itish Museum (see
Fig. 26).

[Illustration: FIG. 50.--WOODEN COFFEE CRUSHERS AND PESTLES AND MORTAR.]

[Illustration: FIG. 51.--APPLE SCOOPS OF BONE.]

Some of the minor kitchen utensils include flesh hooks and forks and
carving knives. There are spoons of every kind made in all metals, some
of the earlier examples being of brass and latten. In this connection
also may be mentioned ladles, fish slicers, and scoops. There are also
many curious little pastrycooks' knives, and knives used for cutting
vegetables and preparing a repast in olden time, many of them quite
decorative, even the common pastry-wheel frequently being carved. It was
at one time customary to expend much skill in decorating apple scoops,
those shown in Fig. 51 being very choice specimens in the National
Museum of Wales, in Cardiff. The one on the left hand of the picture is
made of bone, and is inlaid with a small brass name-plate; that on the
right-hand side is of ivory delicately turned, the scoop being
exceedingly thin; and those in the centre are all home-made out of the
metacarpal bones of the sheep, being slightly ornamented with cut
X-shaped lines and hatchings. In the same museum there are some
remarkably interesting coffee crushers and mortars and pestles, several
of these being illustrated in Fig. 50. In Fig. 53 we show a
representative selection reminiscent of the days when wooden spoons and
wooden platters were in common use. The trencher takes its name from
_tranche_, the old name of the platter which replaced the piece of bread
on which it was formerly customary to serve up meat; like the bread, it
was at first square. The minor kitchen accessories formerly in constant
use included many objects of wood, such as the charming little nutmeg
mills of turned rosewood, some of which are to be seen in the British
Museum. There are also antique pasteboards and rolling-pins for rolling
shortbread, pot stirrers of wood, and other utensils such as sand
glasses.

In Figs. 47 and 48 we illustrate two wooden food boxes, such as were
formerly used to carry food to men working in the field. They are now
deposited with other curios in the Cardiff Museum, where also may be
seen some little wooden piggins, and bowls used for porridge; the piggin
was an ancient vessel often mentioned in mediaeval days (see Fig. 52).

Warming Pans.

There are some household appointments which, like some of the brass
skimmers, platters, engraved foot and hand warmers,