[Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 32, Issue 49

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 17, 2006, at 5:36 PM, Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise wrote:

> Servers would be grooms and gentlemen in waiting, and other  
> employees of
> the host. Generally, clothing or lengths of cloth were part of such
> servants' hire, though it might not match. Since most people had very
> few suits of clothes, presumably those would be the clothes they would
> serve in. I checked OED, and the use of the term livery for  
> distinctive
> clothing of employment (or guild membership) does date to period:

I STR that in the introduction to Scully's edition of Chiquart,  
there's an account from the household books of the Duke of Savoy,  
featuring the names of various employees in the households of the  
Duke and the Duchess, and their respective salaries and liveries. Of  
course, this is using the term in an English translation, but the  
concept appears to be period.

>
>>   But huge chunks of meat carved at high table were not common.  Most
>> of the recipes we have for meat tell us to start with a roast,  
>> then do
>> things to it.
>
> Carving meat at table, however, is mentioned consistently in all the
> manners texts. Looks like one 'mess' (serving for one table group) for
> each of the higher tables would be carved at table. Birds in  
> particular
> were carved. (see _The Little Babee's Little Book_, Libro de Cuoco,
> etc.)

True. It's also frequently illustrated in places like the Bayeux  
Tapestry. In addition, you can look at the menu references to gros  
char (which is just a big ol' hunk-o'-meat, like beef, pork or  
mutton), sliced into manageable pieces and served with sauces. Some  
of the sauce recipes you see in medieval sources omit references to  
which meat they're to be served with, but in fact appear to be sauces  
for those big hunks of meat.

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