Gilded Age Fork Etiquette and Fashions

Four of the rarest forks you may see, these 4 “patty forks’ were only made for a brief period in the Gilded Age. Like mango forks, many collectors do not even realize these types of were created. Towle Silversmith’s did create a “Patty Server” but only Gorham made “patty forks.”
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These are in the 1888 Versailles pattern by Gorham. These are fully gilded, which is unusual. To Etiquipedia’s knowledge, patty forks were only made in 3 patterns, though there may be more. We have only seen them listed in the Chantilly, Luxembourg and Versailles patterns from the 1890’s to very early 1900’s.

A 2nd debut article from 2016

Eating olives with proper etiquette was a particular form of art—it was rumored that one imposter nobleman in France in the 1800s was recognized as a fraud by the way he ate his olives. The accused barbarian dared to eat his olives with a regular fork, instead of locating a proper olive fork—one which was designed with tiny, appropriately-sized tines.

Forks come in all shapes and sizes. Specialized designs for flatware exploded in number during the Victorian Era. In a panic to keep up with the latest serveware, aspiring couples accumulated a ridiculous number of pieces of cutlery. It was all a reflection of the culture at the time, which equated abstruse formal dining rules and etiquette with civilized society.

This was especially the case in America, where status wasn't as set in stone as in Europe. In the younger nation, social standing for the upwardly mobile was far more dependent on displays of wealth and class through, among other things, hosting and attending formal dinner parties. 

As formal dining evolved, so did the demand for increasingly nuanced (and perhaps absurd) silverware, resulting in giant horizontal tongs for asparagus, tiny yard-rake-like implements for spearing whole sardines, and a hybrid knife-fork for convenience in slicing and eating pie.

A gilded age variation on the original pie forks.

The pie fork, unlike some other Victorian cutlery, can be praised for its usefulness. The left side of the fork features a thick, sharp-edged tine for slicing into pie or tarts, but blunt ends for using the fork to eat the pie as you would a normal fork. – Saveur Magazine, 2016

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

Table Crumbs and Tabletop Antiques

Throughout the latter part of the 19th C., through the Gilded Age and the very early part of the 20th C., sterling flatware designers, silver companies and even a few knowledgeable jewelers, changed names of sterling utensils, the utensil designs occasionally, and renamed designs of utensils to suit regional tastes and even the personal food preferences of customers. Many utensils we know today, like steak knives or grapefruit spoons, started out with different names and they had different purposes, which Etiquipedia has highlighted before in posts – “Grapefruit spoons” were originally “orange spoons”, “steak knives” were originally “bird knives”, etc…. I have long suspected that this practice went on even more with silver plated utensils, as they were less expensive to work with and experiment on.

This image above shows an ice cream server hidden in the back of the ad, and a larger version of the same utensil, shown at the bottom of the page, is listed as a table *“crumber.” This image and text is from the book, “Collector’s Handbook for Grape Nuts” by Susie MacLachlan, 1970. When I first saw this book I assumed it was a cookbook for lovers of Grape Nuts cereal. I was stunned when I opened it to find that it is a book written for flatware collectors, especially for those who are nuts for the silver plated pattens, Vintage and Moselle, which feature lovely grapes in their designs.

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* Table Crumbing Etiquette: The cake looks inviting, but the salt and pepper? Not as much. The shakers should have been removed along with the crumbs. Tables should be crumbed after a meal, prior to when the dessert or fruit and cheese is served. When the table is crumbed, the salts, peppers and any other superfluous items and wines from previous courses should be removed, as well. It makes the dessert, sweets, fruit, cheeses, or other final courses look much more appetizing when the dinner table “extras” have been removed.

There it is, in the upper left corner of this old picture from a 1910 Home Journal, hiding behind the soup ladle. The newsletter was sent to me from Michigan by a friend, Louise Pursley. I tried to photo copy it, but it didn't reproduce well, so I went to the source. I bought the original article from Margaret Alves for the grand sum of $2.00, and got her blessing as well. Talk about bargains.

A number of factors make grape collecting confusing - but fascinating. From 1904 to 1918 pieces were redesigned, renamed or possibly even changed in size. Special orders combined parts of different pieces, and manufacturers freely swapped blanks, inserts and brand names.

Margaret Alves, editor of the Stirring Souvenir Spoon Newsletter, said above item “looks like a crumber or table scraper to me.”

Bill Bliss sent a book listing it as a "Portland Fish Serving Knife." The next day I bought the one pictured at a local shop! Bill also mentioned a variation in a 1915 catalog-an “Ice Cream Server HH” with the neck portion about one inch longer, and blade slightly wider.

Ed Hogan said manufacturers were "quite willing" to supply their standard patterns, and even blade and bowl inserts to their flatware lines for special orders.

Over the time span pieces became less ornate. Clay Crousen said they were ‘simplified and redesigned,” adding that size differences may have been created in the change.

VINTAGE

A. Hollow Handled ICE CREAM SERVER OR SLICER, 13"

$7.00-$40.00

No catalog number. Fish Knife

Original WHOLESALE

price $3.50

No catalog number. Fish Knife, H. H.

Original WHOLESALE price

$4.50

B. PORTLAND FISH KNIFE (FLAT), 12"

$7.00-$40.00

No catalog number. Ice Cream Server

Original WHOLESALE price $4.50

– From the book, “Collector’s Handbook for Grape Nuts” by Susie MacLachlan, 1970

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

Fork History: From France to the U.S.

An individual Gorham, Chantilly pattern “bird set” for carving duck, quail or Cornish game hen-sized, individual birds. – Writing in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1868, James Parton explained: “From spoons, Jabez Gorham advanced to fruit knives, butter knives, thimbles, napkin rings and combs– the only articles commonly made by American silversmiths thirty years ago. Silver forks were then scarcely known in the United States. They had been an article of luxury among the nobility of France for a century or more, and had been introduced from that country into England; but in the United States, as recently as 1835, their use was confined to persons who possessed considerable wealth.

When Charles Lutwidge Dodson, under his pseudonym of Lewis Carroll, wrote the line, "They pursued it with forks and hope," he attributed it to the mild-mannered baker who was hunting the Snark to serve with greens. He might well have used the same line to describe the plight of many guests at contemporary Victorian dinners, where stern, social orthodoxy decreed that "a knife or spoon is never used when a fork will suffice." Judged by the controversy that raged through the press of the time, many of the guests relied more on hope than on the implement as they pursued ice cream, berries, and other elusive foods with the correct but ill-adapted fork.

But the arbiters of fashion were not alone responsible for the changing patterns of etiquette that brought a bewildering array of forks and spoons and knives to the late Victorian table; changing patterns of eating and entertaining, rapidly altering economic and social conditions, even an increasing abundance and availability of many foods, contributed to the new concept of the art of dining.

At the beginning of the Victorian period, silver services were comparatively simple, as was serving at the table. In the section devoted to "Furniture of the Table" in The American Chesterfield, published in 1828 in Philadelphia by John Grigg, the following extract describes table setting in a fashionable house:

• Every person at table should be provided with knife and fork, plate, bread, etc… and, before every meat dish, a carving knife, fork and spoon; and a spoon before every dish of vegetables. 
• At the corners of the table, spoons, a salt cellar, and small spoon for the salt; and, if pickles are there placed, a small knife and fork. 
• If the table is large, the furniture of the corners should likewise be placed at short and convenient intervals. It has lately become common, in our Atlantic towns, and particularly at tables where light wines are used with water as a long drink, to place, at convenient distances around the table, bottles of Sauterne, Claret or other light wine (the corks slightly drawn and inserted slightly in the bottle) and goblets of water. 
• This is found, by experience, to be an admirable arrangement for convenience, and gives the waiters more time to attend, among other duties, to the frequent changes of plates which modern refinement has introduced.
• On the sideboard should be arranged, in order, all those articles of furniture which are necessary for the tableThese are, the great supplies of knives and forks, plates of different sizes, spoons, bread, etc…, etc… but, in a particular manner, the castors. 
• These should always consist of five bottles, at least; viz; cayenne pepper, black pepper, mustard, vinegar and sweet oil. Let the castors be filled -not half filled-with condiments of good quality, that is, the sweet oil not rancid, nor the vinegar sweet, nor the pepper in grains like hailstones, nor the mustard stale; and one word more, madame, before we dismiss the castors-a little spoon for the mustard, though it be of wood-and-and-remember the salt spoons.

After a word of caution regarding industry among servants, and a discussion of the rules of waiting, The American Chesterfield continues:

• If there is soup for dinner, according to the number of the company, lay each person a flat plate, and a soup plate over it; a napkin, fork, knife and spoon; and to place the chairs. If there is no soup, the soup plate may be omitted.

There can be no doubt that The American Chesterfield was directed toward the sons of American families of established wealth and position; that is made clear by the references to forks in the table settings. Writing in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1868, James Parton explained:

“From spoons, Jabez Gorham advanced to fruit knives, butter knives, thimbles, napkin rings and combs– the only articles commonly made by American silversmiths thirty years ago. Silver forks were then scarcely known in the United States. They had been an article of luxury among the nobility of France for a century or more, and had been introduced from that country into England; but in the United States, as recently as 1835, their use was confined to persons who possessed considerable wealth. They were not common at that time in any but the best hotels, and not one person in ten had ever seen them used.” — American Silver Flatware… 1837-1910, Noel D. Turner

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