[Sca-cooks] some questions from cooks guild

[Mem Morman]

Our Dragonsspine Cooks Guild session last night was centered on table
manners and table settings.  We had out a dozen or more tomes and did a
lot of reading back and forth and analysis of pictures.

But we ended up with quite a few questions that we really couldn''t
document answers to.  I would love to have any bits of documentation
that folks could provide that address the following questions:

Did men and women usually eat together?  Same meal? Same time?  Same
table?

Did children eat at the table with adults?  (The first picture that I
can find of children at the table is a family scene from the Tudor
period - the Thomas Cromwell family, I think.)

Did people usually sit on both sides of the table or on only one side?
Was this related to rank?  Was depicting people on only one side of the
table an artistic convention?

Was there REALLY a "below" and "above" the salt?  This is a persistent
belief - but was it real?  Anyone have documentation?

Thanks for your help, ladies and gentlemen!

Elaina