17th C. Table Etiquette

Another innovation was the so called ‘sucket fork’ a spoon and fork combination for use with ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ sweetmeats. The suckets would have been at the individual places— Sweetmeats or Dessert Service Layout, c.1670 Photograph Jeremy Phillips for Fairfax House, York

Improvements in table layout at this time included the idea of raising some of the food onto stands. This gave the opportunity to place extra dishes on the table and created a more sumptuous and three-dimensional concept of presentation. Large footed salvers of this type were often embossed on the broad rim with repoussé decoration of fruit and flowers. The Glossographia (1661) explains their early use “in giving beer or other liquid thing to save the carpit or cloathes from drips,” but they were soon put to other uses as stands for fruits, sweetmeats or even for glass crewetts. They were often fashioned by re-working old plate and it seems to be the case for this elaborate stand from Norwich Castle Museum.

Another innovation was the so called ‘sucket fork’ a spoon and fork combination for use with ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ sweetmeats. This set of five by John Smith, London, c. 1680 is a rare survival, as are the superb candlesticks by Jacob Bodendick, 1677. It was at the end of the meal that the candles were lit for the dessert course and whilst table candlesticks from the Restoration period survive in numbers, none are more majestic and innovative with their square fluted sockets, gadrooned square bases and cushion-shaped knops on baluster stems. – From “British Cutlery, An Illustrated History of Design, Evolution and Use,” York Civic Trust, 2001 

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Earliest Hallmarked 17th C. Fork

Customs of Bygone Age

                                                           

Above ~2 styles of marrow scoops – By the mid-17th century one etiquette book author advised people stop handling or “mouthing” bones, but to remove bone marrow to eat, with a knife. Within time, marrow scoops and spoons became very popular, as bone marrow was considered a health food.  "Suck no bones… Take them not with two hands… Gnaw them not… Knock no bones upon thy bread, or trencher, to get out the marrow of them, but get out the marrow with a knife… To speake better… it is not fit to handle bones, and much lesse to mouth them. Make not use of a knife to breake bones…also breake them not with thy teeth, or other thing, but let them alone."  From Youth's Behaviour, by Francis Hawkins, 1646

Letters and other documents dealing with manners and customs of daily life in the 17th century which came to light recently, tend to show that it was customary in those days for “persons of quality” to have sets of their own spoons, knives and forks, which they took with them when invited out.

These papers are of particular interest just at this time, to collectors of antiques in connection with an addition made recently to the British Museum. This was the earliest hallmarked table fork known, engraved with the crest of Manners and Montague 1632. About the same time a silver spoon of identical hallmark and crest was taken to Haddon Hall.

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

A 17th C. Cookbook and Its Etiquette

The first known turkey depicted in Marx Rumpolt’s, 1604 “Ein New Kochbuch” cookbook. The cookbook had about 20 recipes for the “Indianishen henn” 

Turkeys, native to the Americas, most likely arrived in Germany by 1530 and quickly became an important food. Marx Rumpolt’s Ein New Kochbuch includes about twenty recipes for Indianishen henn in the section on birds, which includes recipes for eagle, ostrich, peacock, ducks, geese, starlings, swallows, and other sorts of small birds.

What is notable here is the woodcut illustration of the bird itself, attributed to Virgil Solis, believed to be the first known image of a turkey in any cookbook. It is interesting that in this, and many other early cookbooks, the illustrations are of the actual, “raw” ingredient, and not of the finished dish, as they appear in most modern cookbooks.

The recipes using turkey are relatively simple, such as turkey dumplings (basically meat-balls), turkey meat in pastry, and turkey broth. Rumpolt advises a cook to use all parts of the bird, including the gizzard, liver, intestines, and blood.
       

Johann Adam von Bicken was the Prince Elector of Mainz from 1601 to 1604. In the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz was the Primate of Germany (primas Germaniae), a purely honorary dignity that was unsuccessfully claimed from time to time by other Archbishops. There were only two other ecclesiastical Prince-electors in the Empire: the Electorate of Cologne and the Electorate of Trier. “Kurfürstentum Mainz,” (also known by its French name, Mayence), was the most prestigious of the most influential states of the Holy Roman Empire from the time of its creation to the dissolution of the HRE in the early years of the 19th century.

Little is known about the book’s author,other than what he wrote about himself in the cookbook. Rumpolt claimed to be Hungarian by birth and to have worked as a chef in many countries; on the title page, he is identified as a private cook to the Prince Elect of Mainz.

The volume begins with a description of the different tasks for servants, including the cook, in a princely house, followed by a section of banquet menus for royalty, different levels of nobility, the bourgeois, and farmers. The recipe section contains about 2000 recipes arranged into chapters for meat from domestic and wild animals, poultry, fish, side dishes, pastry, soups, and conserves. 

Source ~ Cabinet of Culinary Curiosities: Books & Manuscripts from the Mortimer Rare Book Room

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia © Etiquette Encyclopedia