[Sca-cooks] Salt trenchers
Stefan li Rous
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Wed May 4 01:27:30 PDT 2011
Theadora said:
<<< I came across a reference on the florilegium to "salt trenchers".
For the feast I am doing in June, I'd like to make a salt trencher for
each table. From what little I have found, it appears that bread is
baked with a depression in the top. >>>
It probably isn't in the Florilegium that you saw that. At least using
the search engine (available on the top page of the site), I can't
find any hits on "salt trencher" nor on "salt, trencher".
And I don't remember the term or the idea being discussed previously.
While hardly a certain source, since one of the reasons for creating
the Florilegium was my own faulty memory, I probably know the site as
well as anyone. :-)
For a fancy way to serve salt, I would look at nefs.
nefs-msg (26K) 3/20/08 Richly decorated medieval salt cellars.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-UTENSILS/nefs-msg.html
For more on trenchers:
Trenchers-Hst-art (14K) 9/15/06 "Trenchers - A Brief History" by HL
Baric Firehand (Bear).
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/Trenchers-Hst-art.html
trenchers-msg (106K) 9/26/06 Wooden and bread trenchers. Plates.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/trenchers-msg.html
From this file you can also see that the term "trenchers" also
applied to wooden plates/platters for a while. I could see a
depression being carved into a wooden trencher as being much more
likely than trying to do that in a bread trencher, and as others have
mentioned, we do have period instructions on carving bread trenchers
and I don't remember anything about making any depressions. Since you
usually cut the crust off of the bread to make a trencher, this leaves
a "pock-marked" surface. A lot of any salt you would put on a bread
trencher would sink into the bread and not be useable. Particularly if
any juice then flows into the same area on the trencher as the pile of
salt. And it was rather poor manners and made you look rather
desperate if you ate the trencher. If you simply sprinkle the salt
over the food, after taking a pinch from the salt cellar, then this
wastage wouldn't be a concern.
For some more on wooden and metal plates:
eating-plates-msg (18K) 7/25/09 Period eating plates. Roundels.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-UTENSILS/eating-plates-msg.html
I hope this helps.
Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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