Behind Kitchen Doors
By Amber Fox (Lady Tarnisha of Chimeron)
Do you find yourself bored at feasts? Would you like to earn a few
Rowan worth of gold? Would you like to contribute to the medieval atmosphere of
the event?
Whether you are
new to the Realms, or are just looking for more excitement, I recommend trying
your hand at being a Servant. You typically get a full day's wage (and perhaps
a patch for your sash). You also get to keep all of the tips you earn, see the
excitement as it unfolds behind the kitchen doors and get to meet lots of
people. Can’t make toast without burning it? Don't worry. If you can stir a
pot, move a platter from counter to table, and chop a carrot, you are well
qualified.
Basically, a
Servant is a fellow adventurer who has volunteered to spend most of the event
in the kitchen or darting around the feast-hall filling mugs all day. These are
not the lowly serfs or wenches you might have at your own keep, so as a
feast-goer stay polite or your service could become as substandard as your manners.
There is no shame in providing hospitality — quite the opposite.
In Chimeron we
have a long, long tradition of honoring service and hospitality-givers. Queen
Meg was a barmaid before she was Princess of Valehaven, Chimeron’s first monarch,
or a Knight of the Realms. Lady Dee’s tavern has been immortalized in song, and
Lady Cassia's feasts and hospitality were enjoyed by the Realms for more than
ten years — both were leading members of Chimeron in years past.
More recently, Sir
Wil Craven McKrye, a member of Chimeron's royal house, is one of the most
experienced members of the Servant's Guild. You likely saw him serving at the
last feast, or the one before that one. Dame Katasha, Master of the Order of
the Spoon, annually opens the kitchens of Folkestone Hall to the public. With
such a roster of nobles and knights, how can one say that a hospitality-oriented
occupation is lowly?
To get you started
I'll tell you about what is generally expected of servants behind the kitchen
doors.
In years past servants were encouraged to wear black (which hides stains well) but in recent
years one’s normal garb has become more common. However, you still want to be
practical. Avoid long trailing sleeves or cuffs and be able to get your sleeves
up high enough that you can wash dishes. Also avoid skirts that are a tripping
hazard or too voluminous, lacing on your lower arms (like bracers) and
other dangly bits that could dip in the food or catch on fire.
There is also the
Servant Sash — a white cloth baldric which identifies you as today's servant,
and is a convenient place to store and display your servant patches. No big
deal if you don't have one yet — but you might want to make or commission one
if you are planning on serving often — a great use for some of the money
burning a hole in your pocket.
Wear comfortable
shoes. You will be on your feet all day.
Arrive on site
when requested. Typically servants are expected to arrive 1-2 hours before the
site opens to assist in unloading the food, setting the hall, starting the
soups and preparing the appetizers and the first complicated course or two. Getting
the day started on time or early leads to a less hectic day overall. If the EH/
Feastocrat didn’t tell you when to arrive, ask.
The Feastocrat and
Head Servant know what the plan is. If they need something done and point at
you — do it. You are there for them to delegate stuff to, and some things
just need to get done. On the other hand, they are really busy and have a lot to
coordinate so having initiative is good. You should stir the pot if you think
it needs it, do dishes before the sink piles up too much, repeat instructions
to other servants, and asking leading questions like, "It is 2pm now. When
are the turkey legs going in?" or “Hey, how long have the kabobs been in the
oven?"
Feastocrats tend
to forget to eat, drink and take breaks. During the slow times make sure you
remind her/ him to do these things. Lady Cassia was particularly bad about
overworking herself — she literally broke both of her feet as a result of one particularly
long feast. Swooning from dehydration or low blood sugar are also counterproductive.
Servants are
expected to follow proper sanitation and avoid cross-contamination. Wash your
hands often. Pay attention to where you lay your spoons and knives down and
clean up after your projects - especially when dealing with raw meat. Don’t
stir the vegetarian soup with the meat ladle
or lay it in the puddle of meat soup. (Some vegetarians are that way
because they are allergic, not by choice or to make your life difficult.) Contaminated utensils and
surfaces need to be re-washed.
Nuts and peppers
have oils that can persist on improperly washed surfaces. This can cause
otherwise "safe" food to be dangerous. Be careful where you set these
foods or contaminated utensils down, keep them separated from other items and wash
twice (with soap) anything they touch or contaminate. There might be other allergies
to contend with as well. Dairy, onions, corn, and apples, to name a few and not all of them are pre-reged. If you keep
all dishes uncontaminated then it’ll be easier to identify what is safe for the person to eat. Be honest if
there has been contamination — no one likes a trip to the hospital.
Ask before
throwing away packaging with labels such as cracker boxes and soup cans. A
feast-goer might need to read them to see if that brand is allergen-free.
Be prepared to
deal with "disaster." Every feast has a disaster of some sort (some
have several). No running water, the meat is still frozen, frost-damaged
veggies, forgotten items/ingredients, someone needs a band-aid, the oven won't
light, meat that cooks twice as slow as it should or ends up burned on one
side, and so on. Don't panic, and remember that the show must go on. If the
problem is dealt with well the feast-goers won't even know that there was a
problem in the first place. All they will see is a lovely finished product.
It is smart to
pass some of your tips on to the servants who mostly stay in the kitchen to do
the dishes, re-fill the drink pitchers, or other tasks you don't care for. For
instance, Dame Brin does more than her fair share of the dishes, which works out
great because I loathe that job. The last thing I want to happen is for Brin to
decide that her pouch is too light or that she is under-appreciated after only
two hours of dishes and re-assign herself to filling glasses. If that
happens it might become my turn to scrub pots. Eww! I gladly spend up to half
of my tips on keeping the hard-working, kitchen-bound servants happy.
When you go out
into the feast-hall, pay respect to the High Table. The people sitting at the
High Table typically include the host, the host's honored friends or the nobles
that the host is sworn to. Visiting nobles that the host wishes to honor might also
get a place at the high table. Whether you are sworn to these nobles or not, it
is likely that most of them outrank you, and that one of these people controls
the payroll and/or rules the land you are standing on. It would be a pity to
end the day with an empty pouch or to have an encounter with a local sheriff.
Part of respecting
the high table is presenting all food to them first, allowing them to be served
each course first before serving any food to the rest of the feast-goers. You
also want to take more care in keeping their glasses full, anticipating their
needs and swiftly giving their requests a higher priority.
"SERVANT!"
is typically called when someone has a need they wish to be met immediately,
and with high priority. All servants should answer this call as quickly as
possible. To get there a bit faster, some people slide in the last few feet on
their kneepads. Be safe in your speed — don't knock people over and put the
drink pitcher down if you need to. The first servant(s) there likely will get
the job (and the tip) but a slow overall response leads to lower tips.
Actively serving a
course, being on a mission for the high table or already being on a “SERVANT!”
mission are all good reasons to allow another servant to answer the call. Even
if you already have a mission you can choose to add to the atmosphere of quick
service by rushing over too, but allowing another to take the job or get there
first. The Feastocrat will likely use this call to gather in the drink-servers
into the kitchen or to present the servants to the high table so that they may receive their pay, so be sure to always keep an ear out.
In general you
want to keep the feast-goers well watered, take away the serving dishes of old
courses, and run small errands such as second helpings of soup, more honey butter
or bread, etc. Larger tips will be earned for filling special/odd requests, remembering
details (what color of drink a person likes or their dietary restrictions),
keeping their cup well filled throughout the day, and generally being on-hand with what they need. Preferential treatment can also earn
bigger tips, however catering to just one person too exclusively might make
your service to other feast-goers suffer, losing you money in the long run.
Lastly, remember
to take care of yourself. Drink plenty and sit down and eat at least 2 of the
courses during down time. You can also take short breaks to go out and hit a
tourney, or chit-chat with friends when the kitchen quiets down. But don’t stray
too far, or stay away too long — the kitchen never stays quiet for very long.
I hope that this
article has given you a leg up for the first time you don a servant sash, or at
least some insight into what goes on behind those kitchen doors.
Originally published in The View
from Valehaven, 2nd Edition, Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2007.
[Editor's note: Lady Cassia no
longer actively plays the game, but was for a long time one of the premier
feastocrats in the game, and responsible for mentoring and developing many other
feastocrats as well (some of whom are still active today). Dame Katasha, after many years of running the annual Feast
of Folkestone, turned the reins over to Lord Malaki (also a Master of the
Order of the Spoon) in 2010, and he has been serving ably as feastocrat since
then. The Servant Sash, as well as feast patches and the "servant slide," are older
traditions of the "Southern Realms"-style of feasting. Each servant was given a
white sash at his or her first feast to signify his or her status as a servant. At the end of the feast, when payment was awarded, the servant was also given a specially designed patch to represent his or her service at that feast. These patches were then sewn to the white sash not only as a point of personal pride for the servant, but also as an outward marker of his or her level of experience at feasts. While the use of the sashes has mostly fallen out of custom, you can still see some servants wearing them at those feasts considered traditionally "Southern," including Feast of Chimeron and Feast of the Leviathan. Some very experienced servants even have two sashes, to hold all the patches! As the tradition of sashes has fallen out of use, so too has the tradition of patches but again, these are still handed out to servants with payment at some feasts. If you look at the Leviathan banner at the next Feast of the Leviathan, you will see a row of patches sewn there, one for each year that the feast has been running, including the current year. The "servant slide" is also no longer commonly practiced, although you might be lucky enough to witness one every now and again, performed by those servants who still remember the custom.]
