Gilded Age Foods and Cooking

Fannie Farmer casually called for a can of “Kornlet,” a commercially processed pulp made from the inner kernel of sweet green corn. But the industrialization of the food supply was hardly complete in the Gilded Age.

Beyond the precision of modern recipes, we also know an unusual amount about Gilded Age eating because for the first time in American history people were regularly publishing menus. That is, they were recording detailed descriptions of meals, including information about which dishes were paired with which, in what order different dishes were eaten, and what time of day people were eating certain foods. Menus show up all the time in Gilded Age sources on food, in descriptions of banquets, in suggestions about how to entertain, and in cookbooks proposing recipe pairings. Menus make clear that meal planning in this era was influenced by the changeable availability of different foods in this era, as reflected in Christine Herrick's seasonal menus, for instance.

But while seasonality still mattered, by the late nineteenth century more and more foods were becoming available year round, thanks to the growing reach and speed of food transportation networks and the expansion of cold-storage facilities. Note, for instance, the Florida oranges, California pears, and other fresh fruits served at one February banquet in Detroit in 1891. National distribution of industrial food products was also changing how Americans cooked and ate. Note how regularly the cookbook authors here assumed readers would have access to brand-name products like Maillard’s chocolate, Cerealine, or Quaker Oats, or how regularly canned goods appeared in these recipes. 

For instance, in one of her recipes Fannie Farmer casually called for a can of “Kornlet,” a commercially processed pulp made from the inner kernel of sweet green corn. But the industrialization of the food supply was hardly complete in the Gilded Age. Some items we may think of as exclusively industrial products —like noodles and yeast— would have regularly been made at home in the late nineteenth century, while other products would have been less processed than we would expect: many cooks were still shelling peas and removing spinach roots themselves, for instance, and many still had to singe and pluck pinfeathers every time they wanted to cook a chicken. Sometimes, too, a recipe calling for a can of food was not referring to an industrial product at all, but to food canned at home, as in the Kentucky Housewife recipe for Canned Turtle Soup that was followed by instructions on how to can turtle meat by hand. — From Food in the American Gilded Age, edited by Helen Zoe Veit, 2017

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

Good Form in Dining of 1894

It is good form to sit erect, to keep the arms off the table, to look pleasant, and to keep room in the mouth for a laugh...

It is good form to break off morsels of bread, toast, biscuits and cake. It is vulgar to bite into a slice. It is good form to train the left hand to use the fork. A gentleman does not lay down his knife and take the fork in his right hand, when the course consists of meat and a salad. 

It is good form to eat slowly and quietly. Only vulgar people are noisy. It is good form to sit erect, to keep the arms off the table, to look pleasant, and to keep room in the mouth for a laugh. People who eat like cattle should be induced to take meals in sheds or vacant lots. Babies and men and women in their “second childhood” can be excused for slobbering at table. – San Jose Herald, 1894

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

Victorian Children’s Table Manners

“If in doubt at any time as to what is proper, follow the example of others of more experience.” Wise etiquette advice then, and just as wise advice now. 

Table Manners for Children

• Drink from the cup—never from the saucer
• Teaspoons are left in the saucer, not in the cup. 
• Making a noise, either in eating or drinking, is vulgar. 
• Always cheerfully defer to older people and to guests. 
• Eat slowly, and do not fill the mouth with large quantities. 
• Eat the food served or quietly leave it on the plate without remark. 
• Avoid drumming with the fingers or feet; it is the height of impoliteness. 
• If in doubt at any time as to what is proper, follow the example of others of more experience. 
• Patiently await the coming of your turn; do not follow with the eyes the food served to others. 
• Never unnecessarily handle the dishes, or in any other way exhibit nervousness or impatience. 
• Do not feel obliged to “clean up the plate;” especially do not make a laborious display of doing so. 
• Do not ask for any particular part of a fowl or similar dish, unless asked your preference; in that case always indicate some part, and if there really be no choice, designate the portion with which the host can most conveniently render service.— The Weekly Bouquet, 1898

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

Eliza Leslie and “Etiquette of Old”

Fashions from Godey’s in December of 1876... “And of wine? ‘On no consideration let any lady take two glasses of champagne. It is more than the head of the American female can bear.’ The head of the American female of Eliza Leslie's day, must have been a very light affair, if it really led her into all the misbehavements Miss Leslie deplored.”– From “The Smart Set”, 1911

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 Author Eliza Leslie was a student of the 18th century’s Elizabeth Baker Goodfellow, the popular Philadelphia pastry cook, confectioner, and operator of the first finishing school in the United States. Leslie later made a name for herself, publishing Mrs. Goodfellow’s most popular recipes, along with her own books on etiquette.

 

Old people are fond of saying, “Things were very different I when I was young,” usually referring to manners. So they were. But old people mean manners were more what manners should be, in their day. Possibly. But if among archaic books in some library, one ever finds a manual of past manners, one is impelled to doubt their superiority. Without criticising the vapors or other vain artificialities, they did very queer things in polite society 60 years ago. The books prove it. 

Eliza Leslie of Philadelphia was an authority when our grandmothers were girls. She wrote about etiquette in “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” and in 1853 published “The Behavior Book,” which announced “instruction to ladies as regards their conversation, conduct in the street, shopping, introductions, entree to society, complexion, hands, the hair” and further, “a few habitual misbehavements noted during a long course of observation on a very diversified field.” And the things she observed! 

“We have seen," she writes, “a young gentleman lift his plate of soup in both hands, hold it to his mouth and drink, or rather lap it up. This was at no other place than Niagara.” Somewhere on a diversified field, she also saw pie eaten with a fork, for she says, “It is an affectation of ultra fashion to eat pie with a fork, and has a very awkward and inconvenient look. Cut it up with your knife and fork, and then proceed to eat it, holding the fork in the right hand.” 

Sweet potatoes were harpooned! “It is customary in eating sweet potatoes of size to break them in two and, taking a piece in your hand, to pierce down to the bottom with your fork and then mix in some butter, continuing to hold it thus while eating it.” And of wine? “On no consideration let any lady take two glasses of champagne. It is more than the head of the American female can bear.” The head of the American female of Eliza Leslie's day, must have been a very light affair, if it really led her into all the misbehavements Miss Leslie deplored. 

From “Deportment at Hotels” one infers she wore party gowns at breakfast, because Miss Leslie says: “It is ungenteel to go to the breakfast table in a costume approaching to full dress,” and definitely states that, “the fashion of wearing black silk mitts at breakfast is now obsolete.” And the way she arrayed herself for journeys! “Dress plainly when traveling, stage roads being very dusty. Showy silks and dress bonnets are preposterous. So are jewelry ornaments, which if real, you run a risk of losing, and, if false, are very ungenteel. Above all, do not travel in white kid gloves. Respectable women never do.” – The Smart Set, San Francisco Call, 1911

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

Collegiate Wisdom in Etiquette

At the woman’s college, every effort will be made to secure a wise decision on points of etiquette!

From  the Women’s Section

“A course of study which was recently introduced in a woman’s college should have an excellent effect. It is that of a systematic study of manners: A council of etiquette is formed, to which mooted questions are submitted, the council not pronouncing judgment until authorities have been consulted and every effort made to secure a wise decision. Papers on relevant topics are prepared and discussed, an effort being made to remove the study from the consideration of minor arbitrary points of etiquette to the broader range of gentle breeding.” – Sacramento Daily Union, 1898

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

A Thanksgiving Etiquette Tale

Circumstances alter cases in matters of etiquette... At the end of the Thanksgiving dinner a few days afterward, Edith was observed looking hopelessly at a last bit of pudding on her plate.

It’s Not So Easy, Edith

Circumstances alter cases in matters of etiquette, as well as in the more important affairs of life. Little Edith, visiting in the country, was much interested in an old lady, who, when a plate of fruit was passed her at an evening party, replied: “Thank you, I don't care for any now, but I should like to put an apple in my pocket to take home.” At the end of the Thanksgiving dinner a few days afterward, Edith was observed looking hopelessly at a last bit of pudding on her plate. “Can't you finish it dear?” asked a sympathetic auntie. “No.” replied she, with a sigh, “Not now, but I should like, if you please, to put it in my pocket to eat this evening.” — Youth’s Companion, 1891

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

French Manners vs American

Comparing the French family reunions with similar affairs at Thanksgiving and Christmas time with us, he said: “There is greater restraint with them than with us, and they do not exhibit the same freedom in throwing off this restraint. There is, however, no cudgeling of brains to find out what to do next, and games are not substituted, as with us, to fill in unoccupied time, of which they are ignorant.” 

Synopsis of a Lecture Recently 
Delivered in New York

“French Manners” was the subject of the lecture by W. C Brownell recently in the Columbia College Saturday morning lectures. The eastern lecture-room in the law school building failed to accommodate the audience. “French conversation,” said Mr. Brownell, “is really conversation, and is practiced for what it is, and not to pass away the time. It is made up of interruptions, and is thus full of epigrams and repartee, is artistic, not utilitarian, and far freer than ours, and is outspoken without being brutal.” 

The speaker, in treating the much discussed question as to the real sincerity of the French people, said: “All are agreed that the French are charming and agreeable, but as to their sincerity we draw the line. They are, however, as sincere as any nation, but it is in a different manner, and includes compliment which never means more than it says, while with us much is inferred from a compliment that is not expressed.” He then spoke of the politeness of the French, and said: “The well-bred man is born, not bred, if the paradox may be permitted. The mass of men have no innate ability for breeding.”

Comparing the French family reunions with similar affairs at Thanksgiving and Christmas time with us, he said: “There is greater restraint with them than with us, and they do not exhibit the same freedom in throwing off this restraint. There is, however, no cudgeling of brains to find out what to do next, and games are not substituted, as with us, to fill in unoccupied time, of which they are ignorant.” — New York Times, 1887

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