Board

As a culinary term, board is now used only in compounds and phrases such as cupboard, pastry board, and sideboard. Throughout the thirteenth century, however, board was among the most common of kitchen words because it referred to the flat, raised surface upon which meals were eaten; in other words, board meant table. The importance of board as a culinary word remained unchallenged for a hundred years, until the fourteenth century when table began to take on its current sense; before this time, the word table had existed in English but only in the sense of a tablet used for writing upon. It was also at about this time that board came to mean the actual food served upon the supper board or table; this sense of the word persists in the phrase room and board, meaning lodgings and meals. Of course, board also continued to develop other non-culinary senses, including panel of decision makers, as in School Board, the people who gather around a table not to eat food but to digest each other’s ideas.