Catering during the Roman Empire

We start way at the beginning in our brief history of catering, with the notion that ancient Greeks had a trolley from which to serve hors d'oeurves (no women allowed, since they were all talking philosophy and other heavy stuff). And the Romans needed a whole separate crew of staff members, whose job it was to oil down the attendees; personal hygiene being what it was, the only way you could abide lolling next to your neighbor for hours and hours during the course of the banquet was if he were covered in highly perfumed oil.

We're starting to work on the production schedule for our event in two weeks, and there will be no masseuses. We've determined that our client will be Larkin Street Youth Services, though it's not yet clear if we will be hosting a fundraiser or an appreciation lunch for volunteers. The latter is preferable, as far as I'm concerned, because then we're not trying to sell tickets in addition to planning the event.

But really, we've got lots of time. We have about an hour and a half of lecture every day. Today, in addition to the dirt about ancient civilizations, we learned that Thomas Jefferson and Jackie Kennedy have been major influences in the US history of banqueting, along with my "pet" historic restaurant, the 19th century Delmonico in New York. Jackie liked elegance, but she also reduced the number of courses during state dinners so that there'd be time for entertainment.

After lecture, we work on our project. Today, the Menu group pulled together recipes for each of our menu items and put them into the standard recipe card format. Tomorrow, we'll develop an ingredients list and get more specific with the production schedule. As Andrea noted as we left the building, it's hard to see what will keep us occupied for 25 hours next week, seeing that most of our planning is well in hand, and we can't begin any food prep until the following week.

Oh, but there's the Bistro kitchen to contend with. We almost had a mini-riot in class when Peter suggested that we spend time organizing the kitchen. It's big and beautiful, but the fryer is full of rancid oil, the refrigerator is full of unidentifiable and moldy products, and the dry goods area is in extreme disarray. It's like a repeat of Advanced Baking and Pastry, when we spent hours on the first day of class cleaning up somebody else's mess. Alex told Peter that he was going to register a complaint with the Executive Chef. Peter said, "Oh, I'd better be with you for that." Several of us chimed in to support Alex and express frustration with the whole twisted concept of paying tuition to clean up before we can even make our own mess. Peter's response was that sort of diplomatic BS along the lines of "I hear you but it is what it is." Andy came back into class after our mid-morning break and whispered, "We found the executive chef's phone number, AND WE CALLED HIM."