Grand Banquet in a Steampunk Flavour

 Holding a Steampunk Banquet

The Banquet has a hint more civility than a feast & is a touch more hedonistic than a dinner party.

Resplendent in its finery. Redolent of a another age

The banquet began in the 1600s as a celebration of an event, with the attendant speeches, numerous and vast courses of food. How lavish depended only on ones' status and wealth.

Buckingham Palace Banquet Room.

 Dieselpunk - A Roaring  20s Success

Smart and stylish - just  waiting for an award

In Celebration of an Out of Doors Banquet 

This ancient form of feasting holds a plethora of exotic and traditional options and works in any location if you extend the  imagination. Take the intrepid opportunity to explore the luau, hangi, barbeque, spit roast experience. Relax and enjoy doing what comes naturally under the night sky.

 Where climate, countryside & coast can enhance the ambiance.

 An Antipodean Pacific Island setting.Ideal for serving missionaries 

Set the night afire
 Boy scout banquet for their fire lighting badges

 romantic &  evocative of a medieval or Gothic repast

Setting the Scene: a theatrical touch

Setting the Stage for the Culinary Event

Whether finery or flowers, sumptuous or sedate, the table setting should make a statement. Centrepieces and accessories make the moment.

 Use the food and find fantabulous props. Candelabra or floral display. Search out superior serving plates and serviettes for fine dining. Goblets, flutes and tumblers for idyllic imbibing.

 Menu Suggestion:

A banquet can run the gauntlet from 5 simple courses to a daunting 21. It is suggested here that you may want to temper it down to 5-7 courses.

  

Below is a General Guide

An  aperitif; a drink to warm the appetite and aid digestion. An alcoholic beverage, possibly an older fashioned cocktail with vermouth, campari, gin etc, a champagne or a dry white wine.
http://enginaire.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/steampunk-hors-d-oeuvres-cocktail-canape.html

Amuse-bouche; small hors d' oeuvre [appetizer] passed around guests to open the appetite and palate.
http://enginaire.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/steampunk-cocktail-retrospective.html

Cold food plate [less than a main course]; anti pasto, cold meat selection, cheese, salads, salmon, oyster or other choice of seafood.

Soup; consume`, bouillion, cream, seafood, vegetable barley, mushroom, mock turtle or other delicacy.

Main course: The larger serving of the banquet with a combination of meat, vegetable and other such accompaniment. This could be as rich as game, venison, fish, fowl, hare, suckling pig, peacock, swan, goose, pheasant, guinea fowl or a more reserved affair with domestic meats of lamb, beef, pork and poultry cooked in any form including traditional roast, poached or pie. 

Dessert; the more decorative part of the occasion. Moudled gelatine, blancmange, cake, pie, syllabub. This course is ideal for enacting the theatre of food.

wine & coffee [crackers & cheese or biscuit and fruit]

[When it comes to cutlery work your way in].

restrained & tasteful  or lavish& garish

Beggars Banquet

Its more about the moment.

[Packet jelly, cake, ice cream,tinned fruit, rice, samosa, spring roll [banquet box], frozen chicken, plain roast meats, sausage, curry, casserole, cheap wine, RTDs and  beer can take you far].

For the want of some fancy paper serviettes, plastic wine flutes and  trestle table dressed with  an old tassled bed cover you too could be eating in a style of  decayed grandeur.

Entertainment is Important

Musicians,jester, magician, dancers; whether they be hired for the night or found amoungst your friends and companions

It will keep your banquet rolling along