[Sca-cooks] trenchers

[Volker Bach]

Am Montag, 26. September 2005 06:12 schrieb Lonnie D. Harvel:
> Terry Decker wrote:
> > There are some German woodcuts that show multiple trencher slices
> > stacked. Wealth households appear to have used them with regularity.
> > The less wealthy used them for special occasions and in single slices,
> > as noted in Menagier's instructions for a wedding feast.  The middle
> > class and poor made do with metal, ceramics and wood.
>
> I have heard this before, and it amazes me. When did precious metals and
> fine porcelain start being used in table service? (or restart, as the
> case may be)

I don't think precious metal ever went out of use, but was always limited to 
the few who could afford it. Porcelain OTOH did not come into widespread use 
even among the upper classes until the latter half of the seventeenth 
century, and its spread to the middle and lower classes had to await another 
century or two. Glazed pottery made from white clay was in use earlier - lead 
glazes were established since the days of Rome, and decorated versions could 
be found throughout the early medieval Mediterranean, filtering north slowly 
(Theophilus Presbyter gives a recipe for such glazes). However, these were 
fairly expensive and not much like what we would consider porcelain. 
For the majority of people in period, tableware probably meant coarseware 
(unglazed earlier in period, glazed later) and wood, with pewter making an 
appearance late. I can't track wooden trenchers earlier than the 14th 
century, but there are some earlier wooden finds that may have been them, 
plenty of shallow bowls, and quite a few pottery fragments that may have 
answered the purpose. And the idea that everyone needs to have their own 
eating dish is not necessarily one that need have been held widely at the 
time.

Giano


	

	
		
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