[Sca-cooks] honey butter

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

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On 4 Mar 2002, at 16:41, Laura C. Minnick wrote:

> This discussion may well be merely academic, of course. I think we've
> talked about it before, and noticed the incredible *lack* of any
> evidence that there was butter on the tables in period...

I've recently come across one reference. I've been going through books of
courtesy, in preparation for a schola class on table manners. In the "Urbanus
magnus" (c. 1180), the following lines discuss dinners on fast days:

"If fishes are wanting, let butter, milk, cheese, eggs,
Be given to the guests who are willing to eat them.
Let old cheese be cut thin,
And let fresh cheese be cut thick for those that eat it.
Do not press the cheese & the butter on to your bread with the thumb.
In (the case of) which eating, if the things are soft, let them be smeared
With a knife, or with a crust of bread; let them be held with a cloth
So that when the crust is taken away, they may be placed in the hollow bread;
Let him eat them [cheese etc.] with bread when he eats them, and not swallow
them (by themselves)
Unless he sits master of his own feast in the house."

(This is an English translation of the Latin original, taken from "The Babees
Book", ed. by Frederick J. Furnivall.)

I would gather from the above that butter was sometimes served at meals and
was spread on bread.



Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net