Brief History on Youth or Tea Utensils

Were this knife and fork for a child? Or for tea? – “As the family service increased in complexity, these smaller versions of the knife, the fork, and the spoon sometimes assumed dual roles in the catalogs and price lists of the silver firms, for, with no additional investment in dies, a separate listing enabled the manufacturer to increase the number of pieces he offered. Thus the child-size spoon was sometimes listed also as a "Five o'Clock Tea," an "Egg Spoon," Or an "English Tea"; the child's fork as a "Tea Fork," "Beef Fork," or "Fruit Fork"; and the knife with a flat, solid handle as a "Tea Knife" as well as a juvenile piece.”

"Every man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth" has been a common explanation for uneven economic progress ever since Miguel de Cervantes wrote the line in Don Quixote in the 15th century, but it was left to the mid-Victorian silver manufacturers to reduce the statement to a mathematical formula. In an advertisement featuring Sterling Birthday Spoons, addressed to the jewelry trade at the turn of the century, R. Wallace & Son pointed out that "6000 babies are born each day-15% get silver spoons at birth." 

Silverware for children was not new to America; in a will dated April 18, 1726, the Reverend Timothy Stevens of Glastonbury, Connecticut, bequeathed "...to my son Joseph . .. three silver spoons, one of them to be a small or babe spoon, as it is called," and to his son Benjamin, among other things, three silver spoons, one of them to be a child's spoon.

"But it was only after the mid-1800s that plated and solid silver became common for the perambulator-to-prep-school set. Practically every manufacturer has made "Child's Sets" in all of the standard silverware patterns. Consisting, at first, of a small knife, fork, and spoon, the sets were available in almost every price range after the late 1860s. Some were elaborately packaged in satin-lined boxes; the less expensive plated sets were often mounted on lithographed cards, the cards themselves rivaling early Valentines in elaborate depictions of decorous childhood.

By the 1880s, a cup or mug, and a matching napkin ring, had been added to many of these sets, and it was an under-privileged child who had not received his own silverware by the time he joined the rest of the family at the dinner table. As the family service increased in complexity, these smaller versions of the knife, the fork, and the spoon sometimes assumed dual roles in the catalogs and price lists of the silver firms, for, with no additional investment in dies, a separate listing enabled the manufacturer to increase the number of pieces he offered. Thus the child-size spoon was sometimes listed also as a "Five o'Clock Tea," an "Egg Spoon," Or an "English Tea"; the child's fork as a "Tea Fork," "Beef Fork," or "Fruit Fork"; and the knife with a flat, solid handle as a "Tea Knife" as well as a juvenile piece. 

In the electroplated lines of better quality, a choice of a solid-handle knife or one with a hollow handle was usually offered; in the solid-silver lines, the hollow-handle knife was generally standard, although sets in which a flat-handled knife was mated with a small fork and spoon were offered by some companies. – American Silver Flatware 1837-1910, Noel D. Turner

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

Gilded Age Luncheon Etiquette

“If you cannot afford salad and dessert, choose the former by all means. The happiest closing to a real good dinner is a crisp salad well dressed, served with a bit of cheese and bread and butter or toasted cracker.” – Sarah Tyson Rorer, 1898 — Image of Towle lettuce serving fork and a matching Towle lettuce serving spoon, sitting alongside an individual Towle salad fork. All 3 feature gilding on the functional ends. Salad forks did not exist prior to 1885, making them creations of the Gilded Age.

It is well for people living in the country, and with a certain degree of style, to study up the methods of making salads and cold dishes, for these come in so admirably for luncheon that they often save a hostess great mortification. By attention to small details a very humble repast may be most elegant. 

A silver bread-basket for the thin slices of bread, a pretty cheese-dish, a napkin around the cheese, pats of butter in a pretty dish, flowers in vases, fruits neatly served— these things cost little, but they add a zest to the pleasures of the table.—From “Manners and Social Usages,” by Mrs. John Sherwood, 1884

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

Gilded Age Macaroni and Servers

When people hear the word, “Macaroni,” most people think, “and cheese!” But during the Gilded Age, macaroni (in a variety of forms) was a very popular side dish, even at formal dinners. Numerous recipes for macaroni can be found in cookbooks of the late-19th century. To demonstrate just how popular macaroni was, take a look at these large gilded, macaroni servers from the time period. Only the most popular of foods had utensils designed for serving and eating them at the time. These two are excellent examples. The following article is how macaroni got its name.
—Photo source, Etiquipedia private image library 

Macaroni is a favorite dish with many people, and its manufacture an important industry in many Italian and French cities. It is a wheaten paste, prepared in the form of hollow tubes of different diameters, and is served at dinners in various styles for entrees or desserts. It is said to have had its birth and christening in Sicily in this way:

Once upon a time a wealthy noble of Palermo owned a cook not only accomplished beyond compare in the practice of his profession, but gifted by nature with an inventive genius. One day, in a rapture of culinary composition, this great artist devised the farinaceous tubes which all love so well, and the succulent accessories of rich sauce and grated parmesan, familiar to those who have partaken of “macaroni alsogo” in South Italy. 

Having filled a mighty china bowl with this delicious compound, he set it be fore his Lord— a gourmand of the first order — and stood by, in deferential attitude, to watch the effect of his experiment. The first mouthful elicited the ejaculation, “Cari,” idiomatically equivalent to “excellent” in English, from the illustrious epicure. 

After swallowing a second modicum he exclaimed “Ma cari,” or, “Excellent indeed.” Presently, as the flavor of the toothsome mess grew upon him, his enthusiasm rose to even higher flights, and he cried out, in a voice tremulous with joyful emotion, “Ma, caroni!— Indeed, most supremely, sublimely, superlatively excellent!” 

In paying this verbal tribute to the merits of his cook’s discovery he unwittingly bestowed a name upon that admirable preparation which has stuck to it ever since.—Golden Argosy, 1888

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