Pulled into port a bit late, 
so this Tuesday Trivia Tidbit is also late.
“A square meal,” “fair and square.” They are terms that brought delight to sailors way back when. Someone who’d done a big watch or extra work usually got a square meal, all spots filled, which was only fair. And square.
According to sailing sources, sailors originally got their food on a piece of bread. Eat the food, eat the plate. Depending on the food…and bread, that could be good. Maybe they got cheap in the bread department, maybe longer and longer voyages made bread plates a bad idea, or maybe some wise-cracking sailor’s comment that the bread is “so hard, it may as well be wood”gave someone an idea.
Wood it became. It didn’t tend to break when it fell to the floor, didn’t become a hockey puck like the round ones, and wood is…naturally antibacterial. Yay wood!
This has been your delayed Tuesday Trivia Tidbit.