Food and Etiquette in the Gilded Age

“A silver-plate cup on a pivotal base was designed with a spiral hook inside, on which an orange could be twisted and firmly held in place as it was rotated, and then eaten with a special knife and spoon. The objects in the show were selected to illustrate a range of styles from simple to ornate. One interesting thing about the exhibition was that it took an object and then showed how elaborate its presentation might have been. Sterling silver and cut glass were used by the upper class while items in pressed glass and silver-plate were used by the middle-class.”
— Photo source Etiquipedia private library 

A Glimpse of Victorian, Middle-Class Dining

In 1873, “The New Cyclopaedia of Domestic Economy and Practical Housekeeper,” a book “adapted to all classes of society,” recommended that a household's inventory of table linen should include three dozen napkins, two-and-a-half-dozen tablecloths of various sizes, six servants’ tablecloths, three dozen towels, six round towels, two dozen napkins “for fish, vegetables and fruit,” six pudding cloths, two dozen damask “d'oylies” and one dozen Berlin wool “d'oylies.”

The list of household necessities was part of “Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America, 1850 to 1900,” an exhibition that was held at the Hudson River museum in 1988, that offered a view of middle-class dining during the second half of the 19th century.

“By the 1850s, the middle-class was rising in numbers, wealth and power and with that came a whole new birth of people with the ability to entertain and to buy more elaborate things,” said Robert Workman, then the curator of 19th century art at the Hudson River Museum. The exhibition showed the whole process of eating and the kind of objects that were used to point out the elaborateness of the ritual.

The exhibition of more than 200 items covered a variety of themes beginning with the rules of etiquette, its importance to the middle-class and how, in response to these rules, different objects for dining and serving evolved. “The Correct Thing in Good Society” an etiquette book published in Boston in 1888, states for example, that “It is the Correct Thing” to “place miniature, ornamental pepper pots, usually of silver, at the four corners of the table, or at each place. While it is not the Correct Thing to place a plate of bread on the table for dinner.”

“Etiquette was very important to middle-class America as a way of anchoring themselves in middle-class society. They needed codes of behavior to know how to behave in all social situations and etiquette provided a sort of reassuring framework.” according to Susan Williams, then curator of Household Accessories and Tablewares at the Strong Museum.

“The impact of new technologies-such as in food processing, meatpacking, refrigeration and rapid transportation-and their relation to food, menu planning and serving implements was also explored. As more foods became available, their status was often reflected by the utensils designed for their service and display. If you look at the implements, you can make some assumptions about the value people placed on certain types of foods.

A blown and engraved footed glass vase for serving celery for example, and a glass and silverplate sardine box and sterling silver sardine server decorated with fish motifs, gives an indication of the regard held for foods now common place, that were once considered rare and unique. “When celery was a high status food, it was displayed high on the table; as it became widely available, it was relegated to low, flat dishes.” Ms. Williams said.

Similarly, a silver-plate cup on a pivotal base was designed with a spiral hook inside, on which an orange could be twisted and firmly held in place as it was rotated, and then eaten with a special knife and spoon. The objects in the show were selected to illustrate a range of styles from simple to ornate. One interesting thing about the exhibition was that it took an object and then showed how elaborate its presentation might have been. Sterling silver and cut glass were used by the upper class while items in pressed glass and silver-plate were used by the middle-class.  — Portions of this are from an article published in the New York Times, April 3, 1988

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

Gilded Age Swell Dinner Etiquette

Two different Victorian silver orange servers. One holds a half of an orange with two silver “pins” on chains. The other has silver “spikes” with which to twist the half of the orange onto to hold in place — “Pears and apples are peeled with a silver knife, cut in quarters and eaten with the fingers. Grapes should be eaten from behind the half-closed hand, the stones and skins falling into the fingers unobserved and thence to the plate. Oranges are eaten with a spoon. Salad is eaten with a fork, but needs a knife to cut large leaves that have not been divided before serving. Cheese is eaten with a fork, though soft cheeses are spread on a bit of cracker or bread and conveyed to the mouth by the fingers.”

One may be refined and elegant, yet unless continually given over to a round of social entertaining, may find one’s self at a loss when invited to some swell dinner where the latest fads are observed and more ceremonious etiquette required than for informal affairs just among the family. On elegant tables each plate is accompanied by two large silver knives, a small silver knife and fork for fish, a small fork for oysters, a tablespoon for soup and three large forks.

The napkin is folded in the center with a piece of bread upon it. As the courses are served, the knives and forks and spoons that have been used, are removed with the plate. Fish should be eaten with a silver fork, and if full of bones, needs the use of the knife, as well. For sweet breads, cutlets, roast beef, etc., the knife is also necessary, but for croquettes, rissoles, bondies à la Reine, timbales and dishes of that class, the fork is required.

When dessert is reached, everything save the tablecloth and floral decorations, is removed. A dessert plate with a small silver spoon, a dessert spoon and fork and sometimes a combination fork and spoon for ices, are placed before each guest. Pears and apples are peeled with a silver knife, cut in quarters and eaten with the fingers. Grapes should be eaten from behind the half-closed hand, the stones and skins falling into the fingers unobserved and thence to the plate. Oranges are eaten with a spoon. Salad is eaten with a fork, but needs a knife to cut large leaves that have not been divided before serving. Cheese is eaten with a fork, though soft cheeses are spread on a bit of cracker or bread and conveyed to the mouth by the fingers.

Salt-cellars are now placed at each plate, and it is not improper to take salt with the knife. If sorbets are served before the game, a dessert spoon accompanies them, but it is not among the original number placed on the table The small after dinner coffee spoon is used with the tiny cups of the black beverage that concludes all dinners. The spoon is the most dangerous implement of the dinner, so far as its correct usage is concerned. Soup is always taken taken from the side and is eaten noiselessly. To push the spoon into the mouth either end first or otherwise, is decidedly vulgar. — Philadelphia Times, 1894

Several different Victorian silver orange servers Were patented in the Gilded Age. This one from 1895 holds a half of an orange with two silver “pins” on chains.

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

Etiquette, Oranges and Winter Holidays

“The stocking in which the Christmas treasures of our small boys and little girls are placed is capacious enough to satisfy any reasonable child, while it is not so large as to overtax the pockets or energies of parents. Could the same sort of stocking be imported and acclimated in New England and the West, Christmas trees would no longer have any excuse for being, and the stocking would be universally accepted as precisely the thing needed to fill every household with juvenile happiness on Christmas morning.” Life Magaxine, 1883

“In the nineteenth century, poor children dreamed all the year round of getting the precious, scented present of an orange for Christmas. Most of them did not know what an orange tasted like, or even if they would dare eat that golden, almost magical fruit.” - www.foodtimeline.org 

Why give oranges at Christmas?

Food historians trace the practice of proferring fresh fruit gifts for major celebrations to ancient times. These exquisite, perishable objects were expensive and reflected the giver's wealth and status. Indeed, before the age of speedy transportation and reliable refrigeration, fresh citrus fruit was out of reach of the average person. As time progressed, fresh fruit out of season (including oranges in Northern Europe and/or North America) was possible, but still rare. This made these items perfect Christmas gifts. Today, when oranges are inexpensive and readily available throughout the year, this little history tidbit is overlooked. A child today who encounters an orange at the toe of his Christmas stocking is unlikely to appreciate the message unless someone takes the time to share the history.

Special utensils and holders for eating and serving oranges were a sign of wealth in the Victorian era... “In these days of modern refrigeration and air-shipped produce, we tend to take perishable items for granted. But oranges and other citrus fruits were once a precious luxury in Europe and North America, enjoyed for only a brief period each year. Bright, sunny, and bursting with fragrant juice, oranges, clementines, mandarins, and other citrus made welcome Christmas gifts, especially in the midst of cold winter.” – www.spruceeats.com

"Strange and exotic fruits had begun to reach Britain...through trade with southern Europe where oranges, lemons and pomegranates were cultivated. The original home of the citrus fruits lay in northern India. They had been known to the Romans under the name of "Median apples', having apparently arrived from Persia; and their juice had been used as a medicine, and occasionally also to sharpen the tang of vinegar...The first Englishmen to enjoy oranges, lemons and 'Adams apples'... were probably crusaders who wintered with Richard Coure-de-Lion in the fruit groves around Jaffa in 1191-2. About a hundred years later citrus fruits had begun to arrive in England itself...

Also on the spice ships from southern Europe came great raisins, 'raisins of Corinth' or currants...prunes, figs and dates. All were consumed in vast quantities by the well-to-do, for the sweetness of dried fruits was greately appreciated while sugar was still rare and expensive. Poorer people ate them principally in festive pottages and pies during the twelve days of Christmas, but the rich enjoyed them at other times , too." — From “Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century,“ C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago IL] 1991 (p. 332-4)

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