bread trenchers

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

-Garan, Swynfaredian Baker

"Bread trenchers are mostly made like any other bread, though we use more common flours as opposed to the finest flours. Though I guess what constitutes 'cheap' or 'fine' flour varies from place to place. In Fumaya, even royalty will eat rye bread, but in Swynfaredia rye is very much a peasant bread pretty much only used in trenchers.   Whatever flours you are using, we kneed the dough like any other and then we pound them into round flattish shapes before baking them.

  Sometimes we make trenchers out of unleavened bread, but more often than not we want it rise a little. Normally we want it to rise a little bit so we can cut it in half. Essentially you aren't making one trencher, you are making two.   Usually they aren't used right out of the oven. They are dried out for a day or two before being served. They make a better plate if they are slightly stale.   Once ready, a cook can then plate their master's foods on the trenchers."

Modern bread bowl soup is similar in concept but they are very different in implementation. Same with an ice cream cone is the same basic concept. There is usually no social stigma in eating your bread bowl or ice cream cone, but in medieval Europe and most of Scarterra, eating one's bread trencher was consider a social faux passe.

Adult person enjoying authentic French onion soup in cafe by Kate Trysh

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

-Marbuil Redscale, dwarf salt master

"We dwarves don't commonly use bread trenchers, and if we do use bread trenchers, we normally plan to eat our bread trenchers rather than throw them away or give them away.   Our ancestors had to deal with food shortages often and we are aware that good times can vanish in an instant, so we dwarves hate wasting food. Usually we will make a porridge out of old trenchers rather than give them to poor people or livestock.   We don't normally give alms to the poor, but neither do we leave them to starve. We offer poor people honest labor, and then we feed them with the same food that we eat."

-Roodnat, gnome chef

According to legend, The First Sandwich was improvised out of trenchers by a clever gnome woman in order to overcome a magically imposed dietary restriction.   Whether or not the legend is true, various gnome chefs have experimented with novelty variations of bread trenchers that are intended to be eaten as part of the main meal, and some non-gnomish chefs have copied the innovation. . Though in most cases they are so different from regular bread trenchers that they are barely recognized as bread trenchers.

  This includes edible bread bowls or high quality pie pastries....or various types of sandwiches.   You often see these edible trencher variations at market fairs and festivals where there is a greater appetite for novelty food and there is a desire to avoid dirtying dishes or having to dispose of stale trenchers so edible food containers serve two roles.