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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sialia" data-source="post: 760279" data-attributes="member: 1025">OK, I almost never open my mouth on this sort of thing without first doing my research, but I'm pressed for time, and I've just never researched formal Scottish banquets. (Woe!)Sweets at the end of a meal is a very comon modern American thing.Lotsa places have a completely different ritual for concluding a meal.Sometimes it's fruit, nuts or cheese. Sometimes salad. Sometimes it's liquor, or liquers, or something to smoke. Sometimes it's a grain, like rice.There's no reason it couldn't be something non-food, like poetry, gambling, wrestling or other games of skill, or prayer.  (Orthodox Jews have a *very* long prayer they say after a meal, and the meal isn't really concluded until everyone is done saying, singing or mumbling it.) Some royal households concluded a meal by giving the leftovers to the poor (usually waiting conveniently outside the door).And I vaguely recall soemthing about Hrothgar giving out golden rings in Beowulf--or was that his queen?--not sure if it was during the meal or after. Rewards to the nobles who had pleased him since the last time he did this. Also toasts to the heros and the downfall of the foe.Hope this helps!</blockquote>