[Sca-cooks] French table Service and Web site

[Barbara Benson]

> Kiri> I read French very poorly...it's been a VERY long time since I
studied it (back in college in the very early 60's).  But from what I could
determine, it looks like there is some good information there.  I especially
would love to have a translation of the initial passage you refer to...I
believe that Scully referenced it in his discussion of how kitchens are run
in his "Early French Cookery".

Greetings,
I went and checked, and it seems that the portion of the site that is
available in English is less than 1/3 of what is in French. I looked to see
if they provided an English translation of the passage and they do not. So,
here is what is in my book:

"When the lord arrives at the banquet hall and takes his seat the steward
calls the cup-bearer, who leaves the table and goes to the sideboard. There
he finds the receptacles that the butler or yeoman of the cellar has
prepared; he takes them, rinses them with water and returns them. Once this
has been done, the cup-bearer takes a cup and looks at the lord, and he must
do it so attentively that the lord need only nod in order to ask for more
wine. Once the nod has been given, the cup-bearer takes the cup in his hand,
and a bowl, and raises the cup so that his breath does not reach it. The
marshal of the hall lets him pass and when the butler sees him coming, he
fills a ewer with fresh water, and rinses the cup that the cup-bearer
brings, both inside and out. He then takes a bowl in his left hand and a jug
in the right, and pours wine first into the bowl that he himself holds, and
then into the cup that the cup-bearer holds. He then takes the ewer and
pours water into the bowl, and then adjusts the wine that is in the cup,
according to his expertise and what he knows of the tastes of the lord and
his disposition. Once the wine has been decanted, the cup-bearer pours wine
from the cup into the bowl that he is holding and covers the cup, holding
the lid of the cup between the two little fingers of the hand with which he
holds the bowl, until he has covered the cup and given what he poured into
the bowl to the butler, who has to taste it in front of him. After that, the
cup-bearer takes the cup to the lord and uncovers it, pours wine into the
bowl, covers the cup again and tastes the wine. When the lord puts forth his
hand, the cup-bearer gives him the uncovered cup and holds the bowl beneath
the cup until the lord has finished drinking."

The book also provides an additional small quote from the same text:
"...the lord's jug should be distinguished by the pieces of unicorn horn
hanging from a cord."
And the author goes on to speculate that the strange 't' shaped pieces
attached to both the cup-bearer's pouch and the carver's pouch in the Tres
Riches Heurs miniature are unicorn horn pieces. Unicorn horn being believed
to turn black in the presence of poison.

I thought it was interesting.
Glad Tidings,
Serena