bread trencher class?

[ppfuf]

For the West/AnTir cooks' symposium next spring, I'm going to co-teach a class on bread with gormflaith. She's covering the practical bread-making parts, and I'm doing an overview of the use of bread trenchers and portpains in the medieval feast hall. I might include the instructions for cutting bread at the table c. 1480's England.

If you were going to take such a class, what questions would you like to have answered?

Comments

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

"Why did I lose my passion for baking? I should be co-teaching this class with you both."
You didn't say it had to be an answerable question.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

The sausage ate it.

[gormflaith.livejournal.com]

Fermentamini!!!
Doesn't *have* to be vegetable ;-)

[thread-walker.livejournal.com]

do you eat the trencher?

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Good question! I'l add soem notes about disposal to my class.

Not usually, although people did. Eating your trencher would be an insult to your host, implying you didn't get enough to eat. It also reflected badly on your character, as you would be a person without the self-control of an adult. Calling someone a trencherman would be like calling someone a piggie. Not the worst thing in the world, but not good.

Trencher bread, like some forms of pie-crust in the middle ages wasn't really meant to be eaten by the upper classes. It wasn't good enough for them to eat, as nobles had more delicate digestion than peasants.

Trenchers were collected and given to the poor (who ate them, poor people didn't have to worry about manners, apparently), or they could be fed to the pigs along with the other scraps. I can well imagine a number of the trenchers were eaten by the lowest servants before they ever got to the pigs.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I'd want to know how they were used. For example, what was put on them? Dry food, runny food, didn't matter?

Were they shared? Who with? Did class matter? (Did the baron get his own?)

Were they eaten as part of the meal, or given to the dogs and beggars at the end of the meal?

Were they used at feasts, normal meals, every meal? Only in certain seasons?

If I think of any more questions I'll let you know. :-) Thanks.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

> What was put on them? Dry food, runny food,
> didn't matter?

Not soup. :) Most everything else we've eaten on trencher has worked quite well, even meats in heavy sauces and pottages.

> Were they shared? Who with?

Nope. You got a trencher of your own.

> Did class matter? (Did the baron get his own?)

Yes! The baron not only gets his own trenchers, he gets 4 where you and I would get 1, *and* his get replaced with every course.

> Were they eaten as part of the meal, or given to the
> dogs and beggars at the end of the meal?

Not usually eaten, please see my reply to thread-walker above.

> Were they used at feasts, normal meals, every meal?
> Only in certain seasons?

I think they were used at large formal feasts when you had more guests than you have dishes. It's conspicuous consumption, proving that you could "waste" all that labor, flour and firewood on disposable plates.

Thanks!

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[thread-walker.livejournal.com]

will you have examples for people to handle? Via the PPF, I know trenchers are not the same as Wonder sandwich bread. But I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't seen them with my own eyes.

How long do they keep? Do you make them fresh daily?

Did everyone use them? i.e. upper class, merchant and crafts? in home? in convent? were there different types for different occasion?

Enquiring minds want to know.

My current, if ambitious plan...

[gormflaith.livejournal.com]

Is to have trenchers for show and take, Table bread, manchet or some such for bake & take, and sourdough starter for making and taking.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Trenchers are not fresh, in fact they are better if the loaves are a bit stale. Given that even wealthy medieval households did not bake very day, I would imagine they baked trenchers on an as-needed basis, probably 3-4 days in advance of the feast they would be served at. It would have been far more important to have the ovens free for pies and other foods. There are leftover trenchers in my freezer from PPFII, no sign of degradation yet. :) I'll bring some to Erinwood this weekend.
I think bread trenchers were an upper class status symbol only. Less affluent household (and convents that were poor) would have used wooden plates. Wooden plates, also called trenchers, existed alongside bread trenchers from at least the 13th century onwards.
I have not seen anything that indicates there were special versions of bread trenchers used. They are all dense bread.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Shape of trenchers? Did the wooden ones echo standard bread shapes? How thick were they? (Did the sauces mark up the table linens?)

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Most of the pictures of people eating show square or rectangular trenchers. Occasionally, you see round trenchers. Carver's manuals describe rectangular trenchers, so that is the shape I use/recommend.
Wooden trenchers are usually also rectangular or square. Surviving late period examples (for example, the ones from the Mary Rose) seem to be larger than (usually about 4x4 or 5x5) bread trenchers.
Thickness is really hard to determine looking at paintings. :) One to two finger-widths is my usual guess, although some trenchers look much thinner than that.
I have not yet had trencher failure in my testing, but my linens have no shortages of spots from other sources. :) I think if bread trenchers failed, they would have used something else.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

So... if they were square or rectangular, that would mean no crusts on the edges, as they were cut down from a natural loaf shape?

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

There are no side-crusts because they are trimmed away by the carver. Trenchers are cut from small loaves the size of a large hamburger bun, so each trencher has a "bottom" crust.
First, look at this blog of someone who came to the last feast and took pictures:
http://www.simbelmyne.us/sca/collegiums/col-2010-nov/trencher.jpg
That's a single trencher for an ordinary person.
Next, look at this idealized feast with trenchers in this late 15th century woodcut: http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/90005948 Notice only the King at the high table has trenchers (Three, stacked together for extra protection and conspicuous consumption), the Queens at the lower tables appear to be eating from small circular plates.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Aha! Hoist by our own super-sized-plates petards!

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

::giggle:: Yup. Your grandkids will be eating out of bathtubs.

When I find modern commercially-produced plates that can pass for medieval, I tell people to buy the lunch plates, or the dessert plates. A modern dinner plate is the size of a serving platter.

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

I guess it's the cook in me.
What kind of flour went into a trencher? Did that depend on wealth and/or clsss?

I remember the Tudor Tailor ladies talked about linen washing happening as infrequently as once a month if you were wealthy enough. I wonder if trencher baking was similarly scheduled. Bread in general would surely be more often, maybe weekly.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

As they were not for eating (by people who counted), I doubt the best flour was used. Master Wulfric's trencher recipe uses a mix of 2 1/2 cups white flour and 1 1/2 cups wheat flour.
I'll need to look through household accounts to get a better idea of types of flour. AS they needed to look good, rather than taste good, it would not surprise me to find that trencher were made with rye or other less desirable flours.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

And the grades/mixes of flour have their own names. Manchet flour is the highest grade. Cheat flour is from the second bolting and contains much more bran, and so forth.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've plagarized your work pretty heavily for my class handout. I'd like to get you approval on it, may I send you an e-copy for comments?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to.