[Sca-cooks] pantler knife/chaffer knife

[Terry Decker]

Let me point out I was not just referring to Fabulous Feasts, but all of the 
information in this thread combined, which includes the OED, The Boke of 
Carving, the Boke of Nurture, etc.  I've read most of the sources mentioned 
and didn't make a series of connections that might provide some interesting 
insight into the organization and evolution of the pantry.  There are 
obviously variations in the numbers of knives, their names, and the like 
which are definitely beyond what Cosman references.

About two years ago, I started to write a survey paper of what we know about 
bread trenchers.  It became a preliminary report on a work in progress 
because I found that we really don't know much about trenchers.  I presented 
the paper at the Second Serve It Forth! Cooking Symposium and I'm still 
researching the subject.  Another 10 years, it might turn into a monograph.

The confusion over the subject of the pantler's knives is about the same as 
I encountered in researching trenchers; ergo, it may make a very interesting 
research project.

Bear


> >This is rather interesting.  I've read all of the sources people have 
> >given, but I didn't catch all of the variations.  Makes me wonder if 
> >these variations are geographic or temporal.
>
> Let me re-state more briefly the question that occurred to me in the 
> course of my previous post on the subject:
>
> Is there any known source for the terms "chaffer" or "mensal knife" other 
> than Fabulous Feasts and copies therefrom?
>
> If not, then we have two possibilities: those terms appear only in some 
> obscure primary source that Cosman read thirty years ago but nobody since 
> has checked into, or those terms appear only in Cosman's imagination. 
> We're in the same boat as on a lot of the recipes.  But for many of the 
> recipes, there's reason to believe she just made them up to illustrate her 
> theme of medieval cooks liking visual illusion and spectacle, whereas 
> these two terms are so specific, and don't seem to help grind any 
> particular axe, that one thinks they must have come from somewhere. 
> Fortunately, Cosman does give a list of primary sources she checked; 
> unfortunately, there are hundreds of them, the citations aren't tied to 
> any particular chapter of the book, and many of them are (or were) in 
> obscure collections.
>
> -- 
>                                     John Elys