[Illustration: Fig. 74.--The Miller.--From an Engraving of the Sixteenth
Century, by J. Amman.]
It must be stated that the custom of leavening the dough by the addition
of a ferment was not universally adopted amongst the ancients. For this
reason, as the dough without leaven could only produce a heavy and
indigestible bread, they were careful, in order to secure their loaves
being thoroughly cooked, to make them very thin. These loaves served as
plates for cutting up the other food upon, and when they thus became
saturated with the sauce and gravy they were eaten as cakes. The use of
the _tourteaux_ (small crusty loaves), which were at first called
_tranchoirs_ and subsequently _tailloirs_, remained long in fashion even
at the most splendid banquets. Thus, in 1336, the Dauphin of Vienna,
Humbert II., had, besides the small white bread, four small loaves to
serve as _tranchoirs_ at table. The "Menagier de Paris" mentions "_des
pains de tranchouers_ half a foot in diameter, and four fingers deep," and
Froissart the historian also speaks of _tailloirs_.
|