Gilded Age Etiquette and Carving

I think one of the most trying ordeals which the family man has to undergo during yuletide is struggling to preserve a happy exterior and maintain general good humor among his guests by relating spicy anecdotes just at the time, when in a desperate attempt to sever the breastbone of his turkey ship, the knife slips and casts gloom and gravy over the entire company.

Domestic Economy at Christmas:

Some Thoughts on Carving

It is a good old time-honored custom, that of the head of the family struggling with the still remains of the average gutta-percha fowl of commerce at a Christmas dinner, but we are glad to see a tendency in our best circles to relegate this custom to the musty past, where it rightfully belongs. Some of our best families now employ a servant, who, on an Eastlake sideboard and a small salary, takes a crosscut saw and a can of dynamite and successfully segregates the various choice parts of the fowl, thus giving the host an opportunity to enliven his guests with brilliant bon mots, instead of executing a crude style of gravy spatter-work on their white vests and immaculate shirtfronts.

Isn't this a decidedly more rational treatment of the matter? We hold that the position of the host toward his guest is that of entertainer, and it is not necessary for him to make an athlete of himself in order to occupy such position. You, as a guest, may naturally have your suspicions as to the age of the fowl of which you are invited to partake, but it must not be expected that the head of the house will take off his coat and assassinate the fowl in your presence, in order to prove that it is of an eligible age. Therefore why cannot the late lamented be dissected in good faith at a side-table and by a hired mourner without interference with the general comfort of the guest? 

We are not just sure about the, liberties of this new departure in Christmas-dinner etiquette, but we think it should permit of any guest with an abnormal suspicion of foul (we had almost written fowl) play leaving the table, and, while holding the hired man's coat, personally observe the inquest. No man who has ever served as host can do otherwise than bless the man who introduced this new order of things, which now gives him an opportunity to thoroughly enjoy his dinner instead of having to adjourn pro tern, to the kitchen to bandage a lacerated thumb, and remove several dressing-dados and gravy-symphonies from the lap of his best suit of clothes. 

I think one of the most trying ordeals which the family man has to undergo during yuletide is struggling to preserve a happy exterior and maintain general good humor among his guests by relating spicy anecdotes just at the time, when in a desperate attempt to sever the breastbone of his turkey ship, the knife slips and casts gloom and gravy over the entire company. I think if there is any time at which a man may be justified in feeling not entirely at home, but wishes his guests were, it is when amid half-stifled snickers from the general assemblage, he ties up a cut finger with a handkerchief, and removes a cupful of sage and stale bread from his vest pocket. 

The greatest trouble with men who never carve a fowl except on some festive holiday, is the great dissimilarity of fowls in general when roasted and set upon the table with the usual vegetable garnishments. They are never able to find the joints in the same place on two fowls. A gobbler from Tomales, for instance, may have a full chest and high expressive hipbones; while one from Milpitas may be consumptive-chested and have a collar-bone decidedly on the bias. Such things have a tendency to make the carver nervous, and cause a feeling of stiffness to prevail at a formal dinner party. 

It is also often a source of great distress to the host to have 7 or 8 guests ask for dark meat, when of the two fowls roasted there wasn't more than enough dark meat for the cook, who was particularly fond of it. To obviate this, the plan of ordering an extra brunette hen is recommended. If this preference for dark meat keeps on increasing there is likely to be a demand for a poultry farm that shall produce brunette fowls exclusively. — Written for the Rural Press by Fremont Wood, 1889

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