The Hirshon Wroclaw Medieval Trencher Bread

The Hirshon Wroclaw Medieval Trencher Bread

This is a recipe on how to make a medieval style "trencher" a type of flatware made from bread. These were typically used to serve things such as stews, which would then soften the days old bread, making it edible at the end of the meal. These were a good way to use up bread and also provide a way for those eating, to clean up after themselves. This style of bread was one that was very common in the Middle Ages, and consisted of flours such as rye and spelt. These set it apart from a white bread because they were typically more nutritious and still had parts of the wheat berry that were stripped away when making white flour.

This is a picture of a recipe that has been pulled from a website, detailing the ingredients and process needed to make a trencher. This recipe is surprisingly simple, with the most time-consuming step being to leave the dough mixture overnight in order to let the wet and dry ingredients mix together (otherwise known as an autolyse). This recipe also contains numerous ingredients that were common in the Middle Ages, such as rye and spelt flours, that are not very common today. This shows a historical change in not only bread history, but food history as a whole, as we have shifted away from heartier grains to a more common and less nutritious white bread (see Wonder Bread).

The Hirshon Wroclaw

The Food Dictator

November 4, 2019