What We Cook In My Fall Ren Faire Kitchen

[Porthos]

I have been asked about the feast before so I thought I would at least list what all goes out the window. The food is broken into two categories - platters and pass foods.  Platters have a variety of items on them and go out to individual tables, pass foods are in bowls and servers walk around all of the tables and offer spoon-fulls of the dish they are bearing to those eating the feast. All items, whether platter or pass, are cut into finger-food pieces.

 

I hope to take some pictures this coming weekend to add. We had an extra 28 people added to those whom we normally feed (normal is around 80 people) and that took any "spare" time away.

 

From Sunday (yesterday):

 

Meat platters:

  Grilled beef (this weekend was about 18 lbs of beef per day)

  Pork roast

  Grilled sausages

  Chicken (prepared off-site by one of our cooks and reheated before plattering)

  Cut-up spiral-sliced ham to bulk up the meat platters because of the extra 28.

 

Veggie/Cheese Platters:

  Cubed Medium Cheddar Cheese

  Cubed Monterrey Jack Cheese

  Cubed Gouda Cheese

  (This week's choice for the 4th cheese) cut-up Brie

  Celery Sticks

  Baby Carrots or Carrot Sticks

  Cucumber Sticks

  Edemame (which mostly come back but is wanted by some)

  Grapes

  (on Sunday) Orange wedges

 

Bread baskets:

  Home-baked free-form bread rounds (sent out whole) (maybe 8" diameter)

  Store-bought dinner rolls

  Butter

 

Bowls of green and black olives.

 

Pass foods:

 

Meatballs in Sauce

Potatoes dressed with butter and herbs

potatoes dressed with olive oil and herbs for the vegans

Vegan Barley (Mire Poix, barley, Knorr Veggie Bouillon)

Pinto Beans (vegan)

My lovely bride of 36 years is known for her bread puddings. This week was a tasty artichoke and cheese bread pudding

(with the exception of the mushrooms sauteed in butter all other veggies are vegan)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Sauteed Pepper Strips

Sauteed Onion      There are guild members that are gaga (I'm one) who enjoy just the onions on their own.

Steamed Carrots

Steamed and Sliced Red Beets

Broad Beans sauteed in Sesame Oil with Black Sesame Seeds

Sauteed Mushrooms

Cut-up tomatoes in a very nice freshly-made balsamic vinaigrette.  (Thanks, Mike)

Vegan Sheppard's Pie (made with real vegan shepherds) Made off-site in Bob's home kitchen.

 

As soon as the plattered foods go out the window we start cutting and plattering the desserts:

 

Home-made desserts:

  Brownies

  Brownies with pecans

  Vegan Tea Cookies - this week was cranberry and raisin

  Triple-ginger Gingerbread

  2 Kinds of Melon, sliced

Store-bought:

  Apple Pie

  Pumpkin Pie

  Biscotti

 

My day in the kitchen starts at 7:00.  Is it any wonder why at 2:30, when the counters are wiped down and I walk out the door I am so ready to sit in the shade and sip a beer.

 

I have a fantastic crew who makes me look good: Mike, Aris, Glynnis (my daughter - ), Pollo, Bob for parts of the morning and the chicken and Vegan Sheppard's Pie, and Robert on Saturdays. We also get "chopping help" from guild members who will prep the broad beans, cut up the celery sticks while sitting in the feasting area. We have enougn people in the kitchen that we have not had a lot of "chopping" to ask for.

 

A few comments. All of this is done, minus the desserts, in the four-hour window before sending the food out of the window.

 

The beef comes in as a roast and is butchered into "steaks". The steaks are grilled on a six-burner grill. The finished steak then rest before being cut into bite-size portions.

 

The grilled sausages are also done on the six-burner grill.

 

Before beginning this cooking which starts at 9:30 I will have hard-cooked 5 dozen eggs, we will have cut up about 12-15 oranges into wedges, cut up 18 croissants into thirds and 18 Costco-size muffins into 6ths. This is set out at 10:00 a.m. so that our hard-working re-enactors have something to nibble on before the feast.

 

That's what I did twice this weekend. And it made me smile.

 

 

 

 

[Shelby]

Wow.  That's a lot of food!  I must confess I don't know much about the faires.  Are there goods sold?  Is it all re-enactments?  How do you pay for all that you cook?  Do you and your wife make the bread and desserts?  How many weekends do you do this?  I think you should take pictures  I know, I know, you probably don't have time with all that you're doing.

 

Very interesting read

[Porthos]

My wife has stepped out of the kitchen this year. She is scheduled for surgery on her left hand next month. The right hand will be done later. She is bone-on-bone in her carpal-metacarpal joints (lowest part of the thumb.) What she is doing instead is caring for our 6-monthj-old grandson while my daughter works in the kitchen. Her husband is a stage manager at this faire.

 

My wife makes the bread puddings in the evening during the week. She also made the triple-ginger gingerbread another evening. During the week  I make the brownies and the vegan tea cookies based upon a recipe from Anna N that is from one of her relatives.

 

At this faire others are responsible for the shopping. The faire I do in the spring, refereed to below, is the one where I do all of my own shopping.

 

The bread is baked by a guild member who enjoys baking.

 

Think of a faire as immersion theater. You are part of the theater, walking through it instead of viewing from a distancew. Faires offer a variety of stage shows, have food courts, merchants, games of skill,  and of course The Joust. The original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, founded by Phillis and Ron Patterson, had hand-crafted-items vendors. The items had to be made by the vendors themselves. There was no re-selling of other's works at faire. I think that is still mainly the case. There are period-costume clothiers, handblown glass makers, a pewter foundry, stained glasss artists, Jewelers (we have our favorite jeweler that we know well enough we even know how he met his wife), pottery, knives and swords, wooden good and more things I can't think of. I am very fond of the wooden drinking vessels made by the Madera Cup Company and, before that, Goodly Woods.

 

Here is part of my collection. One that is not pictured, a beautiful walnet one, I my coffee mug for work when I am employed.

 

 

I can't really publicly discuss the financial end of things but I can say that I am not the one putting out the money.

 

If you want to peruse the pages of the website of faire I am currently doing here is, with no promotional intent, the link: http://www.norcalrenfaire.com/

 

 

[Shelby]

Those mugs are truly a work of art.

 

Do people who don't dress up attend the faire as well....someone like me?

 

 

Have you posted your wife's bread pudding recipe(s) somewhere here?  I'd love to peek at one.  Sounds delicious.

[FauxPas]

What kind of kitchen facilities do you have to work with? 

[Porthos]

Those mugs are truly a work of art.

 

Do people who don't dress up attend the faire as well....someone like me?

 

 

Have you posted your wife's bread pudding recipe(s) somewhere here?  I'd love to peek at one.  Sounds delicious.

 

She has a base recipe in her head that she adapts for the chosen pudding. Hard top publish her head.

 

The majority of people come in modern clothing. Some work very hard at looking like 16th century England. Some just wear costumes they like. There are a lot of people who don't know that the 3 Musketeers are 200 years down the road and come as musketeers. All are welcome. This is meant to be a fun place to play for a day. I still remember the 15-year-old who came wrapped in aluminum foil for his armour. I loved it. We've had Star Trek characters show up. I've seen a guy come as an American Indian wearing only a loin cloth covering just the front and back.

[andiesenji]

The first time I worked a ren faire we had a guy costumed as a faun - with a set of pan pipes and he had his legs and feet done up as goat feet.  He used to take his breaks in the back of our booth where we had a cot so he could rest his feet.  He did a lot of sitting on rocks and such - this was at the old Hope Ranch in Thousand Oaks where there was a lot of uneven ground, ditches with little streams and lots of rocks and many live oak trees. 

It was incredibly hot to have to dress in semi-court dress and after one weekend I gave up the pleated collar and opted for a lightweight shawl. 

I was quite slim back then and I would lose on average 10 pounds over the weekend, even with eating several times during the day and evening.

I also danced a lot every evening...

 

We had some interesting foods - meat pies in "coffins" - with practically inedible crusts except on the top.  Soups in bread bowls, etc.  Steamed artichokes with melted "butter" ...

 

It all tasted good because we were hungry. 

[Porthos]

What kind of kitchen facilities do you have to work with? 

We have a "custom built" kitchen built on an 18' trailer frame. The tail section folds down to provide an additional 6' cooking area.

 

The main section is configured as a galley-style kitchen. Looking forward from the cooking area to the right you will see a Dutch door that opens out to our dining area which is meant to be seen by the audience. Over the counter beyond the door is the longest counter. Between the door and a window pretty far down are two 10" deep shelves over the counter. The area under the counter is divided into large cubbyholes. Looking to the left you will see the 6' high 4' wide chrome shelving which is our pantry. On the floor in front of the pantry is a 165 qt cooler that we keep our dairy items in. Then begins a 4 foot stretch of counter, the sink, and then about 6' more counter. there are cubbyholes under this also. In the largest cubby is the 120 qt cooler for meats. at the end of the aisle between the counters is the other 165 qt cooler for fruits and veggies. There are 2 10" deep shelves above the sink/counter on the left that are about 8' long.

 

In the cooking area We have a regular home kitchen stove set to run on propane. Next to it is a commercial pizza-prep style refrigerator that is used for the commercial venture which is Tea With The Queen. The equipment for that is kept separate from our equipment since they sell to the public and have to meet county health codes and inspection. Over all of this is a shelf for the pots we use. Across the back end of the cooking area are pegs to hang the pans from. Across from the refrigerator is a free-stand 3 burner camp stove, each burner being 30K BTUs. Over the camp stove is another shelf where we keep tea kettles and such.

 

Outside we have a small 6 burner event grill. In a screened in area we have a 3-compartment sink. Since we have to have a 3-compartment sink for the commercial side we share the sink for all of the dishwashing, only doing our dishes or Tea With The Queen dishes at any given time to there is no question of mixing our and their stuff at the same time. This should keep the health inspector satisfied. Most of the cookware comes is mine.

 

There are 2 14" saute pans, a 6 1/2 qt chef's pan and a few smaller pans. There are 2 12 qt 3-piece pasta pots that are used for steamers and a separate 8 qt 3-piece steamer. I have two 8 qt covered Dutch ovens. Those are dedicated to the barley and beans we cook. There are a few other random pots.

 

I hope to post pictures to illustrate the kitchen after this coming weekend.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Porthos (log)

[Allura]

You're cooking for one of the guilds, then? I've worked a smaller faire on the east coast, but just as a vendor so food was whatever we brought in the cooler or bought on site. It's funny, I initially thought you were doing this for an SCA event. The east coast faires don't really do guilds the same way, as far as I know, so it threw me off.   Are you aiming for period food? And these are behind the scenes meals, right?

[Porthos]

Yes, I do cook for a guild.

 

I've only visited one SCA event, the Las Vegas faire held in October.  Even though this faire has guilds, one of its charms for me is the sense of community - of family. Sadly, because of health issues I don't know how many more seasons I will be able to to. Traveling the 350 miles is becoming more painful and having to go up and down steps carrying things is getting increasingly more difficult.  The spring faire I do in southern California is only 30 miles away and is on level ground.

 

We eat the meal "on stage", that meaning our dining area is just off of the path through this area of the faire. There is a platform with the head table where the Lord Mayor, a traveling Bishop and other persons of importance eat. There are more tables on ground level where the rest of our guild eats.

 

We do not do period foods per se. We used to avoid foods that stuck out like a sore thumb such as corn, bell peppers and tomatoes but bell peppers and tomatoes have become everyday dishes. I would still like to not serve them since I think they take away from the show. Of the three I dislike corn on the cob the most because it is the most obvious. I may work backstage but I'm still all about the show.

[andiesenji]

The SCA events I attended back in the '70s often had a set up called the "Stone Soup" kitchen (I have no idea why) where a group of folks dedicated to medieval foods would cook for the group attending the event and recreate dishes from the era. 

There were no potatoes, tomatoes, corn, peppers, etc., but there were foods that included lots of spices, including some unusual combination of flavors - beef so heavily spiced with cloves and such that for me it was practically inedible - but in medieval days it was a ploy to cover up the flavor of meat that had gone "off" but was too expensive to discard.  We had several hunters who provided venison, wild boar (hunted in northern California), elk and even bear (ghastly flavor) as well as rabbit, hare and various fowl.  At one even a swan was cooked but hardly anyone could eat it because the flavor of the flesh was muddy and fishy - UGH!  Ditto the carp dishes that one family insisted on producing. 

 

One group was also dedicated to producing the "traditional" ales and "small beers" that were universally consumed in those days and they were nothing like the brews of today.

 

I'm pretty sure I still have the SCA cookbook that was available back then.  I do have numerous issues of Crown Prints and other SCA publications. 

[Porthos]

Andie, were all of the foods donated to the group who did the cooking? I remember a story from my childhood where a man comes into a village and declares he can make soup from a stone. As different people come by he says the soup is good but would be better of it had carrots or potatoes or onions or whatever, telling each person a different item that they would then contribute, thinking that their contribution was the only one. That is how he made soup from the stone and the villagers were none the wiser.

[andiesenji]

Andie, were all of the foods donated to the group who did the cooking? I remember a story from my childhood where a man comes into a village and declares he can make soup from a stone. As different people come by he says the soup is good but would be better of it had carrots or potatoes or onions or whatever, telling each person a different item that they would then contribute, thinking that their contribution was the only one. That is how he made soup from the stone and the villagers were none the wiser.

Yes. All the food was donated.  At the time I had a friend who worked for Carnation - at the plant in Van Nuys - and he would give me large insulated containers of dairy - cottage cheese in 10-pound bags - other cheese and milk and eggs - probably a couple of hundred dollars worth - (that was when a hundred went a long way) and one of our members had family who raised vegetables near Oxnard so we would get crates of veg - mostly greens and root vegetables and depending on the time of year, strawberries and other berries, apricots, etc.  Other folks donated what they could - many of the younger folks had parents that supported their hobby and provided food supplies. 

 

There was a fair amount of drinking - but the beer was fairly low alcohol so there were none of the problems with heavier drinkers and "weapons" were locked up before the "revels" began. 

[Porthos]

Drinking at faire? Never! Well, hardly ever.

[Porthos]

Pictures of the Kitchen.  These were taken Saturday evening when we were prepping to have "Taco Night" dinner for participants.

 

 

This is the kitchen stove and refrigerator side of the cooking area:

 

 

 

... and this is the camp stove side of the cooking area. That is my bride of 36 years making refried beans.

 

 

 

Turning around from the cooking area and looking at the prep area. To the left of this view (not in sight) is a small 3-shelf unit where the oils and seasonings we need day-in and day-out are kept so that they are near the stoves.

 

 

 

The right hand side is the "stage side" as in the other side of the wall in in the public view. The door is a dutch door and that is where the food is passed through from the kitchen to the on-stage dining area.

 

 

 

The left-hand side has the pantry shelves and down the counter you will see a sink:

 

 

 

And lastly a view of the spices and knives, just because. Aoubt a 1/3 of the knives were in use. On the refrigerator in the cooking area is a small knife block just for paring knives. We refer to those as our "pokers" since we use them to test to doneness of veggies we are cooking.

 

[Anna N]

Porthos,

I have to ask this question. I understand this is an 18 foot trailer. I am guessing that it travels with you. How do you prevent everything falling off the shelves? Or am I missing a beat here?

Edited because I dictated and somehow it just didn't understand.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Anna N (log)

[Porthos]

This trailer does not travel with me. It is dedicated to this one faire and is moved to a storage area there after it have been collapsed (roofing removed, walls folded down, cooking area raised up like closing a truck tailgate, the the whole thing swaddled in tarps. The kitchen stove is stored where the pantry shelves are now,).

 

The refrigerator belongs to the commercial venture Tea With The Queen and it travels with the rest of their equipment.

 

The wire pantry shelving gets disassembled.

 

The shelving on the walls and the brackets for them get taken down.

 

The equipment on the shelves and such are divided up and packed/taken away. There is the Tea With The Queen stuff that is kept together and goes into a trailer so that it can come to the other faire where this is done. My equipment get packed into my Ford Expedition and hauled home. The balance of the stuff gets stored in Rubbermaid Rugged Totes and stored on-site in the same area the trailer gets moved to in a portable building we have. The basic divide is the serving pieces (many, many pieces) stay there and the cooking and prep equipment come home with me since I own that stuff and use it at both faires I work.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

[Anna N]

This trailer does not travel with me. It is dedicated to this one faire and is moved to a storage area there after it have been collapsed (roofing removed, walls folded down, cooking area raised up like closing a truck tailgate, the the whole thing swaddled in tarps. The kitchen stove is stored where the pantry shelves are now,).

 

The refrigerator belongs to the commercial venture Tea With The Queen and it travels with the rest of their equipment.

 

The wire pantry shelving gets disassembled.

 

The shelving on the walls and the brackets for them get taken down.

 

The equipment on the shelves and such are divided up and packed/taken away. There is the Tea With The Queen stuff that is kept together and goes into a trailer so that it can come to the other faire where this is done. My equipment get packed into my Ford Expedition and hauled home. The balance of the stuff gets stored in Rubbermaid Rugged Totes and stored on-site in the same area the trailer gets moved to in a portable building we have. The basic divide is the serving pieces (many, many pieces) stay there and the cooking and prep equipment come home with me since I own that stuff and use it at both faires I work.

 

Hope that helps.

Thanks. Makes more sense now.

[Porthos]

So as I was re-reading what I had posted I realized that as of this coming season one thing will be different. I have been gathering pots and pans and hotels pans and such to leave there. I'm tired of hauling so much stuff back and forth. We have a fair amount of personal stuff to haul also so this will making packing up at the end of faire much easier. My knives, however, will stay with me.

[Porthos]

I was re-reading this thread because I couldn't remember the dimensons of the kitchen trailed and I knew they were in here. This upcoming weekend is the closing weekend of this faire. My, how time flies.

 

I made my goal. Pots, pans, mixing bowls, several 2-1/2 inch 2-pans, and Rubbermaid storage tubs to store it all in, have been acquired. I now only have a few small items to haul back to southern California.