SC - serving whole chickens at feast

[Lorix]

	Bonne of Traquair wrote:
	> Is it really more Medieval to send the bird or roast out to table
whole?
	> I've read that
	> A. People ate with spoons and/or fingers and also had small
personal knives with which to cut their own food smaller
	> and
	> B. the squires and servants have great big knives and a duty to
make the
	> food ready for the table.

At last year's Lammas feast I sent the pork roast out to the tables cut up
in 1 inch cubes. My source for that was Scully ("The Art of Cookery in the
Middle Ages" p.172) who says:
"Where a boiled or roast joint of meat was part of a course, it was normally
presented already cut into 'gobbets' or bite sized pieces in order to
facilitate the diners' job. For any further cutting the diner could hold the
meat in his or her fingers under his or her knife. At the head table alone a
carver might exercise the honour he had been awarded with his office, that
of reducing the host's meat to smaller more manageable chunks."
Unfortunately he doesn't give footnotes for that assertion, but I trust him
enough to believe he has a reason for it.

As 'Lainie says, the manners books don't really directly address the issue
(other than how to carve at High Table), although there are instructions in
several that if you are sharing a plate with a woman to cut her meat up for
her (as the poor creatures weren't very good at it!).

This is how I intend to serve the roast lamb at Crown next month, except for
a leg for High Table, where one of our knights and a squire have kindly
volunteered to do the full hand-washing/serving/carving thing. It should be
cool to watch!

If you are interested in learning more about the serving and carving
aspects, the best book is 
FURNIVALL, Frederick J. THE BABEES BOOK
This contains several instructional 'books' of manners - Aristotle's A B C,
Urbanitatis, Stans Puer ad Mensam, The Lyttle Childrens Lytil Boke, The
Bokes of Nurture, of Hugh Rhodes and John Russell, Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of
Kervynge (Carving), The Booke of Demeanor, The Boke of Curtasye, Seager's
Schoole of Vertue, some French & Latin Poems, and a foreword on Education in
Early England. 
Oxford Early English Text Society, 1997 (Acanthus Books sells it)
or  Greenwood Press, 1969. 
They're both reprints of the Early English Text Society Publication, first
issued in 1868. 

Al Servizio Vostro, e del Sogno
Lucretzia

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Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia   |  mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald | London, UK
thorngrove at geocities.com | http://www.geocities.com/~thorngrove 
"There is no doubt that great leaders prefer hard drinkers to good
versifiers" - Aretino, 1536 
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