[Sca-cooks] Size of Trenchers

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 2:12 AM, David Friedman<ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:

> One obvious answer is bread trenchers--which raises the
> question of how big they were. The only figure I can find is from
>_Le Menagier_ and seems to be 4"x6", which would be awfully
> small for serving food on.

John Russell's Book of Nurture (part of the collection published by
the EETS as "The Babees Book) gives directions for cutting trenchers.
He says to place four small square trenchers so that they form a
larger square, and lay a single trencher on top, in the middle.

There's a 1490 German woodcut that illustrates this.
http://www.fraxinus.com/cookbook/images/trenchers.illus.gif
The caption claims that the large circular shapes are round trenchers,
but I wonder if they might not be bowls.

Looking in other books of carving and manners may provide additional
information.

Brighid ni Chiarain