Trencher Wooden Platter Food Served Plate Cutting French

A trencher is an old-fashioned wooden plate for serving or eating food. It was most common to use a trencher in Medieval Europe.

The original trencher was a piece of bread that other food would be served on and eaten from. With this type of trencher, a diner could either eat her plate or donate it to someone who was poor and hungry. Later, trenchers evolved into small wooden or metal plates. The original, 1300s meaning of trencher was "wooden platter for cutting meat," from the Old North French trencheor, "a cutting place," with its Old French root of trenchier, "to cut."

He snagged a roasted onion, dripping brown with gravy, from a nearby trencher and bit into it.