To Serve A Feast

Information presented here is a compilation of many web-based resources and texts as part of a presentation for the Royal University of Meridies.

It is my intent this will be a dynamic source of information A bibliography is listed at the end.

Email: mistressmarie@att.net

The atmosphere in the feasting hall, the service of the feast and specialty items that add to the time period ambiance are integral elements to a successful medieval experience

Recipes, food selections and other kitchener responsibilities are planned over several months, and so too should the plans for the appropriate atmosphere and service in the hall.

As soon as the head cook has decided on the theme of the feast(might match the event theme or not) is the time to appoint a hall steward. Ideally, the head cook will select someone that is in tune with the way they work, or the the candidate might be selected by the event steward. The ideal situation would be to have the head cook and the event steward decide on a person together - less conflict!

Make sure that the responsibilities of the hall steward are clearly spelled out - creation of ambiance in the hall, arranging for the appropriate number of servers, server training, heralding the hall or arranging for a hall herald come to mind.

Discuss the need for a plate steward or head server - someone that oversees plating, garnishing and staging when the servers pick up each remove, and the order that the hall is served.

When planning service, remember the focus of the experience:

• High court— a very formal type of feast, with a focus on pomp and ceremony. This type of service will require a larger number of servers and often has considerations for the status of the people chosen to serve high table
• Celebration feast - a high table is not requires, some ceremony and pomp might be included, based on the tone of the event
  
• Revel - much more informal and often served in what today is know as a "buffet style"
• Tavern - simple foods often set out as family style, requiring people to restock food items but not necessarily serve

The number of servers required is driven by plating needs and table arrangement. If the food is being plated for groups of six, then a server must place a service down at the beginning of the table, followed by another set to the next group of six. if plated by eights, then placed accordingly. The plating service and table arrangement will directly influence the number of servers required.

Nothing is more frustrating for feast participants to have service placed at the ends of the table and willy-nilly in between so that some folks take more than they should and others are never passed a particular dish!

Plan a servers meeting and make sure everyone is on the same page:

• pattern of service
  
• number and timing of each course
• well versed in what the food selections are
• aware of any list might have special arrangements made with the cook
• which tables each is responsible for
  
• specifics of which platters, bowls or serving utensils are needed back to the kitchen in a time manner for use in another remove
• which foods might have refills available and which do not
  

White table coverings are mentioned in various time periods, always of the finest linen, reflecting the wealth and status of the individual. There are findings of table coverings that have embroidery on the ends.

In the early Middle Ages, the napkin disappeared from the table and hands and mouths were wiped on whatever was available. Later, a few amenities returned and the table was laid with three cloths approximately 4 to 6 feet long by 5 feet wide. The first cloth, called a couch (from French, coucher, meaning "to lie down") was laid lengthwise before the master's place. A long towel called a surnappe, meaning "on the cloth," was laid over the couch; this indicated a place setting for an honored guest. The third cloth was a communal napkin that hung like a swag from the edge of the table.

The napkin had gone from a cloth laid on the table to a fabric draped over the left arm of a servant.The ewerer, the person in charge of ablutions, carried a towel that the lord and his honored guests used to wipe their hands on. The Bayeux tapestry depicts a ewerer kneeling before the high table with a finger bowl and napkin. The panter carried a portpayne, a napkin folded decoratively to carry the bread and knife used by the lord of the manor, a custom that distinguished his space from those of exalted guests.

By the sixteenth century, napkins were an accepted refinement of dining, a cloth made in different sizes for various events. The diaper, an English word for napkin, from the Greek word diaspron, was a white cotton or linen fabric woven with a small, repetitious, diamond-shaped pattern. The serviette was a large napkin used at the table. The serviette de collation was a smaller napkin used while standing to eat, similar to the way a cocktail napkin is used today. A touaille was a roller towel draped over a tube of wood or used as a communal towel that hung on the wall.

The atmosphere in the hall is driven by the time period of the event, the time period(s) of the foods and those in attendance.

Research should reflect what a feast location might have looked like - paintings, illuminations and wood carvings are a good source since few Polaroids have survived! :)

A variety of printed texts discuss service and ceremony, such as hand washing, foot washing, or food tasting plates, as well as how food more than likely would have been served - in trenchers or on plates and platters.

Many of the locations used for events have fluorescent lighting and often there are not any dimmer controls. Brainstorm ways that the hall area could be lit during feast without the glaring modern lights, along with the candles of those in attendance.

Many halls are set up in such a way that areas for plating are in view of the hall, either through open arches or a cafeteria style area. My good lord husband has been so kind as to build me frames from PVC piping that screw into floor supports so that I can hang curtains (made with sheets from the dollar store). Incorporated into the feast hall plan, arrange for one side to be the "in" door for servers and the other side as the exit.

Behind the curtains, try and set aside enough space so that tables can be set-up for plating - taping off sections on the tables for each server is a good way to make sure each item is plated for each server. It is also a great way to lay out your plating dishes ahead of time to double check their is enough service.

It was common in every time period for feasting to include some kind of entertainment.

The issue for most SCA feasts, in my humble opinion, is time and talent. I have sat through a number of feast at which any one could decide to entertain spur of the moment - sometimes it was wondrful and others was mind numbing! It at all possible, see if entertainment can be arranged for ahead of time and is appropriate to the atmosphere of the gathering - translate that to a dirge is probably not a good match for a celebration!

Food presentation is a collaborative among the head cook, head plater/server, hall herald and hall servers.

Head cooks might decide to prepare items in shapes - heart shaped pies for instance. If the pie is cut before it reaches the table, the presentation of the shape is lost. It should be cut after everyone has admired it. This is then a skill added to the server conclave is they are going to be expected to cut or carve something at the table - also equates to an area at which said cutting/carving can take place.

If a feast is truly an auspicious occasion, and it would have been done in period, servers might process into the hall at the same time as the items are presented to the high table.

The research process should guide the service and presentation of each course and whether or not entertainment was planned between each course.

Subtleties (sotleties, there are many different spellings):

• Not necessarily edible, but can be made of any food or non-edible substance
• Generally presented between courses at large banquets and meant to impress!
• Can be figurative representations of almost anything, animals, individuals or events.
• Can be theatrical e.g. live tableaux, music & dance, mock combats, etc.

Illusion Foods or Warners

• A food disguised as another food e.g. “eggs in lent” almond paste piped into hollowed out eggshells
• Always partially or completely edible

Entremets

• Literally means: between courses
• Meaning varies depending on time and location; in Italy, it refers to the live entertainment between courses, in 15th C France, the term covers both culinary and theatrical entertainment.
• Occasionally consisted of illusion foods e.g. the Coqz Heaumez in “The Viandier of Taillevent”
• May simply be a palate cleanser

Endoring

• Can refer to gilding with gold leaf
• Can also refer to brushing with a flour paste containing egg yolks and/or saffron. For example, Le Menagier's recipe for Boar's Head describes endoring one half of the head with the yolk, flour, saffron mixture and the other half with the whites, parsley, flour mixture making the finished product half green and half gold. It then says to have the painters apply gold leaf. Occasionally this referred to the paste itself, regardless of color.

Marzipan

• A modeling paste made from almonds and sugar commonly used to fashion small items such as fruits in both earlier and later periods (this technique is still used today for cake decorating, etc). Marchpan is also the name for a decorative base made of marzipan on which elaborate sugar paste figures could be set.
  

Trionfi di tavola
“Triumphs of the table”: as defined in John Florio’s Italian dictionary of 1611

• sweet sculptural components (sugar paste) of Renaissance and Baroque Italian banquets. They often echoed classical Roman artistry, themes and architectural components. These showpieces were often not meant to be eaten, and were therefore sometimes painted with limner’s colors.

Sugar Plate

• Bolied sugar syrup, poured into molds (made of plaster of paris or clay) to create edible statues or made into small candies. This technique of Arabic origin was in use by at least the 13th C in Europe.

Sugar Paste

• A fine modeling paste made of powdered sugar mixed with gum tragacanth, lemon juice and rosewater. This became the modeling material of choice towards the end of the medieval period and into the Renaissance

Serving starts at approximately nine minutes into the video

Adamson, Melitta Weiss. Food in Medieval Times. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004. Print.

Ballerini, Luigi, Ed. The Art of Cooking The First Modern Cookery Book. The eminent Maestro Martino of Como. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Print.

Black, Maggie. The Medieval Cookbook. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003. Print

Brears, Peter. Cooking and Dining in Medieval England. Devon: Prospect Books, 2012. Print.

Cosman, Madeline Pelner. Fabulous Feasts Medieval Cookery and Ceremony. New York: George Braziller, 1976. Print.

Effros, Bonnie. Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul. New York: Palgrave. 2002. Print

Grant, Mark, Ed. and Translator. Anthimus de obseruatione ciborum - on the Observance of Food. London: Rowe Ltd., 1996. Print.

Grewe, Rudolf and Constance B. Hieatt, eds and Translators. Libellus de Arte Coquinaria: An Early Northern Cookery Book. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001. print

Hagen, Ann. A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food Processing and Consumption. Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1992. Print.

Hagen, Ann. A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food Processing and Consumption. Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1995. Print.

Henisch, Bridget Ann. Fast and Feast, Food in Medieval Society. University Park: Pennsylvania University State Press, 1976. Print.

Milham, Mary Ella, Ed and Translator. Platina's on Right Pleasure and Good Health. Asheville: Pegasus Press, 1999. Print

Normore, Christina. A Feast for the Eyes: Art, Performance and the Late Medieval Banquet.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Print.

Renfrow, Cindy. Take a Thousand Eggs or More. ISBN 0-9628598-0-X

Roden, Cladia. A Book of Middle Eastern Food. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. Print

Roden, Odile, Francoise Sabban and Silvano Serventi. The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Print.

Running an SCA Feast

Santich, Barbara. The Original Mediterranean Cuisine. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1995. Print

Scully, Eleanor and Terence Scully. Early French Cookery, Sources, History, Original Recipes and Modern Adaptations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan press, 2002. Print

Subtelties www.eithni.com/asencyclopedia/subtleties.pdf

Stefan's Florilegium