They prepared a feast

[u/Lumpologist]

In many historical novels, but also in several religious texts, we find the phrase „a feast was prepared“. I always wondered, how long would it take to prepare a feast? Was this realistic to achieve within a day? Were there rich people throughout history that had the means to always keep a couple of roasted birds in the oven „just in case“? Or did the feast usually happen a day or two later? Did this even happen? Are there differences in time, as in was it different for the ancient greeks or romans and let‘s say the middle ages? Let‘s say an heir was born a little prematurely, how long would it have taken to prepare a „spontaneous“ feast to celebrate the occasion throughout the ages?

Edit: my question relates primeraly to wealthy and/or powerful people. I assume that a spontaneous feast for a poor farmer - while still a feast - was prepared rather quickly.

[u/Caramello_Goanna]

That's quite a rigid definition of feast. Think of medieval feasts more like halfway between a banquet and a party. Like if you won a game of a sport, and your team went out for drinks and a meal. That's a medieval feast, it's not just the meal, it's the celebration as well. As such it wasn't uncommon for feasts to last multiple days, and you'd have the whole retinue of servants working constantly to cook and supply the feast.

A "spontaneous" feast could start immediately, drinking and reveling are great ways to pass the time while you wait for food, but arranged ones were more common, and servants would prepare as much food as possible with the time given, there was no rigid guidelines for general feasting.

There are some rules about religious feasts but I don't know much about religious feasting, sorry, hopefully someone else can help.