Gilded Age Tips for Dinner Hostesses

Glorious color of melons… “Attention was not drawn to the table, but taken away from it. Unconsciously we were all in place, and unconsciously  engaged in eating fruit. Then some glorious color of melon or currants or peaches drew the eye and mind, and we were led into a delightful realization of the delicious flavors that touched our palates. But all this was a complex sensation. We felt not only the flavors, but we saw the beauties. Dining was aesthetic, intellectual as well as physical.”

Enjoying a Meal:

A Woman Who Knows the Right Way to Make Eating Enjoyable

A Hint to Many Housewives:

No Formality, No Stiffness, but Just Sociability and Perfect Ease- It Aids Digestion

I must tell you about a delightful dinner which I lately enjoyed with some friends in a suburban villa of Boston:

In the first place, dinner was on time, I do not know any more annoying and fretting affair than irregularity of meals. A housekeeper who has no sense of time and has no regard for the instincts of her family is thoroughly selfish. The stomach calls out at regular periods, and if then it is put off and irritated the subconscious animal functions become very conscious and finally greedy. In the family to which I refer there was a certain time when we were expected to be prepared for dinner. The family and friends gathered in gradually from their walks and rides and work, and without exacting precision the hour of found us within call.

The second point to be noted was the absence of formality. We quietly strolled into the dining room, unburdened with ceremony. But there was no lack of refinement and civility. We sat down without rudeness, but with the best of good cheer. I think the most annoying etiquette is that of the table. There are families where I am welcomed, who crush me with politeness, I am afraid to sit down before the rest, or to touch the food on my plate until a signal is given. But somehow, here my hostess had me at once engaged in a little chat on a topic that took me far away from dining and food. She covered the few moments of gathering with the nicest art of conversation. 

Attention was not drawn to the table, but taken away from it. Unconsciously we were all in place, and unconsciously  engaged in eating fruit. Then some glorious color of melon or currants or peaches drew the eye and mind, and we were led into a delightful realization of the delicious flavors that touched our palates. But all this was a complex sensation. We felt not only the flavors, but we saw the beauties. Dining was aesthetic, intellectual as well as physical.

The third charm of the dinner at my friend’s was that there were no formal courses. Do you know what horrible things are these stiff and numbered courses? There was something on the table before we arrived, and quite enough to make sure that every one would be able to find that which pleases. When any one seemed to be through her plate was slipped away by an attentive servant, and with clean plates other foods were quietly offered. The variety was sufficient, and no one was compelled to sit playing with a fork or spoon while his or her neighbors finished a course. Easy conversation went on, and the eye of the noble hostess, while very observant, was never meddlesome.

But as a fourth delight, there was no hurry. I notice that when people go to the table simply to eat, they tumble down a great deal of food as if into a pot or jar. The result is the stomach is made at once concious that it is a slave and must do an enormous amount of hard work. It generally refuses. I never knew after dinner at Mrs. S.’s that I had been eating, nor did I ever have any consciousness about digestion. It is exceedingly disagreeable to have our unconscious faculties made conscious, for that is sure to end in dyspepsia. But here, at my friends, when we were through dinner, we were through-that is, we had no indigestible compounds to torture us. Our stomachs were never thought of. Mainly we had not hurried because the dining had not been a purely physical process.

There were no personalities. It is awful to be singled out at table and have your queerness all paraded. Every one has idiosyncrasies of taste, and has a right to them, but when the hostess says: “You don't eat butter, do you? Why not? Don't you think butter is healthy?” she draws attention to your private business, and eating gets to be awkward- unless indeed you are egotistical enough to like to be talked about, or, worse yet, to talk about yourself, and then you soon get to be a nuisance. 

No, whatever you do, do not parade your oddities of eating, and do not encourage your hostess in doing it. On the whole, the articles of food on the table make a poor topic for conversation. My friend had a delicate way of tripping any bad tendency of the sort. I do not know what we were talking about all the time, but it was all so pleasant we barely knew we were eating.

Then there was an atmosphere of friendliness about the table. But of that I cannot talk. Who knows how to describe that exquisite flavor of goodwill that makes the best part of the life of a true family? Each one kissed the mother as they came in, and not with formality, I assure you. And we went out feeling that our first end in life was not to eat, but that a right sort of dinner was a glorious affair. – by Mary E. Spencer in St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1894

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