Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 17, 2025
It was rude but very plentiful. First, borne in by the cook on a wooden platter, came a great codfish, whereof he helped portions to each in turn, laying them on their "trenchers" that is, large slices of bread whence they ate them with the spoons that were given to each. After the fish appeared the meats, of which there were many sorts, served on silver spits.
The young man sat down, and Kettel took up the venison and went his ways toward the door at the lower end of the hall; but ere he reached it it opened, and a noisy crowd entered of men, women, boys, and dogs, some bearing great wax candles, some bowls and cups and dishes and trenchers, and some the boards for the meal.
Indiana and Louis made a complete set of wooden trenchers out of butter-nut, a fine hard wood of excellent grain, and less liable to warp or crack than many others. Louis's skill as a carpenter was much greater than that of his cousin.
And some pieces he cast into the fire after sprinkling them with bruised barley-meal, and they cut the rest up small, and pierced it, and spitted and roasted it carefully, and drew it all off from the spits, and put the whole mess together on trenchers. Then the swineherd stood up to carve, for well he knew what was fair, and he cut up the whole and divided it into seven portions.
J. Ward, writing in 1828 of the "Potter's Art," spoke thus of the humble boards of his youth: "And there the trencher commonly was seen With its attendant ample platter treen." Until almost our own time trenchers were made in Vermont of the white, clean, hard wood of the poplar-tree, and were sold and used in country homes. Old wooden trenchers may be seen in Deerfield Memorial Hall.
I write this, that the world may know he was no taylor, or myself of that or any other calling or profession: my work was to go before my master to church; to attend my master when he went abroad; to make clean his shoes; sweep the street; help to drive bucks when he washed; fetch water in a tub from the Thames: I have helped to carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning; weed the garden; all manner of drudgeries I willingly performed; scrape trenchers, &c.
These pièces de resistance were flanked by bowls of oysters, by rows of wild fowl skewered together, by mince pies and a grand salad, while upon the outskirts of the damask plain were stationed trenchers piled with wheat bread, platters of pease and smoking potatoes, cauliflower and asparagus, and a concoction of rice and prunes, seasoned with mace and cinnamon and a pinch of assafoetida.
But the god of victory is a maimed god, and the battles of the world irked Hugh's contemplative soul. He wished to lay by his heavy burden of bishopric and to go back to his quiet cell, the white wool tunic, the silence, and the careful cleaning of trenchers. The office of a bishop in his day left little time for spiritual tillage either at home or abroad.
Then he answered M. Étienne with a laugh: "No, my innocent; I do not let him in. It might cost me my neck to open that door. Come along now. I must see you out and get back to my trenchers." We met not a soul on the stairs, every one, served or servants, being in the supper-room. We passed the sentry without question, and round the corner without hindrance.
"The sight of all this," said Matthew, as the under-cook laid the cloth and the trenchers, and set the salt and the bread in order "the sight of this cloth and of this forerunner of a supper begetteth in me a greater appetite to my food than I thought I had before."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking