Cook-shop carvers tasted food before guests to prove it was not poisoned

Evidence

There are various groups who cook for the poor and a separate guild of carvers. In every cook-shop there is at least one carver who, after having set the dish before the guest, says bismillah (in the name of God), eats two morsels, and then bids the guest to eat. This is presumably to show that it is not poisoned. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 265

Categorization

• XREF: Comparison to royal food-tasting and to the court carver’s ritual role suggests a materialist reading of trust and hospitality customs; the ‘presumably’ marks Lewis’s own inference worth flagging. — connects to: Cook-shop carvers tasted guests’ food to prove it unpoisoned
• SHARE: For someone into premodern craft guilds and street food history — a formal guild of carvers who taste the dish bismillah before the guest eats.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 265