SC - Re: Course: Was Sign-On Package?

[Elise Fleming]

Adamantius wrote:

>I seem to recall that the term "banquet" was indeed the final course 
>of sweets (and was sometimes the sole food served, possibly at a ball 
>of some kind), but that the term itself actually refers to the piece 
>of furniture on which the sweet dishes were laid out: in English it is 
>more or less equivalent to the sideboard (snip)

C. Anne Wilson writes "...the confusion goes back almost as far as the 
time when the word 'banquet' entered the English language.  According 
to the dictionaries, the French word 'banquet' derives from the Italian 
'banchetto', which had originally meant a small bench or table but had 
also taken on the additional sense of a magnificent meal - perhaps 
initially a very special meal served to a few important people at a 
small table...first appeared in print in the plural form of 'bankettis' 
in Caxton's edition of the _Golden Legend_ published in 1483."  (pp 
9-10)

"The word 'banquet' surfaces in direct relation to sweetmeats in the 
early 1530s in conjunction with the banqueting house, and stays current 
until around 1700." (p 37)

She doesn't mention, outside of the possible derivation from 
"banchetto" that an banquet refers to a piece of furniture.  However, I 
don't have an OED so I can't check to see if that is another possible 
meaning.

Alys Katharine
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================