What's The Word For A Silver Platter That Goes Under Your Dinner Plate?

[Hal_Briston]

Like the title says…

[BMax]

My mom calls it a “Charger”.

I thought that was a dodge product, but what do I know?

[Hal_Briston]

More info: One word, ends in “er”.

[Hal_Briston]

Whoops…missed your response, BMax – yup, that’s the answer we were looking for. Thanks much!

[Reply]

“Unnecesnobby.”

[Beware_of_Doug]

I think charger came from the practice of heating them to keep the plate warm.

The same thing, when made of wood and put on top of the plate, is a trencher. They were once made of old stale bread.

A fellow with an outsize appetite - the kind who’d eat all his meat and the week-old bread for the drippings - is called a trencherman.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I’d always understood that the charger was a decorative plate that was taken away at the start of a meal. You didn’t get the charger dirty with food. Never heard of a silver charger, either.

This site says that there are many traditions and that the charger can remain during portions of the meal, and some hosts do leave it on the table through the entrée. No mention of silver.

News to me, but then again I don’t go to many dinners with people who own chargers.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Beware_of_Doug

I think charger came from the practice of heating them to keep the plate warm.

The same thing, when made of wood and put on top of the plate, is a trencher. They were once made of old stale bread.

A fellow with an outsize appetite - the kind who’d eat all his meat and the week-old bread for the drippings - is called a trencherman.

This seemed wrong to me too, and as far as I can tell is wrong.

Trencher Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

trencher

c.1308, “wooden platter on which to cut meat,” from Anglo-Fr. trenchour, from O.N.Fr. trencheor “a trencher,” lit. “a cutting place,” from O.Fr. trenchier “to cut” (see trench).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

trencher

originally a thick slice of bread, used as a primitive form of plate for eating and for slicing meat (hence its derivation from “trancher”-to cut, or carve), but by the 14th century a square or circular wooden plate of rough workmanship. There was usually a small cavity for salt in the rim of the wooden plate, and sometimes the main section was so formed that it could be turned over and the other side used for a second course

No mention of a trencher ever being on top of food.

[DSYoungEsq]

@Exapno_Mapcase

This seemed wrong to me too, and as far as I can tell is wrong.

Trencher Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

No mention of a trencher ever being on top of food.

And in what part of the post to which you refer did the poster say the trencher was on top of the food???

[Reply]

@DSYoungEsq

And in what part of the post to which you refer did the poster say the trencher was on top of the food???

@Beware of Doug

The same thing, when made of wood and** put on top of the plate**, is a trencher. They were once made of old stale bread.

Unless he meant on top of the the silver platter, not the dinner plate?

[Beware_of_Doug]

That’s it. Of course, these things are never clear cut.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Now I’m very confused.

I know of no evidence that chargers were ever used as warmers. They seem always to have been decorative.

Nor were trenchers ever warmers. They were functional surfaces for slicing and chopping.

You would never combine a trencher and a charger.

I can’t picture a situation on which you would put a trencher on top of anything outside a table top. I just don’t know what you meant by that and your explanation doesn’t help. So why would you put a wooden trencher on top of a plate? What does that mean?

[Beware_of_Doug]

I’ve obviously been grievously misled. I apologize if I may have passed that state of affairs on to you or anyone else.

Throw me a crust, an ort, anything and I shall be on my way and grateful for it.