Gilded Age Efficiency in Table Manners

A gilded age, gilt and sterling “patty server” by Towle. It is often mistakenly identified as a “croquette server” – “As some newly rich Americans worked to appear at home in unfamiliar social circumstances by copying wealthy habits, sometimes exceeding old wealth in ostentation and display, a lively discussion played out about the relationship between upper-class consumption and identity. What was authentically fine and high? What was vulgar, ostentatious, and false? How could you tell the difference?”
– From the book, From “Food in the American Gilded Age”

Late nineteenth-century etiquette made an art form out of ignorance about and removal from the production of food. Good table manners meant demonstrating a tangible distance from the hard labor involved in all stages of getting food to the table: removal from the sweat and manure of the farmyard, from dusty miles of transportation, from the steam and splattering grease of the kitchen. In fact, middle-class Americans in all sorts of realms came to define themselves by this very distance from manual labor; one major class distinction that emerged during the nineteenth century was that middle class women and children did not work for wages.

Table etiquette replicated this distance in miniature in nearly every command, from orders about the way to spoon soup away from the body to the physical distance necessary between plates and laps to the necessity of seeming to be unconcerned about spills or accidents. Middle- and upper-class Americans at table worked hard to maintain attitudes of leisure and nonchalance.

In an era when many Americans enthusiastically associated progress with efficiency, table manners of the era were conspicuously antiefficient. While it would be more efficient to load up a fork while still chewing the previous mouthful, for instance, etiquette writers insisted that one should never put food on the fork until one had quietly swallowed. Likewise, writers warned it was rude to blow on or to stir soup or hot drinks. Instead, they advised, simply wait while the liquids slowly cooled.

Even the famous injunction against eating with the knife was antiefficient since it required American eaters to switch the fork and knife from right to left hand every time the eater wished to cut off a bite of food. Eating slowly and quietly not only de-emphasized the labor of eating, but it also visibly demonstrated physical self-restraint.

As some newly rich Americans worked to appear at home in unfamiliar social circumstances by copying wealthy habits, sometimes exceeding old wealth in ostentation and display, a lively discussion played out about the relationship between upper-class consumption and identity. What was authentically fine and high? What was vulgar, ostentatious, and false? How could you tell the difference? By the turn of the century, uncertainty on these points-and tensions surrounding them—would contribute to the decline of the most extravagant Gilded Age habits.— From “Food in the American Gilded Age,” Edited by Helen Zoe Veit

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

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

Gilded Age Meals and Etiquette

The diagram above was for the placement of silver at a regular, family breakfast in the Gilded Age. A “Breakfast Party” was another type of breakfast altogether — “… a breakfast party was an enormous meal with six or seven courses, various kinds of meats and fish, a variety of breads and pastries, and at least one or two different wines.” 

On the Gilded Age Cookbook by Mrs. Mary F. Henderson, “Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving,” of 1877

Based on her sample menus, a breakfast party was an enormous meal with six or seven courses, various kinds of meats and fish, a variety of breads and pastries, and at least one or two different wines. Lunches were even more elaborate and alcohol-soaked. For example, one of Henderson’s lunch menus — a twelve-course ladies’ lunch — had three different alcoholic drinks (milk punch, claret, and champagne), and such disconcerting details as a course of chocolate (probably hot chocolate) with whipped cream, served in between courses of beef fillet and spinach on tongue. Even while describing such abundance, Henderson found ways to make clear that nothing was terribly grand by her standards. 

For instance, after outlining the intricate steps involved in making preparations for a formal, multi-course dinner, she wrote offhandedly, “one can see that it requires very little trouble to serve the dinner . . . It is a simple routine.” She went on to refer blandly to the possibility of stamping personalized menu cards with a family crest and to entertaining “foreign embassadors.” In calling such advice “practical” and such elaborate preparations “simple,” Henderson emphasized her own privilege by making it clear that, for her, having vast resources, sophisticated connections, and a staff of servants to command was absolutely ordinary. — From “Food in the American Gilded Age,” Edited by Helen Zoe Veit

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

Gilded Age Etiquette of Stemware Placement

Diagram illustrating how to arrange glasses in a formal table setting from Fanny Gillette, The White House Cook Book: A Selection of Choice Recipes Original and Selected (Chicago: R. S. Peale and Co., 1887), 467, Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries. — Etiquipedia fails to see how this setting would not simply invite stemware numbered I, II and III to fall to the floor, as the plate is properly placed an inch from the table’s edge. It’s the most confusing diagram we have ever seen for stemware.

Besides the cost of the food itself, another major obstacle to hosting a formal dinner in the Gilded Age was the number of use-specific dishes and utensils thought to be necessary. Wealthy households in this era had mammoth holdings of dishes, cutlery, and glassware. 

Fanny Gillette’s Diagram Illustrating How to Arrange Glasses on the Table at Each Setting

A –  PLATE
I  –   Glass for Sauterne
II –   Glass for Sherry
III–  Glass for Rhine Wine
IV –  Glass for Water
V –   Glass for Champagne
VI –  Glass for Burgundy

Note: Etiquipedia fails to see how this setting would not simply invite stemware numbered I, II and III to fall to the floor, as the plate is properly placed an inch from the table’s edge. It’s the most confusing diagram we have ever seen for stemware. We do often marvel at how graphic artists of that period often get their subjects incorrect when it came to the drawings for patents. It’s possible the artist misunderstood the written directions and the artwork was never checked. We’ll probably never know, however, we do not recommend this as proper placement.

 

— From “Food in the American Gilded Age,” Edited by Helen Zoe Veit

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

Gilded Age Dining Aesthetics Etiquette

Decorative arrangements of food were the height of fashion at elite tables in the Gilded Age, such as this dish of diced, sugared pineapple surrounded by slices of sponge cake. Henderson recommended this elaborate arrangement not only for its aesthetic value, but also because otherwise she found imported pineapples which often arrived in the American Northeast the worse for wear to be tough and tasteless. From Mrs. Mary F. Henderson, Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving (New York: Harper and Bros., 1877), 339, Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries

Growing material prosperity meant that some people had the luxury to think more about food's visual aesthetics than ever before. For instance, Mrs. Peter White advised soaking pickles with grape leaves to turn them green, or adding a whopping half pound of turmeric to turn them yellow. Mary Henderson commented that raw oysters served in a block of ice created “a pretty effect in the gas-light.” Food and entertaining writers also obsessed over the importance of a clean, appealing table. “Too much can not be said as to the pleasant effect of a dinner,” Henderson wrote, “when the table-linen is of spotless purity, and the dishes and silver are perfectly bright.” Dietary reformers studying poor American eating eagerly praised one family that, under their influence, began setting their table with a white tablecloth, in contrast to other “slovenly and shiftless” families whose lack of civilization, as reformers saw it, was reflected in their lack of interest “in the appearance of their homes and tables.”

Another aesthetic consideration was noise, and middle-class writers believed the less of it the better. Etiquette writers condemned loud breathing, noisy chewing, and slurping of any kind, and they reminded diners not to clatter their silverware or scrape their chairs. Herrick praised a restaurant for its “noiseless serving,” while Henderson suggested that a thick mat should be placed under the tablecloth to muffle the sound of moving dishes and that servants should wear slippers to minimize the sound of their footfalls. Commentators prized quiet at the table because it indicated that eaters were self-controlled and servants were well trained. — From “Food in the American Gilded Age,” Edited by Helen Zoe Veit

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