[Sca-cooks] Was bread served warm?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 25, 2005, at 11:19 AM, Terry Decker wrote:

> Manchets tended to be round,

Some later source, such as Markham or perhaps May, speaks of slashing  
the small loaves around their circumference, which results in an  
interesting, high, nearly hat-box shape.

> while trencher loaves were flattened like galettes.  Trenchers tend  
> to be denser bread than finely sieved wheat loaves, so they often  
> have a smaller diameter for the same weight of dough.

It's conceivable that other factors, like lower gluten, a lower  
priority in the oven pecking-order. etc., might also limit the size  
of the loaves. It's just that the cut trenchers we see in  
illustrations look to be maybe six inches square, so I was wondering  
how you could get that from a loaf whose largest dimension before  
trimming was, at most, six inches. But then, I also vaguely recall  
references ("The Boke of Kervynge"?) to using more than one trencher  
on a plate.

> The descriptions of trenchers we have are from the High Middle Ages  
> into the Renaissance.  I place the start of trencher loaves  
> sometime in the 10th Century.  They were initially split round  
> loaves (early 12thCentury) with the carving and shaping showing up  
> in 13th and 14th Century sources.  There is no way to determine if  
> the earlier trenchers may not have been larger loaves than those  
> written about later.  Their use began declining after the 13th  
> Century and disappeared in the 17th Century.

Replaced to a great extent by sippets and toasts...

> Given the cost, bread trenchers fall under the heading of  
> conspicuious consumption.  Their use appears to tie to wealthy  
> feudal household ritual, so a small loaf, daintily carved would  
> probably add to the display of wealth and position.  They were a  
> Rolls Royce kind of status symbol.

Some day I'd like to do a multilateral presentation on the effects of  
the "Mini Ice Age" of approximately the 12th through the 18th  
centuries. It would involve tying together a number of strings,  
including clothing styles of the period, the weather (obviously),  
plagues, harvests and famine, and from a foodie perspective, the role  
of the trencher and the emergence of edible pie crust.

Adamantius



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04