Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
He carved with neatness and decorum, and selected duly whatever was most delicate to place before the ladies. Ere they could form a wish, he sprung from the table, ready to comply with it poured wine tempered it with water removed the exchanged trenchers, and performed the whole honours of the table, with an air at once of cheerful diligence, profound respect, and graceful promptitude.
The huge roast was then taken down, carved, and distributed among them; the only difficulty experienced being in regard to trenchers, and various and extraordinary were the contrivances resorted to to supply the deficiency. This circumstance, however, served to heighten the fun, and, as several casks of stout ale were broached at the same time, universal hilarity prevailed.
Breakfast is served, and my friend sees before her just what she meant to order. On one dish reeks the bony contour of a chicken, grinning thankfulness for extinction at every joint, and on a second dish towers a pile of things like small wooden trenchers pressed flat.
Wait till I have finished my dinner, for man cannot talk and eat together, with comfort. Then, when my boy has removed the trenchers, I will tell you, over an extra mug of cider, what all this is about."
Earthen ware, Green ware, Lisbon ware, Spanish platters, are mentioned in early inventories; but I am sure neither china ware nor earthen ware was plentiful in early days; nor was china much known till Revolutionary times. The table furnishings of the New England planters consisted largely of wooden trenchers, and these trenchers were employed for many years.
There are only three moderate-sized packages swinging overhead; there are only two layers of mats beneath; and the calabashes and trenchers are not so numerous, nor so tastefully stained and carved.
Pewter was replacing the wooden trenchers of the early yeomanry, and there were yeomen who could boast of a fair show of silver plate. It is from this period indeed that we can first date the rise of a conception which seems to us now a peculiarly English one, the conception of domestic comfort.
For in the "Serving-man's Comfort," 1598, one reads: "Even so the gentlemanly serving-man, whose life and manners doth equal his birth and bringing up, scorneth the society of these sots, or to place a dish where they give a trencher"; and speaking of the passion of people for raising themselves above their extraction, the writer, a little farther on, observes: "For the yeoman's son, as I said before, leaving gee haigh! for, Butler, some more fair trenchers to the table! bringeth these ensuing ulcers amongst the members of the common body."
Now the cook sent up to signify that supper was almost ready, and sent one to lay the cloth, the trenchers, and to set the salt and bread in order. Then said Matthew, The sight of this cloth, and of this fore-runner of the supper, begetteth in me a greater appetite to my food than I had before.
"I understand that, Father Nouvel." The wedding feast followed. Madame de Montlivet, the priest, Onanguissé, and I sat in a semicircle on the ground, and slaves served us with wooden trenchers of food.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking