SC - Food Banks

[RMcGrath@dca.gov.au]

I know someone, a woodworker, who is convinced that trenchers of bread
were much less commonly used than is believed in the Society.  His
position is that wooden "plate-objects" are found thru all periods, are
very low-tech to produce, etc., and that the conviction that most people
used slabs of staled bread instead of a wooden "plate" as the base of
their eating surface just doesn't make sense.

While he will admit that some of the more common period illustrations of
dining situations do look like bread sections are being very
elaborately, ceremoniously used for the eating surface of the person of
absolute highest rank in the room, he's convinced that most people ate
off of wooden plate-objects (perhaps with bread "liners" to absorb
juices, as per the alms-giving quotes we have).

A lot of confusion could be caused by the use of the term "trencher" for
both wooden plates and the alleged stale-bread-slabs.  (A chicken-or-egg
problem-- is the wooden one called after the bread one, or vice versa.)

What say you all on this question? (with documentation, please)

Thanks,
Chimene

patricia.r.dunham at ci.eugene.or.us
http://members.aol.com/gerekr/medieval.html (home)
 ----------
 and i
| > scandalized a number of people because i ate and drank everything
from
| > my bowl, put my meats and other things on a trencher of bread and
used
| > my fingers and a knife.

| Well, in my proper 10th century welsh way, i eat with a plate, bowl,
knife,
| spoon and fingers (i'd use trenchers if someone else would make them)
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