SC - table manners

[Charles McCathieNevile]

How do folks set out tables, and eat and stuff at feasts (you know-the 
nitty gritty of it all)

One of the things we prolly get wron is lacking a prper sense of a high 
table - we tend to lay them out as if there were one, then people sit 
where they want. There is no special high-table service.
Occasionally I have wanted to try te setting of places by lot, which 
apparently was done in northern europe in medieval period, as a sort of 
matchmaking enterprise, but I don't know where it would be documented, 
and if I couldn't show it I prolly wouldn't try it.
We tend to have a bowl, plate and glass/goblet/horn as well as a knife 
and spoon if we are really well kitted out. But the basic is usually a 
bowl and a knife (horn and knife for some ;), which is regarded as 
sufficient for two people, with a trencher. This assumes they are good 
friends.
Since I tend to be busy in the kitchen, I usually share a place with my 
wife. Sometimes I have my own plate, or trencher, sometimes not. But 
eating with a knife and fingers (perhaps a spoon too) is standard 
practice - do SCA people use forks? 
(The odd byzantine fork makes an appearance, especially at eastern 
feasts, but I don't think the idea will ever really take off ;)

charles Ragnar

> 
> another thing i have read of that my hub and i do is share one place
> setting, which was also done in period, and at one time i was sitting at
> high table in atlantia, and wasnt really planning to be on board so all
> i could scrounge was a bowl and a roll of paper towels, 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.
> margali


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