SC - Trenchers and alms

[harper at idt.net]

Connected to the recent discussion on trenchers...

I was browsing in the online "Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse," 
and I came across a 15th centruy serving manual.  It goes into great detail 
about "voiders" -- the dishes which were used to transfer scraps and 
leftovers to the alms vessel in the kitchen.  After every course, the squires 
and other attendents gather up the trenchers, as well as broken breads and 
broken meats, and put them in voiders.  Also, the almoner goes up to the 
lord's table and takes "of dyuerse metes as it may goodly be forborne 
and augment ther wyth the almes dyshe, and all this in the lordes 
presence".
So not only were the trenchers *not* eaten by the feasters, but partial 
loaves of bread were also taken away and replaced with whole ones at 
the beginning of each course.

The URL for the serving manual is:
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-
idx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=11992541
Sorry, my mail program insists on wrapping that line.  If that doesn't work, 
try the main page at:
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx

The same site also contains the Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks.  All the 
texts on the site can be searched, so you can look for all the occurences of 
"garleke" or "canel".


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net