THRIVING after the FALL

The Index · A subject

The table

The plate, the cup, the fork, the cloth and the candle, which together turn eating into dinner.

6 documents · 5 chapters · 71 rows

In the chapters

Documents 6

In the Workshop

Linen from flax

In the log 71

  • 52 confirmed
  • 5 amended
  • 3 partly confirmed
  • 10 unresolved
  • 1 dropped
  • 12 marked for safety
  • I5 confirmed Safety Lead in old paint, pipes, batteries and flashing; lead fume goes to the bones; chromium plate gives its own fume
  • K47 dropped Safety Oral edge: no tine or rim left sharp; mouth-contact roughness under 10 µm, 400 grit; a steel spoon is tinned or it rusts in the mouth; tine spring 5 to 8 N
  • A69 amended Safety Q fever precautions: cloth over mouth at every birth, afterbirth and bedding buried in quicklime or ash, milk for the vulnerable held half an hour at a heat the hand …
  • A74 unresolved Safety Limewater: 1 kg slaked lime per 15 l boiled cooled hard water, lime into water; eggs under 24 to 36 h, unwashed, candled, points down, 5 to 8 cm cover, lard film, 8 to …
  • B9 amended Safety Trichinella: every part of an untested pig cooked to 70 °C at centre; no raw Mett, cold-smoked raw sausage or air-dried ham from an untested pig; dies in 1 min at 60, at …
  • E10 amended Safety Cyanobacteria toxin (microcystin) passes a cloth, survives boiling, has killed dogs on Berlin lakes in recent summers; no bathing, no drinking, gut fish at once and burn …
  • D11 amended Safety Weisse variant: sour unboiled wort with a handful of crushed raw malt and a spoonful of sour-crock brine at 35 to 40 °C for a day, then pitch beer yeast
  • T10 unresolved Safety Free alkali in finished soap burns hands and rots cloth; tongue "zap" test; cook with more fat
  • T48 unresolved Safety Pit fire under turf 650 to 850 °C; cross-draught kiln 28 h to temperature, 36 to 48 h cooling, opened only below 80 °C; quartz inversion 573 °C both ways and …
  • T59 unresolved Safety Horn: boil 60 to 90 min, strip 18 by 4.5 cm by 3 mm in hot tallow 15 to 20 min, pressed 10 to 15 min, edge scraped to 1 mm; beaker plugged with a wooden disc (book's …
  • T7 unresolved Safety Candle in a catching dish or stick, a hand's breadth from hangings, never left in an empty room, put out by pinch or snuffer not breath
  • T8 confirmed Safety Burning tallow gives acrolein (chip-pan smell) and soot; tallow not for a shut room; beeswax for the table
  • P2 confirmed Iron smelted from bog ore in clay furnaces in the Brandenburg woods
  • H36 confirmed Cob oven build: bottle-and-slurry or vermiculite base, firebrick floor with a finger's gap, sand form 60 to 90 cm by 40 cm, 1:3 clay to sand 8 to 10 cm, straw layer 10 …
  • H37 confirmed Rocket core: 15 cm square, firebrick in 1:1 clay-sand mortar, house brick spalls, riser insulated with ash or perlite, 8 mm skirt doubles heat to the pot, 1 kg sticks in …
  • I20 unresolved Bog iron (Raseneisenstein) smelted by Slavic villages on Spree and Havel from the 8th century in small clay furnaces
  • I21 confirmed Peitz ironworks founded by the margrave in the 16th century on bog ore and charcoal; cannon balls, stove plates, pots; closed 1856
  • I36 confirmed Brake drum: 23 cm inside, 5 cm deep, 7 to 11 kg; 50 mm flange, 15 cm nipple, tee, 12 cm ash pipe with cap or water bucket; grate of 6 to 12 mm plate with 10 mm holes; …
  • K15 confirmed Quench must pass 600 to 550 °C in about a second (the nose); martensite skates a file; only about 0.6 % carbon in solution before lath gives way to plate; hotter is not …
  • K16 confirmed Temper 200 °C two hours twice; light straw 200 °C at 60 HRC; bronze 240 a warning; 230 to 315 the brittle trough (TME); 345 and up grey-blue spring temper for axes, hoes …
  • K17 confirmed 1084 is 0.80 to 0.84 % carbon, hardens in fast oil from a plain forge with no soak; leaf spring 5160 about 0.6 % C with chromium, deeper hardening, slow oil, cracks in …
  • K39 confirmed A clay-graphite crucible in a lined drum blown from below melts 20 kg of iron in an hour or two and burns about its own weight in charcoal
  • K45 confirmed Spoon: 16 mm rod, 45 mm left full, 9 mm fuller, stem 145 mm from 8 × 4 to 14 × 2.2 mm, leaf 68 × 44 × 1.8 to 2 mm, normalised three times, sunk cold in a 70 × 45 × 14 mm …
  • K46 confirmed Fork: 12 mm square spring steel, 150 mm handle, pad 40 × 50 × 3 mm, three slits 8 mm apart with a 2 mm chisel, 4 mm web, tines 4.5 mm drawn from 50 to 65 mm, tips …
  • K48 confirmed A table of twelve (12 knives, forks, soup spoons, dessert forks, dessert spoons, 260 mm chargers, butter plates, goblets, 4 serving spoons, 2 carving sets, 2 ladles) …
  • K50 confirmed The fork's tines are hardened at 830 °C in warm canola and tempered grey-blue, 345 °C or above, like the broadfork's
  • W31 confirmed Biringuccio, De la Pirotechnia 1540: lute of lean clay, horse dung, egg white, hammer scale, linen strips and flour; rye flour and water as the modern lute
  • W36 confirmed Linseed oil about 53 % linolenic, cures 2 to 10 weeks by oxidation; walnut slower; olive and sunflower never dry and go rancid (butyric acid); spoon butter 4 : 1 oil to …
  • W40 confirmed Dutch beam 9 ft by 27 in square with iron hoops; wool bags in horsehair mats; hot iron plates; end-grain blocks; two wedges; stamper 150 kg from 1.2 m, about 1,765 J; 40 …
  • W54 confirmed Shrinkage by species: 143 gives oak T 7.5 to 9.0 / R 4.0 to 4.5, sycamore 8.0 to 8.5 / 3.0 to 3.5, linden 8.8 to 9.2 / 5.2 to 5.5; 147 gives oak 8.6 / 4.0, sycamore 9.9 …
  • G36 confirmed Flame-curtain pit kiln: cone pit about 1 m across, top-lit, layer on at the white-ash stage, quench from the top; char yield about a fifth of the wood by weight
  • G45 confirmed Jar test: sand settles in a minute, silt in an hour, clay overnight
  • F18 confirmed Rye allelopathy suppresses small seeds for weeks; carrots two years from rye; fresh dung forks carrots
  • F75 confirmed Flax after rye in Thaer's 6 to 7-year rotation with lupin or serradella; seed 130 to 150 kg/ha, 1.0 to 1.5 cm, rows 7.5 to 10 cm, 1,800 to 2,200 stems/m², weed once at 5 …
  • F76 confirmed Hand processing per 100 kg: spelt 8 to 12 h at a quern gapped 2.8 to 3.8 mm; millet 14 to 18 h in a mortar, 1.5 to 2.5 kg loads, 40 to 50 strokes/min, 62 to 68 % …
  • A19 partly confirmed Rapeseed ~40 % oil, home screw press recovers about a third of seed weight; 70 kg oil = 250 kg seed = 0.1 ha of best sand; flax and hemp lower and rancid faster; blue …
  • A51 confirmed Hardware cloth ≤12 mm, never chicken wire, skirt 45–60 cm, roof net, 1 sq ft vent per bird, shut at dusk; fox, stone marten, raccoon (released Hesse 1934, in Brandenburg …
  • B55 confirmed Storage: stoneware crock with lid in the cellar, tallow a year, lard 6–9 months, salt layer on top; enemies light, warmth, air, iron/copper; rancid = paint smell, not …
  • B56 confirmed Tallow melts 45–50 °C; candle: twisted linen/cotton wick dipped 20–30 times in wet-rendered tallow, slumps in August; potash soft soap hardened by boiling with salt …
  • E30 confirmed Ribbon test (< 2–3 cm sand, > 5 cm clay) and overnight ball test
  • D27 partly confirmed Werder: island town on the Havel, two centuries of fruit for Berlin, sand over clay, south slopes, the Baumblütenfest, fruit by barge and night soil back to the orchards
  • D41 amended Mary the Jewess and the bain-marie; al-anbiq; al-Razi distilling before 900; Brunschwig, Liber de arte distillandi, Strasbourg 1500, lute of linen, salt water and egg …
  • T17 confirmed Fork from Byzantium to Venice 11th c. with a Greek princess (Theodora Doukaina / Maria Argyropoulina, c. 1004 or 1071); Peter Damian's condemnation; fork reaches …
  • T20 confirmed Berlin hungry winters 1946–47: meals collapsing into scramble; households that kept the table did better (ARGUMENT, not finding; owner to decide)
  • T21 confirmed Medieval bread trencher: tranchier, four-day-old coarse bread ~4 in × ½ in, given to the poor or the dogs; wooden trenchers by early 16th c.; Newcastle 1499–1500 import …
  • T22 confirmed Mary Rose (1545) wooden plates, bowls and spoons recovered
  • T23 confirmed Tableware woods: birch, sycamore, maple, lime, alder, cherry, pear (diffuse-porous) good; oak, ash, elm (ring-porous) hold food; yew and laburnum toxic; walnut juglone
  • T24 confirmed Shrinkage: tangential 6–10 %, radial 2–5 %, T/R ratio ~2 (walnut 1.41, cherry 1.91, hard maple 2.06, red oak 2.15); quartersawn/radial blank for a flat plate; dry 4–6 …
  • T25 confirmed Plate 25–30 cm across, 2–3 cm rim, 1 cm well; bowl 15–20 cm, wall 8–12 mm, an afternoon on the pole lathe; blank 30–40 cm log, worked within a fortnight
  • T26 confirmed Burnish, do not sand; oil with raw linseed or spoon butter 4:1 oil:beeswax, three coats a week apart
  • T28 confirmed Brandenburg clay: glacial boulder clay; brickworks Glindow (Werder) and Zehdenick (Havel, museum) built 19th-c. Berlin; Velten stove tiles from the 1830s; stoneware from …
  • T29 confirmed Clay tests: ribbon past 5 cm, ball survives a night in water (same as Ch 10's pond tests); processing by slaking, sieving, settling; 20 % sharp sand temper; wedging; …
  • T30 confirmed Firing stages: 100–200 °C free water, 450–600 °C dehydroxylation (irreversible), 573 °C quartz inversion, 800–900 °C bonfire/pit earthenware, > 1,200 °C salt-glaze …
  • T33 confirmed Salt glaze: Rhineland since late Middle Ages, needs ~1,200–1,250 °C, salt thrown into firebox, HCl gas; a village kiln, not a household fire (link to Ch 18's specialists)
  • T35 confirmed Tallow candle: wick of twisted linen/cotton, 20–30 dips at 65–70 °C to 2 cm; tallow melts ~45 °C, slumps, gutters, smokes
  • T38 partly confirmed Farmhouse great wash 2–3 times a year; bucking (Beuche) with ash lye poured through a cloth over the linen all night; boiling, beating, rinsing; sun bleaching on the …
  • T44 confirmed Serving order under scarcity (guest first, children, old, rest, server last); children served before men; peasant societies where men ate first had smaller children; …
  • T45 confirmed The fork: Maria Argyropoulina married the Doge's son 1004, died two years later, Peter Damian's rebuke; Thomas Coryate 1608 mocked as furcifer; Richelieu 1639 (story); …
  • T47 confirmed Spreewald stoneware salt-glazed since the 14th c.; Görzke potters' guild 1706 and kilns still working; Glindow bricks 1716 to 1945 from clay 35 to 38 % CaCO3; Zehdenick …
  • T49 confirmed Lime test: 20 g dry clay and 5 ml vinegar, hard fizz means over 5 % CaCO3, unfit for pottery; lime pops swell about 300 % on slaking weeks after firing; sieve slip to …
  • T50 confirmed Shrinkage bar 150 by 25 by 10 mm with 100 mm line, 5 to 8 mm drying shrinkage workable, over 9 mm wants a quarter grog; body 65 clay, 20 sharp sand, 15 grog; grog from …
  • T51 confirmed Wall thickness 6 to 8 mm plate (chapter's choice), 10 to 12 mm bowl or crock; drying 9 to 13 days
  • T52 confirmed Village potter's year for 300 people: 1,850 vessels, 4,360 kg clay, 12 firings, 44 to 48 stacked metres pine (3.5 to 4.5 a firing), 1 to 1.5 ha coppice, about 980 h; …
  • T56 confirmed Flax mass balance: 1 ha gives 3,500 kg dry straw and about 150 kg bleached cloth for 654 h of which 387 spinning; village of 300 needs 3.5 to 4 ha and 75 to 90 winter …
  • T57 confirmed Bleach cycle: lye with lime 8 to 12 h, grass 7 to 14 days wetted every 2 h, buttermilk sour 1 to 10 for 24 to 48 h, repeated 4 to 8 times, lye never over 3 % on cloth; …
  • T58 unresolved Kitchen cloths: quark cloth about 10 by 10 threads/cm, straining cloth 22 by 20 folded fourfold, proofing cloth coarse herringbone floured and never soaped
  • J17 confirmed 117 assumes roller crimper, no-till transplanter, engineered biochar, inoculants, fleece for an "autarkic" household; the book's household has fork, scythe, heap, char …
  • J19 unresolved Household year (own): field 1,500–2,000, kitchen ~1,100 (3 h/day), milking ~300 for three goats (twice daily over two lactations), wood 30–50, tools 156, pig 32, …
  • J33 unresolved Brandenburg well water: iron-brown, hydrogen-sulphide smell from peat, varies over 100 m; stains linen; stand and pour off the top for washing
  • J39 unresolved Order of specialists: herdsman (paid by the head, since settlement), miller, smith, cheesemaker (40 cows, 100 l/day), potter (Ch 17), cooper, wright, tanner (Ch 9), …
  • J44 confirmed "A village that has no lord must find a substitute": the table, the boon-day, the reckoning in kind settled at the feast (the book's answer, linking Ch 17)