[Sca-cooks] trenchers and the "mini Ice Age"

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sep 27, 2005, at 6:55 PM, Terry Decker wrote:

>> We have even more evidence, I suspect, that they were still eaten.
>>
>>
>
> What's the documentation for eating trenchers at the table?  I  
> won't say this was never the case, but from the documentation I've  
> seen, trenchers were not intended to be eaten at the table and were  
> cleared into the voiders under the direction of the household  
> almoner for dispensing as charitable gifts to the neighboring  
> poor.  Trenchers were meant to be eaten, but not by members of the  
> household.

That was pretty much my point; we have accounts of trenchers being  
given to almoners, etc. I agree that they probably weren't eaten by  
most feast attendees.

> IIRC, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles predates the Little Ice Age, so  
> the calamaties recorded there are probably not due to a massive  
> temperature drop, but they could be used to provide a statistical  
> correlation between fat and lean years in a warm period to fat and  
> lean years in a cold period.
>
> I think you will find the variables a little more complex than you  
> let, but the thesis is interesting.

I thought so. It's mostly a matter of seeing if food can be tied into  
what is an already otherwise pretty well-supported theory. As for the  
AS Chronicles, I think they end in 1154 CE. I had remembered the 12th  
century, and well after the Norman Conquest. But it's only one of  
several such Chronicles, and weather, harvests, and other such annual  
news is pretty well documented for periods after this. I have  
[somewhere] a couple of books on the Mini Ice Age; at least one of  
them refers to a starting date (as in, full-blown start, not first  
traces) in the 12th century, IIRC.

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