. She was run off the road & her vehicle caught fire. I am proud
that people who when told of this first asked "Is she all right?" & after
being assured she was then asked what was to be done for the feast. They
scrambled & got substitute cooks who went shopping in garb on a Sat evening
in a VERY Redneck town & feed everyone an excellent, if not very period,
Cajin feast. The first remove was well recieved if not eaten, it consisted
of the Ashes of the original feast.
Olaf
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 15:29:05 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
Subject: Re: SC - feast disasters and recovery
> He used an old plastic tote he found in his spare room, where the dogs and
> cats slept. Did not wash them out, and then stored the soup in his garage
> for a day (or so). Gee, it was cooler there.....
>
> Aldyth
Kind of like the first-time cook/know-it-all who was planning to serve a pickled
eggplant dish for a feast. He had been told that it took a week for the
pickling to "take". He didn't put the solution down until Wednesday before the
feast on Saturday. When it was pointed out to him that it wouldn't have enough
time to "do its thing", he replied that he planned to keep it in a warm place to
speed up the process. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed, and he was forbidden
to serve the dish at the feast!
Kiri
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 22:50:47 -0600
From: Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com>
Subject: Re: SC - feast disasters and recovery
While I'd call myself a competent, but not a great cook, my "disaster" included
feeding 200 people when I'd planned on no more than 100. The feast kitchen,
including stove and fridge space, couldn't have been much bigger than 12x15. The
event autocrat was somewhat unavailable, since he was becoming Baron that day.
The outgoing Baroness said that since the cut-off number had escaped being put
into the writeup, we had to feed all comers.
I had food for about 150 (those who'd made reservations), but had another 50 or
so pleading at the troll gate. Hmm, what to do. Fob it off on the autocrat, who
asked the queen, who said feed them. So we did. Sent someone back into town to
pick up more bread, a significant number of precooked rotisserie chickens, more
cheeses, and some fruit. It all worked out....Although the outgoing baroness
complimented me on her favorite dish, which turned out to be the last-minute
chicken, together with an orange sauce we'd whipped up from the little packets we found inside the ducks we served during a different course. Just goes to show, ya never know....
Maire
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:06:04 -0700
From: "Brian L. Rygg or Laura Barbee-Rygg" <rygbee at montana.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Kitchen Authorization
Having helped in kitchens all over Artemisia the past 13 years plus, I still
have to shudder when I remember the Coronet Lists in Silver Keep many years
ago where the autocrat had been given live geese. She got someone to kill
them for her but neglected to clean them for THREE days. I found this out
while trying to thaw a solid mass of frozen fish filets on a woodstove. I
took my concerns to the other cooks (the feastocrat was a newbie of 18, a
college freshman who really didn't know anything about cooking from raw
foodstuffs -- just prepared foods) and then to the Coronet who told me to
serve them anyway. I made sure my group didn't touch them and that was the
only case of food poisoning I have ever heard of. I did my best but no one
would listen and I had only been playing for 2 years.
Raoghnailt
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 15:46:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Nisha Martin <nishamartin at yahoo.com>
Subject: SC - tip for when you burn the soup....
Just a tip for when you burn a soup or something semi
liquid. First of all, DONT STIR IT!!! Just turn off
the burner and let it sit for a few minutes. If its
only mildly scorched, then the good stuff will
seperate, and you pour that part off into another pot.
The same if it's pretty burnt. The gross stuff will
stick to the bottom and you can just pour off the
unburned portion into another pot. If you haven't
stirred it, the charcoal tasting part sticks to the
bottom of the pan. If you do stir it, this doesn't
work. But I've used this with chowders, beans, split
pea soup, and a few rice dishes. I saw it on a cooking
show and have had occasion to use it at home but most
often when cooking at camp. You know when you aren't
used to the pans or burners that youre using? that's
when I usually burn things.
nisha
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 12:15:55 +1100
From: "Lee-Gwen" <piglet006 at globalfreeway.com.au>
Subject: under cooked chicken (was Re: SC - alcohol revisited)
From: Anahita
> However, under cooked whole chickens seem to be a recurrent SCA feast
Oh yes! Under cooked whole chicken - mmmm! I have had some experience with
this one *sigh*.
The only feast on which I have ever been "on-site cook" (normally, I will
help with pre-cook and with the cleanup) was an Anglo Saxon feast some years
ago. I walked into the hall and the autocrat asked me to "do him a favour".
Like a fool, I said yes without finding out what he wanted of me ...
Luckily, most of the work was already done in pre cook, although I did have
some sticky moments trying to work out how to get "thus" much beef into a
fairly small oven - and without baking trays. Lady Lorix (bless her!) came
to my rescue - she had brought her "medium" feast kit, having been told that
everything was under control when she asked if she could bring cooking
utensils - she likes to be prepared.
Anyway, one of the first dishes to go out was whole roasted chicken served
cold on a bed of greens and with a sausage of seasoning by the side. While
I was doing something else, the message came back to the kitchen that some
of the chicken was still quite pink inside! Ooops! I raced out into the
hall and, in my best herald's voice made the appropriate announcement
(something to the effect of "stop eating that chicken, it is not properly
cooked and return all chickens to the kitchen pronto"). Oddly enough, I was
told by someone that I should have been less ... overt, shall we say ...
about the uncooked chicken *sigh*.
The wait for food had been so long that, in the short time between serving
and recalling the chicken a few tables had already consumed theirs - no food
poisoning, thank goodness. Lady Lorix and I then tore the chickens apart
and made a stew of chicken and greens (some spinach, mostly, it had been
supposed to be steamed and used as a garnish for something else) the
seasoning sausages and some red wine purloined from the hall. People seemed
to really like it, too - which was a major relief!
Gwynydd (who still shudders at the memory of that feast! And who thinks
that Lorix should be canonised for her role in it - wonderful woman!)
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 09:53:56 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Personal Iron Chef Challenge
Many years ago, there was a baronial elevation scheduled for the (then) Shire of
Black Diamond. We knew there was a problem when we got a call from a friend who
was an officer asking us to bring our aprons and knives! Friday night, we
arrived at the baron-to-be's home and started work making a soup, a glaze for
the ham and other stuff. Saturday morning, we discovered that the ladies who
were supposed to be cooking the feast had bailed. Turned out they had never
cooked a feast, and their idea of planning was to look at pictures in a
magazine, decide what looked good, and that's what they were planning. Of
course, there was nothing even remotely period. So 4 of us had to take the
ingredients they had already bought and try to create a period feast out of
it.
And, even better, they had agreed to a restriction on use of the kitchen...we
couldn't even get in until 3:00!! We still had to locate a few ingredients...can you imagine trying to find Brie in a small town in the
mountains of Virginia (remember, we're talking mid 1980's here....)?? We
didn't do all period stuff, but much of it was...or at least period-oid!! And
those partaking of it pronounced it a great success! I still remember that feast very fondly, and probably more vividly than any other I've cooked!
Kiri
From: DeeWolff at aol.com
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 12:24:32 EDT
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Feast Horror Stories
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
One of the first feasts I went to as a newbie I watched a kitchen catch fire.
They were serving Goose. They were several on a spit. The cook wanted to
speed them up, so instead of cooking them in the oven, He spitted them over
a fire.
Grease drains........into fire. POOF!! Of course, someone threw water on
it as well....
eventually, they were removed from the fire and put out
and then they were served....charred outside, undercooked inside......Yummy :(
The lesson I learned from this (before I even became an SCA cook) is. Don't
pretend you know what your doing if you really don't. AND NEVER serve your
mistakes to the populace.
Andrea
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:39:26 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Regretable foods....and fixes OOP
Sue Clemenger wrote:
> So, my related question would be, what's the worst
> kitchen disaster you've ever faced, and how did you fix it?
> --Maire
We overbaked a tray of gingerbread at one feast.
I removed it from the pan and left it on another tray.
Later after getting the baking pan into the sink to soak,
I came back past the hard but edible portions and thought
"What the heck." I fed them into the cuisinart and
pulverized them into gingerbread dust. That then went
on the dishes of applesauce that were being served.
Worked out fine in the end.
Johnnae
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:52:49 -0500
From: Rob Downie <rdownie at icenter.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Regretable foods....and fixes OOP
> So, my related question would be, what's the worst
> kitchen disaster you've ever faced, and how did you fix it?
Back in it's infancy, our cooks guild also tried to do the "golden
apples of meat" from "Fabulous Feasts". The dough doesn't call for
enough liquid to hold together, so the two inexperienced cooks assigned
to it panicked. Rather than play with it to get it to work, they threw
it all out and tried to find something similar. PANCAKE BATTER!, they
decided.
Of couse, this was late Friday night, and all of the stores were closed,
so they phoned around to everyone they knew to get pancake mix, cause
they didn't know how to make that either. Now the colouring part - the
recipe asks for saffron. They had a tiny container of saffron which
they dumped into this huge vat of pancake batter. The saffron
disappeared into the batter with no visible difference. So they managed
to track down some green food coluring. Since the small amount of
saffron didn't do much, they figured they must need a lot more of this
stuff too, and dumped in the whole bottle. Remember, it's getting
increasingly late, and they're getting punchy.
Now they had a vat of violently green pancake batter that wouldn't coat
the meatballs. So, in a moment of genius, Ceridwyn placed 5 raisins
around each meatball, ladeled the batter over top and Mock Turtles were
born.
Faerisa
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:58:18 -0500
From: Rob Downie <rdownie at icenter.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks digest, Vol 1 #693 - 22 msgs
Ted Eisenstein wrote:
> >Worst food disasters?
> >
> >Lessee... there was the time I added too much garlic to the baba ghannouj; I
> >was certified vampire-free for a week.
>
> How on earth could there be such a thing as "too much garlic"?
>
> Alban
Oh yes there is, (and I love garlic) our Barony once held a feast that had garlic in EVERY remove, INCLUDING DESSERT! Some nasty fumes in the feasthall that day....
Faerisa
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:44:59 -0500
From: drkael at comcast.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rescuing a Failure
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>So, what have _you_ "ruined" and brought back to a usable state??
>
>Alys Katharine
At a feast a number of years back, I had a near failure that got saved...
I was serving roasted garlic in my appetizer course (instead of honey
butter... amazingly no one missed it) My error was that I had planned out
my oven usage to the minute all day thinking oh.. I'll just throw the garlic
in around the other dishes and cook it then....
The problem was, that nothing that went into the oven had to be at a high
enough temp to really roast the garlic well.... So with about 10 minutes
before they were to be served, we had undercooked garlic....Now, I had pies
in the oven which we couldn't take out or raise the temp on..... so we were
unsure what to do....
Until someone noticed the microwave in the corner (which we had been
ignoring all day) and decided to try to nuke the garlic.... which was able
to finish cooking the garlic.....
The cook staff had a good laugh when people came in to the kitchen and asked
how we got the garlic "So.... perfect"
Kael
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Imaginary list was Re: Irish Stew recipe
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:24:20 -0600
Shades of the first Calontir Crown Tourney. The Mid-Realm chose Lincoln,
Nebraska as the site for the dissolution of the bonds between them and
Calontir--in December. So we had a blizzard and sub-zero temperatures. To
add to the fun, it was a new group, which had never put on an event for more
than about 50 and didn't know how to plan and prepare for 200+.
About 11 am, the cook fell apart and Erlich du Battenhelm and I wound up in
the kitchen trying to save the feast. The original plan had been to cook
the roasts on grills and we could not dissuade the grill master from his
course and let us roast the beef in the oven. They were using charcoal
where they needed a blast furnace. The ambient air temperature was sucking
off the heat, the roasts were still frozen and were in 10 and 15 pound
chunks. They came into the hall seared and bleeding, which was how the
grill master liked his meat, but wasn't too pleasing to the feasters, most
of whom didn't get to eat it anyway, because the local group hadn't taken
into account how they were going to serve the feast with the tables packed
so close together you couldn't move.
The head table and the people nearest the kitchen got served (where the
aisle was). The people on the far side of the room got nothing. The
kitchen was not informed of the problem, so their experienced feast cooks
were not able to provide their expertise in getting people fed. It was a
salutory lesson in how not to do a feast.
Bear
From: Marilyn Traber <marilyn.traber.jsfm at statefarm.com>
To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 08:23:26 -0500
Subject: [Sca-cooks] culinary Towering Infernos
Well, one feast Rob and I were cooking back in the 80s, it was drizzling,
the rest of the cooking crew never bothered to show up. Nobody there would
even come in to wash dishes.
Large quantity of chickens being cooked over a grill. Just finished turning
over the whole batch [IIRC, 35? of the buggers] just to hear a resounding
crash coming from the inside partof the kitchen, and turning to go
investigate there started to be flameups under the chicken. Results? the
yell of "Rob, the chickens are on fire. Deal with it!" as I go in to find
that some idiots loose dog has just overturned a very large set of metal
shelves of covered boles of marinated veggies to get to the settling pork
roasts just about ready to go to table. This scattered about a 6 pack-worth
of empty beer bottles [used to bring in various marinade components] broken
bits around the kitchen. This same person PROMISED that little poofter was
the best behaved animal ever and would quietly sit on the ground and not
bother anybody...
Almost decided to do korean dog stuffed with garlic....
Thankfully, the pork was all still well wrapped in foil, and only 1 roast
was lost. I got several fairly annoying cuts scavenging the broken glass off
the ground. It was decided by the Baron that the household table of the
idiot dog owner was the table to go porkless, and that dogs would forever be
banned from going to that specific camping event.
margali
[and then there was that time at Pennsic 25 the cooking geese greas caught
fire...]
From: "Avraham haRofeh" <goldberg at bestweb.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Barleycorn- A WONDERFUL event ;-)
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 06:51:58 -0400
> Avraham mentioned:
> > - going down to the second camp to babysit the roasting chickens for a bit
> > - finding that one of the ovens at the SECOND camp wasn't working, and
> > sending half the chickens BACK up the hill
> > - getting back to main hall to discover that the newly-returned chickens
> > were still sitting in a cold oven, and 30 minutes to feast
>
> So, how did you solve this situation? Just go with less chickens? Use the
> microwave? Cut them up and fry them instead? :-)
Nope... started 15 minutes late, reversed the order of the courses and
STREEEEEETCHED the entertainment between courses. Bought us enough time (we
could have used another 4-5 minutes on the second batch of chickens).
Avraham
****************************************
Avraham haRofeh of Northpass
(mka Randy Goldberg MD)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 00:57:26 -0400
From: "Rosine" <nothingbutadame at inthe.sca.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] dealing with cooks neurosis
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>> Atlantia had a feast where the stove blew up
>> something to do with a gas line, someone got
>> hurt and everyone was still fed and chaos
>> somewhat minimized.
>
> Well, yes, but Jaella of Armida was cooking that feast. :)
>
> -- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
And the only people hurt were two ladies, one a teen - they were wearing
poly blend clothing, while the three younger "kitchen helpers", dressed in
wool, were fine (the lower oven blew at about an 8-year-old's knee level).
We did, however, lose a door to an enthusiastic rescuer who battered
it down rather than wait for it to be unlocked.
The nicer memory was Jaelle's blushes about her new beau as we were
helping her with food preps in the wee hours of Friday night... they
celebrated their what, 6th? wedding anniversary this month. How time
flies.
Rosine
Baroness at that event
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 06:52:48 -0500
From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Field kitchen horror stories
To: rtanhil at fast.net, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> All things considered, it worked out fine. The moral of this
> story: rented equipment might not work. Make sure you have
> John of Bisby on hand (or failing that, someone with a cool
> head who knows something about taking things apart to make
> them work).
Many years ago I was part of the cooking staff at a feast for around
300. Not in charge thank goodness. They found a beautiful site, a
big building with lots of room inside and out, and a big kitchen....
BUT.. the kitchen had been stripped, no oven, no stove, no
refrigerator. They arranged to rent stoves and warming ovens. The
Head cook inspected the kitchen a few weeks before the event.
On the morning of the event, they arrived to find that the kitchen
had been rewired since their inspection. The rented stoves had the
wrong type of plug for the new wiring.
Someone managed to get one stove re-wired by noon, the other one
never did work. I took eight pork roasts home and managed to fit
them in my oven. They managed to cook and serve most of what they
planned, but it was.... stressful.
Ranvaig
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 09:17:20 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cooking Mishaps
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
This is the new funny book on professional culinary mishaps.
Don't Try This At Home : Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest
Chefs edited by Kimberly Witherspoon, Andrew Friedman
http://www.bloomsburyusa.com/rights/details.asp?isbn=9781596910706&;cf=0
It includes a chapter titled "Sh*it Happens."
Johnnae
Laura C. Minnick wrote:
> Well, no, but I did burn my fingers good today, handling hot lasagna
> noodles while putting together a pan of Losyns...
> (They were yummy though!)
> 'Lainie
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:01:39 -0500
From: "Elaine Koogler" <kiridono at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] listing of ingredients...
To: grizly at mindspring.com, "Cooks within the SCA"
<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
I guess we all have our war stories about this sort of thing...but I
remember a Baronial Investiture many years back in Atlantia (not ours!!)
where the cooks were brand new to doing this sort of thing. They looked
through a magazine and picked out some recipes that had pretty pictures
attached, and bought food to make using those recipes. They also agreed
with the autocrat that they could cook the feast if they didn't have access
to the kitchen until 3:00 (feast to be served at 6!!). We found out, when
we got to the site that, out of an attack of stage fright, the cooks had
decamped, leaving food, but no recipes. Four of us cooked a feast, not
totally period, 'cause the only cookbook we had amongst us was "Dining with
William Shakespeare," but it was as close as we could get it!! We literally
made up dishes, cooked a few out of the book, but, of course, were limited
to the ingredients we found that the cooks had purchased. To this day, I
have no idea how we pulled it off...but we were told afterwards that it was
a very good job. That group will be celebrating their 25th anniversary in a
year or so...and Phillip and I have been asked to cook the feast...in
memory of that Investiture feast.
Kiri
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:39:33 -0400
From: ranvaig at columbus.rr.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Feast nightmare
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> that no matter how bad they think things are, it could be worse. And
> as told by these stories, things usually work out.
There was my first feast at the Irish Festival, in the Living History
area. This is early August, usually Pennsic Landgrab weekend. I took
over on short notice, had a week to research 10th century Irish food,
and buy everything.
Thursday during setup, my daughter closed the back van door on my
thumb and broke it. The door locked on my thumb and wouldn't open.
My husband was at the driver's door and started running to see what
all the shouting was about. I was shouting for him to hit the door
release switch first. Fortunately the left thumb, and I'm right
handed.
We were in a new location at the festival, and the kitchen was rather
far from everyone else. My expected help was busy on other tasks. I
couldn't leave the kitchen unless I flagged someone down to keep the
public out of the fire and knives.
Feast was planned for 2pm Sunday afternoon. By noon, I was feeling
very unwell. The ambient temperature was over 100 and I'd been
cooking over a wood fire for three days. I had a 103 fever and a
blinding headache. An abscessed tooth opened up and was draining.
I'd done too much with my broken thumb and it ached terribly.
I finally had help, but and couldn't figure out what to do next. I
hadn't written down enough of my plans and was feeling too fuzzy to
remember them. I was way behind how much I thought would be ready by
then and panicking because we were going to be late.
Then diarrhea hit.. I wont go into details, but handling food was not
a good idea any more. I saw the ER take someone away on a
stretcher, and decided it was time to leave while I could walk out.
And... it really did work out. People pulled together and got food on
the tables. Late, but I'm told it was really good, even if they
didn't find the salmon. I was home soaking in a cool tub.
I've done three successful feasts there since then.
Ranvaig
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:08:32 -0500
From: "Barbara Benson" <voxeight at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Feast nightmare
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Euriol> My personal horror story on that is I walked into the kitchen on the day of the event 5 hours behind schedule. However, since I planned the timing of everything based on 2 people working the kitchen, everything was ready on
time (or nearly on time, in the case of the lunch) for there was no fewer
than 8 people at any time in the kitchen. <
About 10 days before my first (and to date only) Coronation feast the
site I had planned the feast for was put into action in its emergency
shelter form for Katrina victims. The autocrat of the event managed to
get another site for the same weekend but it had a drastically
different kitchen and Hall.
It all turned out just fine, but there was major stress. Then there
was the year that I ended up getting 2 feasts 2 weeks before the event
dates because of personal emergencies on behalf of the head cooks.
Neither of them had done anything like planning so I had to start
from scratch. Except for one of them, who had thoughtfully spent half
of the budget on beef and chicken 4 months prior to the event. She
threw it all into her freezer with no processing at all (it was all in
its original Styrofoam tray/cling film packaging) and it was all
unusable.
And finally, there was the one event where I was standing in line to
troll in and the Baroness of the group walked up to me and said "Hi,
how do you feel about cooking the feast".
Good times, Good times
--
Serena da Riva
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 07:24:38 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Calontir's Jubliee Celebration
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
What I was curious about is what dishes were used to represent the first
reign. I doubt anyone used any of the dishes we prepared for the first
Crown tourney, as it was done without recipes and no records were kept.
The operative word in my comment is "try." First Calontir Crown Tourney was
held in Lincoln, Nebraska. We drove in in the middle of a blizzard,
literally following a snow plow up the highway on the last leg. We arrived
at between 4 and 5 in the morning to find the rooms we had reserved were
still occupied by the state high school wrestling conference, that had been
trapped by the blizzard. We caught a few hours sleep stacked around the
motel as the blizzard blew out and got to the site (a gymnasium) around 10.
About an hour later, the Baroness of Vatavia finds out the head cook has
caved under the pressure and pulls Erlich off the list field. Erlich looks
at the damage and pulls me into the kitchen.
The group holding the Crown tourney is new. They have no experience in
doing dinner for two hundred. They have no recipes. They have no schedule.
They have sacks of groceries. The next ten hours are kind of a haze. We
concocted marinades, sauces, prepped veggies, roasted game hens, poached
salmon and figured out how to stretch everything. There are no secrets or
magic to what we did. It was the application of 50 some combined years of
experience to a rather thorny problem.
What we didn't have control over were the roasts, which were being done on
barbecue grills outside. What had worked fine in the summer test run failed
sub-zero weather and the guy doing it was too obstinate to bring them into
the kitchen and load them in the oven. They were later described to me as
"raw and frozen."
While we salvaged some of the food, we did not salvage the feast. Whoever
had done the (non)planning had based the feast reservations on the occupancy
number of the gym (fans in bleachers) and not on the layout of the tables on
the gym floor. To accomodate all of the people, rows of tables were set up
wall to wall with no room for servers to get through. As a result, people
on the side near the kitchen got fed while the people opposite did not.
Erlich and I pulled off getting the feast out of the kitchen, but the feast
failed on the logistics of service. My experiences with this feast are part
of the reason I demand absolute control of the kitchen and the hall when I
do a feast.
Bear
<<< Remembering the nightmare Erlich du Battenhelm and I had trying to salvage the feast at the first Calontir Crown Tourney, what, pray tell, did you serve in remembrance of the 1st Reign?
Bear >>>
So what happened and how did you manage to salvage things? I'm always
looking for stories and good advice for my fast-disasters-msg file. :-)
As far as the memorial dishes, it sounds like these dishes were chosen
from those of an entire reign and not from just a single Crown or
Coronation feast, so I imagine they had a lot to choose from.
Stefan
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:53:39 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Calontir's Jubliee Celebration
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
<<< Now that sounds like an absolute nightmare.
Euriol >>>
It was an experience I truly do not wish to repeat. I have no idea why such
a large event got handed to a relatively new shire with no experience in
running large feasts, but apparently it handled as a schedule and forget
event by the Middle Kingdom Seneschal. What is real sad is that the entire
fiasco could likely have been prevented with a few hours with an experienced
feast planner.
Bear
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:07:50 -0500
From: "otsisto" <otsisto at socket.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Cooking gone bad or the oops factor Getting
Proactive
H Westerlund-Davis wrote:
<<< I know in Caid there have been rumors for years of rotten meat
being served. There are also stories of a badly cooked/burned goose
being served. We also have a group that likes to cook that are
----ummmmm---awful. Aelina the Saami >>>
Here in Calontir, years ago, it was our Shire's first outdoor camping event
with primitive kitchen. They rented a large bbq grill for the meat. The guy
taking care of it did not know that the folks who started the grill had put
the lighter fluid in an unmarked container and the water in a similar
receptacle. The meat was pork and fatty. When the flames were started to get
high he grabbed what he thought was the water. To say the least he had to
grow his eyebrows back. The pork ended up having an inch of burn meat
surrounding it. This story did not become legend, thankfully. I think it may
have been because most times the feast that the Shire served up was good to
great. Most "horror stories that I hear/heard are when SCA was out of
diapers, walking and learning to run. Things have changed, just some stories
are too juicy to dry up and blow away.
De
From: Soldwish-Zoole Family <applebear01 at CHARTER.NET>
Date: March 31, 2010 7:46:36 AM CDT
To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: [CALONTIR] Worst Feast Nightmare
While on the subject of contemplating feasts, here is my "No Hit/s, There I
Was" Worst Feast Nightmare - and a True Story:
During the reign of Gabe and Hywela 20+ years ago, I did a Changlings feast
as part of a team with Sir Nathan Adelaar, Countess Lyriel, and Aed
McFidlimid. The kitchen was in a different building than the feast hall,
and at the last moment we were denied permission to go through the building
to the door at the other end - we would need to bring the food all the way
around outside. It was cold, and drizzling, and we had no way to re-heat
the food after arriving in the hall (how medieval!)
During the afternoon before feast, we received the request to add more
feasters if at all possible, due to the weather and the bad parking
situation, so fewer people would have to leave site. After a brief pow-wow,
we OK'd adding two extra people to each table, for a total of 24 extra
diners. Shortly afterwards, we began suffering equipment failures in the
kitchen, and we spent the last hour or so before serving trying to re-warm
and re-hydrate dishes on the brink of failure with hastily cobbled together
sauces, which kept us from getting the chance to survey the hall and make
sure everything was good to go.
Unfortunately, our OK of the extra seats had not been accurately
communicated to the hall, and 3 extra tables were set up instead of extra
seats set at existing tables, so when the first remove was served three
tables didn't get any food. As soon as the servers told us what was
happening, we sent Aed with a cart full of empty bowls, spoons and platters
to start gleaning from other tables while Lyriel and Nathan and I began
re-working what we had yet to bring out.
Now, to make matters worse, about a month before the event we'd received a
phone call from the Baroness of Nathan's former group in Ansteorra
congratulating him on his upcoming elevation to the Order of Chivalry.
Problem was, not only hadn't it been announced yet, but this was the first
we'd heard about it! The lady apologized profusely and begged us not to let
anyone know she'd told, but the cat was out of the bag. We were on pins and
needles in the weeks leading up to Changelings, trying to get to every event
we could and prepare ourselves to look surprised.
Well, as the chaos of the feast was mercifully drawing to a close (we heard
rumors of food fights and breadballs in the hall) and we sat exhaustedly
surveying the wreck of the kitchen, Aed came running back through the rain
with word that Nathan was called before Their Majesties. OMG, this was it!
We threw back on our pin-stripe Changling garb (yes, pin-stripe, we were
assorted members of the notorious Da Gamba family, but that's another story)
and hot-footed it to the hall, hearts racing. Nathan humbly approached the
Falcon Thrones on sore, bare feet, wrapped in the pin-striped dhoti of
Mahatma Da Gamba - and recieved his Torse. Oh, but we were crying in the
bathroom that night...
Elspeth
From: Lis Schraer <lis at WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU>
Date: March 31, 2010 8:16:36 PM CDT
To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Worst Feast Nightmare
Soldwish-Zoole Family wrote:
<<< While on the subject of contemplating feasts, here is my "No Hit/s, There I Was" Worst Feast Nightmare - and a True Story: >>>
Elspeth, I remember that event. However, what I remember (besides the horrid weather and the two-buildings problem) is all the hilarious schtick with the Da Gamba family. I honestly couldn't tell you a thing about the feast, though after reading your story, I remembered having an idea that there were a few problems. (No, that isn't an understatement. It was my general impression--at least as recalled long afterward.)
Elasait
From: Dee Thompson <lonemuse2 at YAHOO.COM>
Date: March 31, 2010 11:13:19 AM CDT
To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Worst Feast Nightmare
That is truly the feast from hell.
The worst I ever dealt with was the Meridian Crown list I did, where we arrived on site, which was a county fair grounds, to find out that the leader of the local Democratic Party had scheduled a fundraiser for that same weekend, and called his good buddy who managed the fair grounds, and absconded with all of the tables and chairs.
And walking into the kitchen, we found that the stove had disappeared.
Gone.
The county had decided to replace it the following month, and some good soul had taken it upon himself to remove the old one ahead of schedule.
When we questioned the site manager (actually it was more of a frantic phone call) his reply was, "Didn't think you all were actually gonna use that stuff. Thought you were gonna cater your food in. Oh well. Best of luck to ya."
We cooked everything over coleman stoves, turkey fryers and barbeque grills in the rain.
And then the chewing out the seneschal received from an angry Pelican wanting to know who I was and what household I was with because I threw her ever-so helpful proteges out of the kitchen... One was stirring EVERYTHING with the same spoon without even washing it, and he was going behind me and "fixing" my recipes by adding more or different ingredients, because that was the way HE would make it... (I swear I never threatened them. I was just HOLDING the chopping knife when I ordered them out.)
Yeah, good times.
Fionnuala
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:02:56 -0600 (MDT)
From: Linda Peterson <mirhaxa at morktorn.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Frozen pomegranate jewels
Although nothing will ever compare to the feast where the rain started
leaking into the electric stove down at Roswell. We pushed the roaster
limits that time.
Mirhaxa ;)
mirhaxa at morktorn.com
On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Kathleen A Roberts <karobert at unm.edu>wrote:
<<< yes, that is going to be the big roaster job. unfortunately, one can only use so many roasters there. even overhauled, the electrics are still
primordial.
cailte >>>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:48:59 -0500
From: Elaine Koogler <kiridono at gmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] hot soup OPSoup
That's even worse than the young man who helped cook a feast some years
back. He was responsible for cooking a barley soup and the recipe was in a
traditional Scottish cookbook. The recipe said, "a cup of barley, salt and
pepper." He interpreted it to mean that it wanted a cup each of barley, salt
and pepper. It took a lot of work to overcome the cup of pepper particularly...those trying to sort it out couldn't really afford to start
all over again, so they took out all of the solid bits (meat, veggies, etc.)
and created a new broth. Even after washing all of the solid bits off to
get as much of the pepper out as possible, it was still VERY peppery.
Kiri
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 4:29 AM, Sharon Palmer <ranvaig at columbus.rr.com>wrote:
<<< 4 cups dried chili flakes
I like hot soup but..... :} >>>
A bit of a typo there. Wonder how many people tried it just as printed?
Ranvaig
<the end>