I completely failed at any reasonable attempt at "laying on a meal", instead serving a pie here, a chicken there. Part of this was due to trying to fit eating into hosting the event, but I'm sure I could have done better.

This I can help you with - make the meal a part of the event. When we were out with Red Co several years back, the meals were definitely scheduled in as important parts of what was going on.

They club together food/money, each person contributing so much over the course of the weekend, and each meal everybody has some part of what is going on - be it cooking, or other fatigue duties involved in set up or clean up. Of course this is 'easy' for them as they are portraying a military camp, and operate under some form of loose discipline. All the best functioning re-enactment groups I have seen co-operate in this fashion (as does Wolfe Argent - we all pitch in at any task, in the field eventually the NCO's will have a list of members of each lance to parcel out fatigue duties fairly). The groups that are just a bunch of individuals who don't have a sense of teamwork tend to flail about during these sorts of things.

Again, it's easy when portraying a military camp - tougher if your are portraying a bunch of social equals though!

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No one person can do it all. You need a group of people who are willing to take on certain roles at an event. You have the coordinator/host who can "oversee" everything. They delegate or have a dedicated team of volunteers who are in charge of the other aspects like camp set up, running the kitchen, coordinating the schedule of events, etc... If everyone has a job and knows what's expected of them and possibly have a small team of people working with them depending on the task, it will run more smoothly.

Also, pick a time and location for gathering for meals. That way you can pin the time down so that there are no "schedule" conflicts and you can enjoy each others company and brag about the days events. The ideal too is that if you have people who are working the "kitchen" make sure that they aren't also participants in a melee or have an allowance for switching off. If they are responsible for the kitchen on one day, have it so that someone else runs it the following day so that all may participate in the pagentry at some point in time. If not possible, it might delay other duties that they have volunteered for and throw the meal/event schedules off.

Meal planning can be done effectively if you know what is being cooked and the times it takes for various foods to cook.

You might want to get together with your group prior to an event and do what AM and Jeff and Gwen's groups do. Hold a tavern night or group banquet and prepare the meals that will be served at the next event you host. This way folks can get an idea about the timing and scale needed. Make sure you do this at someones house with a big kitchen or try it as a weekend event where the goal is to "field test" the meal prep and serving.

Food prep is the biggest part of the battle. If you don't think you have time to cut and chop and clean veggies and the like at the site, you might want to prep some things the night before so that only cooking and serving are required.

Gwen and AM have a lot of experience running a field kitchen and their timing is amazing. And the food...YUM.

At the Red Co. event we went to in 1998, I think there were 4-5 of people on kitchen detail and everyone had a job or helped out in some fashion. People were either cleaning the veggies, cutting meat/veggies, getting water, prepping, or cooking.

Everyone gathered at the "mess tent". The first course came in while other courses were cooking. The food was served and given to folks by "station". Everyone sat and ate together, then the next course was ready and this repeated until the meal was finished.

Dishwashing was shared. Then the following morning, it began all over again. You might decide that you will only do one meal per day. No matter what it is a group effort.

If it proves like it may be too much, you might want to have the food catered and work with the caterer allowing them to taste samples or work the recipes.

Just some thoughts.

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