TABLE ANTIQUITIES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1030, 20 January 1911, Page 9

TABLE ANTIQUITIES.

'Many of the favourite dishes of to-day jhave descended from the-Middlo Age?, , Macaroons have served as dessert since it-be days of Chaucer. Griddle cakes have come down to us from far-away Britons jof Waifs, while toys have lunched 011 | gingerbread and girls 011 pickles and 'jellies since tho time of Edward 11, more |ithan 500 years ago. ; During 'tho latter part of the Middle Ages tho most conspicuous object on the /"tablo was - the salt collar. This was I generally-of- silver, in thoform-of-a-ship.-It was placed ill tho centre of the table < at which tha household gathered, my 'lord and lady, - their family and guests 'being at one end, and their retainers and: servants at the other. So one's oortion in regard to .fait was a.test of raiik, the jgentle folks' sitting "above the salt" aiid (the yeomanry below it. A thousand years ago, when dinner-was rready to be served-in the banquet hall of one of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, 'the first thing brought in was tho table. Movable trestles wcTe brought, on which ! were placed boards, and all were carried ,'away again., at the close of , tho meal. / Upon this was laid the tablecloth. Tho ■. ■food of the early Anglo-Saxon was mainly Ibread, baked in round, flat cakes. Milk, I butter, and"cheeso were, also eaten. The ; principal nieat was bacon, as the acorn forests, which then covered a large part of "England, supported numerous droves of swine. Each guest was furnished with a spoon, whilo his knife ho always oavried 111 his Mt. As for forks, who, dreamed of them, when nature had given, man ten fingers? Koasted moat was served on tho spit or ' Tod on whioli it wa9 cookod, and tho guest cut or tore off a piece to suit himself. ■ Boiled meat was laid on tho cakes of bread, or, Inter, on thick slicts of bread, called "trenchers," from a Normnn word meaning "to cut." as these , were to carve the meat 011, thus preserving the tablecloth from (lie knife.