Copyright Alistair Ramsden 1997-1998

Camp Site Organisation

Hi, guys. This is a missive to all my NZ buddies telling them what, how and why I am doing at Rowany ‘98, and what you guys need to do re camping with us, both formal & informal.

- L. Stefano d’Urbino
Shire of St. Florian sur la Riviere
Po’Lochac, Ko’t’West

This letter, plus copies of the Rowany application forms, are being sent to - Me, Rachel & Alex, Jordan, Derek & Mason, Matthew & BJ, Terry, and Seth.

Our household (the Company of St Sebastian), whilst in hard times financially, will still be traveling to Rowany, even if it almost kills us!

We are looking at having a campsite of about ten people. Due to financial considerations we are not going to attempt, or at best are going to be attempting a less, full 15th Century re-enactment ... this year. However, we will still be able to do all of our cooking over open fire, and I may yet have a really nice tent finished. That is my project for January. Ho ho.

We need people to bring their own cutlery. We also need people to bring some basic communal items like carpets, blankets, cushions, chairs, wall hangings, etcetera.

You will need to look after your own clothing, armour, tentage (see hire form), alcohol, and transport to & from site.

Please describe yourself on the Rowany application form as camping with “The Household of St Sebastian” / “Ildhavn” / “Next to St Florian”. We hope to get a site "not too close" to both the tavern and the battle site.

We will be providing the cooking equipment, early campsite deployment & food buying labour (I will hopefully arrive at site on Monday, buy food Tuesday), and a communal cooking & dining tent. Each person will need to send me AUD$80 by bank cheque or money order made out to “Alistair Ramsden” (that’s me). I will need the money before Rowany begins so I can have it in my hot little hands to buy food with. I will also be ordering the kitchen tent, firewood & tables sometime soon, so if you can, earlier would be appreciated. The $50 food ought to cover the whole event. A donation towards the kitchen tent ($140 total cost) would be nice too, but don’t worry if you can’t stretch to it.

Equipment List (P & O)

This was a list of equipment we drew up earlier this year as what we needed as a group to go to Rowany.

(1) We aren’t going to make a separate shower this year (can't afford it). We shall lend the St Florian’s Campsite our camp shower and will be able to use their shower facilities, assuming they do some, or otherwise the general camp shower’s it is!

(2) Rachel wants to make table side-curtains & some cloth covers, but if that is not possible I will be hiring two or three table cloths from the shire anyway, and they should be long enough to hide things under tables.

(3) We will be attempting to do parental loaners on these things.

(4) We have three 2-seater chests plus one chair so we can currently sit seven. Please bring chairs if you can.

First off, nothing here is fixed in stone. If you don’t like what you read here, please contact me and suggest an alternative.

The work roster. (Frightening musical interlude.) The plan is that we roster each person to one day’s chores so that hopefully everyone else doesn’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning and can go out and enjoy themselves. This means on four days out of five you have no camp chores! For those that remember, this is much the same labour principle as in the border war tavern AS XXX.

The roster system will cover Thursday to Monday. Each day, two people get to play camp servant. I estimate that each day’s chores (cooking three meals for ten people, plus tidying & cleaning up) will take about eight hours per day, or four hours per person. Please forward your choice of day to me as soon as you can. Final shuffling will take place on Wednesday. The roster will be on a big piece of paper for all to see, so please do your part! The basic duties will be to:

• Make sure the campsite is tidy at all times. No armour bombs, no unsightly messes.

• Cut firewood & stoke the fire before meals.

• Cook or arrange the cooking of the meals.

• Do all the washing up.

• Leave the kitchen & communal areas clean and tidy for the next day.

Before Thursday and after Monday we will be setting up or packing up, during which I hope everyone will pitch in as needed. I have made some further notes below about how to make sure everything runs smoothly:

• Remember there is fighting on every day except Saturday (?), so fighters choose your day of servitude to coincide with whatever fighting / lack of fighting appeals the least.

• The two “camp servants” can share the work however they like, but I think if they work together rather than separately then they will complete their work more easily. Misery loves company.

• Try to get all the cooking and washing up done before dusk, as doing it in the dark is a pig.

• Because the cooks on any one day also clean up completely at the end, there is added impetus to keep things clean during the day, and to be as minimalist in your preparations as possible.

• Assuming all the washing up is being done regularly, people can prepare food in advance. Cook extra eggs, bacon & sausages at breakfast time as part of lunch. Marinade meat at lunch time for dinner. Stir hot water into oats in the evening for the next morning’s porridge, or cold water into dried pulses and legumes for use the next evening.

• Yes, we are cooking over an open fire! This is not as difficult as it sounds, and I know many of you have enjoyed it before. Do cook things you are well skilled at cooking. Don’t cook things that require a well controlled heat level. Do transfer un-burnt food from a partially burnt dish into another piece of cookware before the burnt flavour spoils the dish. Do cook chicken and pork thoroughly. Do be conscious of hygiene. Remember that mainly, open fire cooking just takes a bit longer. Add half again as much time to how long the dish would take you to prepare normally, and half as much time again for stoking the fire.

We are trying to re-enact a late 15th century (c. 1475-1505) Western Mediterranean mercenary household, so we will be eating that sort of food. I will not be buying New World foods, so if you need to have chocolate, coca cola, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, etcetera, then BYO. We will be re-enacting fish days on Friday and Sunday, so if you specifically want to do fish or vegetarian dishes, choose one of those as your day of servitude.

Our foodstuffs include:

bacon, biscuits, bread, broad beans, butter, carrots, cheeses - parmesan, edam, gouda, ricotta, brie & camembert, chicken, chickpeas, cordials, cucumbers, dried fruits - sultanas, currants, apricots & prunes, eggs, fish, fruit - apples, oranges, lemons & other seasonal fruit, garlic, ham, herbs & spices - sugar, salt, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, oreganum ,fennel & thyme, honey, lamb, leafy greens vegetables - cos lettuce, fresh parsley, celery, spring onions, cress & etcetera, milk, mushrooms, nuts & seeds - almonds, almond meal, hazelnuts, pine nuts, walnuts & sesame seeds, olive oil, onions, pasta, pastry, porridge, radishes, red wine, rice, salami, sausages, standard flour, veal (or beef), vinegar and yogurt.

We will have two cold bins, one for meat and one for dairy, which is an attempt to minimise refrigeration as much as possible. Go and find some Mediterranean non meat / non dairy recipes!