Know ye, foolish faithless youths, that to undertake to provide sustenance and succour to the poor and shameful of the Shire (amongst others) is not seen as an honourable business, nor, in times of poor harvest, is it a safe one, and many a doorknocker whom you would break your bread with willingly at first, turns out to be naught but a huckster, a shyster, or that most foul of men, a Mongol.

The “Twisted Porpoise”

A Tavern for the Warden Rode Encampment

October 25-28 AS XXXI (1996)

Organisation as at Oct-2-96 (amended Jul-3-97, Nov-30-98)

Dramatis Personae

Objectives

The Twisted Porpoise is an attempt at many things. We are trying to, in no particular order of merit, provide the following for the Warden Rode encampment:

· Food for those at the encampment who do not wish to cook. The food ought to be edible, nourishing and inclusive enough that vegetarians can partake of our food.

· Drink for those at the encampment who do not wish to bring their own, or for those who will almost certainly run out. The bar will serve beer, wine, cider and some top shelf stuff at the barkeeps discretion.

· An attempt at period cuisine. I believe that the Twisted Porpoise is an Inn somewhere in Southern France such as Provence. The food will aim at being cosmopolitan Low Medieval with mostly French, but Anglo-Norman, Italian and Middle Eastern styles all being acceptable.

· An attempt at period atmosphere. Use of (hopefully) enclosed spaces with low tables and chair if possible to create a smoky, candle lit tavern interiors. Use of a blackboard menu with several obviously bogus items, and purposely limiting other items so as to run out during the day. Surly bar keeping and sultry wenching is preferred. Ravishment by customers is entirely at the wenches discretion.

· Costing to make a slight profit. I would like to at least break even on this venture, and the Event Steward has agreed to split the profits half to the shire as a tithe for the use of the premises, and half divided amongst the partners.

Method

I estimate there will be about 60 people on site, and that about 30 of those people will want to eat their meals from the tavern, on average. If everyone eats from the tavern, then 60 people will want to eat there. So if we have enough food for the whole weekend for half the people, we have enough for all the people for half the weekend at least. If there is more than expected demand, we get to ride off to the local store for extra stuff (Saturday afternoon for drinks, Sunday morning for food) as required.

The tavern may operate in one of two places. My guess it will operate indoors at the main building for breakfast and lunch, and outdoors at a stall by the campfire for dinner and supper. The food will mostly be prepared in the main kitchen, but I want to keep hot things on gas rings or whatever by the campfire. This is not set in stone, and if anyone has a good idea about how to do this better, tell me.

#1 - Food

Expected demand is: Friday 30 suppers; Saturday 30 breakfasts, lunches, dinners and suppers; Sunday 30 breakfasts, lunches, dinners and suppers. Monday 30 breakfasts and lunches. We must provide food for:

The total man Days of Food Required for 30 people Fri-Mon = 78 days
= A week’s shopping for 11 people
= 11 x $40.00 = $440.00
= 117 Kg of Food

As it happens,

Total Man Days of Food Required for 60 people Fri-Sun Breakfast = 78 days

We will be cooking most of the food it the kitchens, hopefully.

#2 - Drink

At the Bloth, 120 people drank 45 litres of cider, 36 litres of lager, 27 litres of ale and 60 litres of cordial in one evening. We could easily have drunk more cider (say 54 litres). Given 60 people per evening of which 30 to 60 people drink from the bar in the evening, we will consume up to 27 litres of cider, 18 litres of lager, 13.5 litres of ale and 30 litres of cordial on Friday night, plus I estimate up to 9 litres of wine.

To purchase these quantities, we will pay about $270.00, which should last us at least Friday night. From the Friday night sales we can estimate per capita how boozy we are and purchase the rest of the piss on Saturday arvo. Also, the bar will only be open for the evenings after fighting is done to prevent unfortunate accidents (like piddling one’s armour) from occurring, at the request of the Event Steward.

#3 - Money

Thus we need roughly $800.00 to run the tavern for an event for sixty people ($440 food, $270 initial drink and $90 fuck-up insurance/float). That is $100.00 dollars each, however kind is acceptable in the form of edibles or drinkables. Examples include homemade bread, beer, preserves and pre-made frozen food such as pies. Such items can be given a realistic supermarket prices for the purposes of the $100.00 required per person.

If you guys think this is too much money, we will have to rethink what we are doing. We may also need to think about floating some more cash if we need to buy more than half as much again drink as we originally purchase for Friday-Saturday. The way we will make money is this; everything we are planning to make will be costed beforehand, and then we will sell everything for at least 150% cost.

Eg. Beer that costs us $2.00 for 750ml will be sold for $3.00 $4.00 for 750ml.

That extra 50% (100%) or so has to cover wastage, pillage, charity, mistakes and also includes the shire’s tithe and our profit. Again, if anyone thinks that a 50%+ (100%+) mark up is out of line, then we must think of a better idea. Please note mundane food shops and bars charge 300% to 500% mark-up and more!

Given a 30 person scenario we will end up selling $440 worth of food for $660 $880, plus $405 worth of drink for $607.50 $810, excluding tips and whatever the wenches can find in the pockets of our innocent patrons.;) Our net profit ought to be approximately $400.00, of which $200 goes to the shire and about $25 goes to each of us. Don’t spend it all in the same shop. Of course, if the tavern is selling more, we will make more proportionately, but also have to run around like headless chickens.

#4 - Tavern Rules

· Don’t leave the cash in the open.
· Don’t serve drunken hooligans, even if they are your friends.
· Clean up after yourselves so that other people don’t have to.
· Don’t serve dodgy food. Cook all chicken and pork thoroughly, be conscious of hygeine.

#5 - Job Roster

I will use persona names on the final roster to avoid confusion.

There are thirty five separate jobs for eight people, so everybody should be pulling at least four shifts. I suggest the non-fighters pick half a day cooking and another half a day serving and keeping bar, and the rest of us will pull the graveyard shifts as is our wont. Remember that fighters will not be doing lunches, and people drinking heavily the night before will not want to be doing breakfasts. (Or vice versa!) Lunch and Dinner cooking will be the most onerous chores, so don’t do more than one unless you are really bucking for that service award! Also servers should help the cooks with scullion duties.

#6 - On The Menu Tonight...

Hopefully we will have a blackboard to write the days menu on in advance. Advance bookings will be worth their weight in gold in satisfying our customers. Also, We can have lots of fun pulling tricks on the customers (Eg. “I would like the roast porpoise”…“Sorry Luv, the Porpoise is off!” etc.) It also means, if you are game, we can include menu items which can be prepared quickly such as kebabs, melted cheese & bread and quick pasta sauces that are prepared while the customers wait.

Also, as Friday and Sunday are fish days, do not serve four legged meats on Friday or Sunday, and do not serve fish or water fowl on Saturday or Monday.

Chicken would not normally have been served on fish days either, but it’s is the most reasonable cheat available (commonly known as lesser feathered barnacle goose), and it’s kosher too (except with cheese)!

The bar will serve at least cider, light and dark beer, red and white wine, cordial and tea and hopefully port and one or two top shelf things besides. The drinks will be priced per jug or per nip measure, so people can either buy a vessel’s worth pro rada as half a jug or two nips or whatever. Also I intend to inaugurate a new drink called the “Twisted Porpoise” (ho ho). If anyone has had a “Wayne’s Tip”, it will be something like that.

· Breakfast menus will have at least three real items on them, including Porridge (which is gratis to the poor) & two optional items.
· Lunch menus will have at least six real items on them, including Issue de Table, Vegetable Pottage, Meat Pottage & three optional items.
· Dinner menus will have at least seven real items on them including Issue de Table, Vegetable Pottage, Meat Pottage & four optional items (preferably at least one dessert).
· Supper menus will have at least two real items, including Issue de Table & one optional item. Suppers need not be extravagant, as they are to be served by the barkeeps late at night.
· Porridge is, of course, porridge. It will be served, and it will be free, including milk and brown sugar.
· Issue de Table will be a specified amount of bread (about 1/4 loaf,) plus whatever nice things you happen to have lying around, eg. boiled eggs, small goods, pickles and pickled onions, salad items, fruit, cakes, butter and cheese. Enough to fill up a plate well, but not luxuriously so. Issue de table would be enough for 1 lunch or 2 suppers but not quite enough for dinner.
· Vegetable Pottage and Meat Pottage will be stewed leftovers, topped up with water, salt & pepper, a few vegetables and split peas from time to time, and left simmering. These stews, or as the French say, pot-au-feu, must be kept above 70^{oC at all times (USE A FOOD THERMOMETER) for food hygiene to be maintained. A serving should be about 300g (two large ladles).}