caste attached to the position. On the contrary, it was frequently a salaried post bestowed on the best scholars in the class; indeed it was considered of a good deal of practical advantage, since the waiters got a valuable first lien on the viands in the kitchen.[1]
The table fittings and service were primitive beyond belief, always half a century or more behind the usage of decent private households. The budding clergy and literati of the country were fed, if truth must be told, in a style that would disgrace the forecastle of a three-years whaler. Wooden bowls, spoons, trenchers, and piggins —suggestive name!—probably formed the original table-ware.[2] Cutlery was so scarce that each diner jealously guarded his knife, carrying it in his pocket or at his belt, and for the rest, exemplified the great truth that fingers were made before forks. These latter tools of course in the seventeenth century were new inventions, mere curiosities for the use of the very wealthy. The College bought its first forks in 1707.
- ↑ H. K. Oliver (H. C. 1818), “Reminiscences of Harvard 65 Years Ago,” in Harv. Register, i, 94.
- ↑ In 1629 the good ship Arbella, fitting out “for her voyage,” took aboard the following pantry inventory, rather misleadingly called “The cook’s store”: 100 platters, 4 trays, 2 wooden bowls, 4 pumps for water and beer, 3½ dozen of quarter cans, 3 dozen of small cans, 18 dozen wooden spoons, 3½ dozen bread baskets, 3½ dozen mustard dishes [!], 2½ dozen butter dishes, 3 or 4 dozen trenchers. Savage, New England, ii, *341. The “can” was a wooden vessel. In 1683 the “Wooden Ware belonging to ye Butterie” included “4 canns, 2 new, 2 old” and “‘Trenchers 12 Dozen.” College Book, i, 85.
