[Sca-cooks] Salt trenchers

[Terry Decker]

I went looking and found one reference from period describing bread being 
used to hold salt.  From Menagier (Janet Hinson's translation):

"Item, two bread-slicers, of whom one will crumb the bread and make 
trenchers and salt-cellars out of bread, and will carry the salt and the 
bread and the trenchers to the tables, and will provide for the dining-room 
two or three strainers for the solid leftovers such as sops, broken breads, 
trenchers, meats and such things: and two buckets for soups, sauces and 
liquid things(41)."

The frootnote:

"[41]It seems from this passage that the guests could have had liquid 
leftovers to leave in front of them. This scarcely agrees with the idea of 
one bowl between two people, and necessarily renewed with each dish. Could 
personal metal plates already have been in use? (JP)"

Taking this at face value, trencher salts were carved rather than baked. 
The limited number of references to bread salt cellars suggests that this 
may not have been common practice.  The other references to the practice are 
in out of period texxts which may be extrapolating from the reference in 
Menagier

A different translation of the passage may be found in Greco & Rose, The 
Good Wife's Guide.

Bear