Wooden Plates our Forefathers Used

GOLD and silver; earthenware, pewter and china, have, in different times and under different circumstances been used for plates. Our own forefathers relied on wood. From the earliest times to days well within living memory the wooden platter, the bowl, the drinking vessel, the spoon and even the knife and fork lay on the rude trestle table for daily meals.

Many countrymen recall the wooden implements of childhood mem­ory, and the writer himself remembers the flattened wood porridge plate and the coarse surfaced bowl of the wooden spoon.

Until early Tudor times the wooden platter was almost universal. Then, and for long before (indeed, too, for long afterwards) the common table was found in every home, the humblest stable boy “sup­ping with his titled lord.” His only dish might be a square wooden platter such as (A) in the illus­tration, whilst for anything approach­ing an implement such as a knife…