[Sca-cooks] what did they do with dirty tableware?

[Den-Ter Leather]

I think the sleeve as wiping area proceeded the napkin.

ELric
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ann Sasahara" <ariann at nmia.com>
To: "SCA-Cooks maillist (E-mail)" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] what did they do with dirty tableware?


> On Tue, 7 May 2002 jenne at fiedlerfamily.net wrote:
> > > Stefan! Bad! No biscuit! Don't wipe your knife on the tablecloth- on
your
> > > napkin maybe, but nor the tablecloth. Nor do you wipe your face on the
> > > tablecloth.
> > > --------
> > > I thought napkins were a post-period development. Let's assume
> > > a 14th Century feast here.
> >
> > It doesn't look like napkins/towels to go accross the diners laps are
> > postperiod, they are definitely present in the 16th c. manners texts.
>
> I'm looking at the dust jacket and frontpiece of _Dining with William
> Shakespeare_.  It's a wedding scene detail from "The Life of Sir Henry
> Unton (1557 - 1596)".  The men in the painting have their napkins on their
> left shoulder or on their left forearm.  The ladies at each end of the
> table have their napkins in their lap.
>
> I assume from the painting that white cloth napkins did exist in
> late 16th c. England, but that only ladies placed them across the lap. Men
> had a choice of left shoulder or left forearm.
>
> Does anyone know of any other pictoral evidence? Manuals of behavior
> are interesting because they tell you what people SHOULD do.  Paintings
are
> more interesting because they show you what people ACTUALLY do.  Come
Watson,
> the game is afoot.
>
> wild thought:
> If an Elizabethan man placed his napkin across his lap, as was the custom
> shown by the ladies, did his peers consider him effeminate?
>
> Ariann, who eats her salad with her dinner fork and lets the salad fork go
> back to the kitchen unused...
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks