Trenchers

Trencher comes from the French, tranchoir, meaning to slice. Originally referring to slices of stale bread used in the Middle Ages as disposable plates, by the sixteenth century trenchers denoted carved wooden plates or platters, frequently with a small niche to hold salt. They were often reversible: one could flip the trencher between main and dessert courses to provide a clean surface. In the earliest American settlements, two or more diners often shared trenchers, a practice imported from England, hence the term “trenchermate”; “trencherman” refers to someone with a hearty appetite. Trenchers could be quite elegant; one seventeenth-century Plymouth inventory lists a dozen very small fruit trenchers, designed for the dessert course, each of which was decorated with an image of one of the twelve months.