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

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When One Queen “Cut” Another

“If Margaret had been a person of great length and breadth of vision, of surpassing sweetness of temper or of real tact, she would have gone to see the Queen and looked her prettiest, though she would have liked to scratch her eyes out.” MEOW!!

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Queen Margaret (Margherita) was the Queen consort of the Kingdom of Italy from 1878 to 1900, by her marriage to Umberto I (Humbert). –Public domain image of Margherita of Savoy, Queen of Italy

A LADY OR A TIGER… WHICH?

Society circles as well as Court circles in Europe are seriously concerned over the Florence episode of a few days ago. It seems that Queen Victoria, who was staying at Florence for a season, received a call from King Humbert, but not from Queen Margaret, nor did the latter even send a message or a token of any sort to the Empress of India. It now turns out that this curious cut was all on account of a failure of Victoria to return a call made upon her by Queen Margaret five years ago. Time heals all hurts but those of wounded pride. Such wounds never wholly heal —in the case of women, at least. Men get over such things, but women never. It may even be doubted if time is even a mollifier of this sort of wound, with women who have abundant leisure, and therefore opportunity for reflecting upon the small, as well as, the great things of life.

We are sorry for Margaret, for the great woman knows about the particulars of what happened to her five years ago, when she went over to London to do her fall shopping. At best, most people will say it was small business not to call on so distinguished a person who had come to honor the city of Florence with her presence, whatever might possibly be urged concerning the strictest etiquette in the case. Besides, Victoria is very old, was a mighty sovereign before Margaret was through vulgar fractions, and is also about to retire forever from the gaze of the public, and deserved especial consideration on that account. 

Goethe, who spent many of his early years at Court, declared that true politeness made it important and necessary to exhibit and embellish trifles even to the building them into a system of behavior. This must often demand the finest sense of what is safest to avoid, as well as what to do, and insist upon others doing. If Margaret had been a person of great length and breadth of vision, of surpassing sweetness of temper or of real tact, she would have gone to see the Queen and looked her prettiest, though she would have liked to scratch her eyes out. Or if Humbert had occupied the place in that family that a man should occupy, he would have just dragged his wife over to call. We are sorry for Margaret. – Los Angeles Herald, 1893

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

Italian Country Life Etiquette (1882)

The balls are not select; even the peasants are included; and the price of admission is only one sou. There is every variety of class and costume. Some of the ladies will appear masked; other in what they fondly imagine to be the height of fashion; some in evening and some in morning dress, and some in a happy mixture of both. One will wear a low gown and her best bonnet; another will carry in addition to fan and smelling bottle, her muff. The band plays on a raised scaffolding. — At the Fancy Dress Ball of 1893

Amusements in Italian Country Life

There is always a band, often very good, and there is generally a theatre, where, during the carnival, some sort of dramatic representation takes place, and the theatre serves also for a ballroom; then there are the fairs, which make a rendezvous for all classes, and. at the risk of appearing irreverent, I must include processions among the entertainments. 

Italian amateur actors are infinitely better than English. To simulate emotion, to speak distinctly, to suit the action to the word all this comes naturally to them. A great many are born actors and actresses, and display their talents freely off the stage; for the exhibition of feeling is thought so proper and becoming that they feign it where they have it not. To weep at every parting, even with the most casual acquaintance, is thought a point of etiquette, and the art of pumping up tears at will is one of the first to be acquired. 

Knowing the amount of pain and rehearsing necessary to get up private theatricals in England with any success, I was surprised at the facility with which the dullest and most uneducated Italian would learn and recite his art, and with what grace and what effect each point would be given. He never mumbles, or looks as if he didn t know what to do with his arms and legs, or appear to be wondering why he is making such a ridiculous fool of himself, as is the way of the English amateur. 

The balls are not select; even the peasants are included; and the price of admission is only one sou. There is every variety of class and costume. Some of the ladies will appear masked; other in what they fondly imagine to be the height of fashion; some in evening and some in morning dress, and some in a happy mixture of both. One will wear a low gown and her best bonnet; another will carry in addition to fan and smelling bottle, her muff. The band plays on a raised scaffolding. 

Musicians and dancers cannot agree, “Do you know what it is yon are playing ?” is occasionally shouted from below. “Do you know what it is you are dancing ?” is the tu quoque from above. More lively banter follows, ending perhaps, in a quarrel. The musicians strike work; the dancers reply that does not matter; but it ends in a reconciliation, and all goes on as before. The peasants prefer dancing in the open air. The only dance known to them in these parts is the “salterello.”  The man and woman dance opposite one another, she looking as if she must fall forward, and he backward. Hands are sometime joined; but this is thought bad form by the peasant aristocracy. 

Two or three fiddlers play a monotonous, bagpipe like tune, which is occasionally enlivened by a shout and gust of song. Then an “improvisatore” will be inspired by bis muse, and, like some clergymen who preach extempore, has a difficulty in leaving off. The energy which the peasants display after a hard day's reaping under a burning sun seems amazing, but Italians, though some times averse to work, never tire of their amusements. 

The band plays an important part in all festivities. During a wedding it will play operatic music inside the church; it brings up the rear in all processions; it celebrates the “Befana” (Epiphany) by going about, much as our “waits,” do, from house to house, and, like the “waits,” it is apt to become a nuisance. On occasion such as a birth, or a christening, or an electoral triumph, or the return from a journey, we have suffered much from the midnight serenade of a particularly zealous band belonging to a neighboring village. –The Cornhill Magazine, 1882

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

19th C. Florentine Ball Etiquette

To the stranger in Italian society, a fashionable ball in this city of beauty and art presents many phases of social etiquette, at once novel and picturesque. The invitation consists of an ordinary card with “At Home” written or printed in one corner, with the hour, probably 9 or 10 o'clock.

— photo source, Pinterest  

Habits and Manners of Florentine Ladies of Fashion

To the stranger in Italian society, a fashionable ball in this city of beauty and art presents many phases of social etiquette, at once novel and picturesque. The invitation consists of an ordinary card with “At Home” written or printed in one corner, with the hour, probably 9 or 10 o'clock. On the guest's arrival, even as late as 11 o'clock he is handed “No. 2,” for his carriage. Ladies and gentlemen are alike ushered into a great hall or ante-chamber, sometimes on the ground floor, sometimes on the first, and are waited on by the same attendants, and the fleecy delicate wraps of ladies are arranged beside the rougher garments of the sterner sex. 

There is seldom a mirror before which a belle can pose and exasperate her escort by detaining him in the draughts of the corridor, to take the chances of catching a severe cold. Next, ascent is made by an immensely wide, carpeted stairway, bordered on either side by a wall of blooming azalea and japonica trees, such as are only seen elsewhere at the great balls in Paris, to the drawing-room door, where the host and hostess are always in waiting to welcome their guests, who, on being received, pass along to explore the line of brilliantly lighted salons before the crowd fills them, or seat themselves in a feminine row against the wall, to observe and criticise the guests us they arrive. 

Ices, syrups, cakes, and tea and sandwiches are dispensed from a table or buffet in the dining-room until supper is served, by a throng of gaily liveried lackeys, and refreshments are never expected to be furnished beyond the dining-room door. A bottle of champagne is placed at each plate, as was the custom at the Tuileries, at those grand entertainments given by Napoleon III. A smoking-room is open the entire evening, and as much frequented by ladies as gentlemen. 

When I first saw this, it nearly took my breath away; I don't mean the smoke, which was dense, however; but I was appalled at a custom that has become too familiar in Europe to create surprise, except among strangers. One English lady of high social rank even brought her cigarette out into the drawing-room, aud puffed away among the dancers, entirely at ease and exciting no comment whatever. After the supper and during cotillion, refreshments are passed around and partaken of freely, and at 8 or later in the morning, a hot breakfast refreshes the guests, whose carriages have been ordered at 10, or in some cases, not until noon.— Florence Letter to the New York Tribune, 1881

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

Italian Hand Kiss Etiquette

An Italian man kisses the right hand of his mother, aunt or elderly friend and the left hand of his sweetheart.

If the woman who visits Rome wishes to follow tradition and “do as the Romans do,” she will be careful never to take her escort’s arm in a Catholic church. Indeed, the guides instruct those who stroll innocently arm in arm about St. Peter’s looking at the pictures, frescoes and altars of that wonderful cathedral, that they are committing an impropriety. Italians are very particular about the etiquette of kissing the hand. 

A man kisses the right hand of his mother, aunt or elderly friend and the left hand of his sweetheart. It is not permitted him to kiss the palm of the hand except in great and affectionate intimacy. It is regarded as a token that he is very much in love. Upon arriving at a formal dinner a gentleman takes the hand of his hostess and bends low over it as if about to kiss it, but does not do so. After dinner etiquette demands that he take her hand again and kiss it. —New York World, 1893

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

Etiquette and Ambassadorial Skills

Isaac Wayne MacVeagh was an American politician and diplomat. He was the Ambassador to Italy from March 1894 to March 1897, when King Humberto I reigned. The best Ambassadors keep abreast of not only a country’s current events, but the preferences and pleasures of its Monarch, Prime Minister or President. Following news feeds would have given Ambassador MacVeagh the following news nugget – “King Humberto of Italy has so great an affection for custards, and very sweet ones at that, that he will get up in the night to partake of one. To vary the custard eaten by ordinary mortals, however, this Royal personage has his flavored with tea.”

Ambassador MacVeagh
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King Humberto Gives Him a Cordial Welcome 

Rome, March 11– The Honorable Wayne MacVeagh, Ambassador to Italy, was given a cordial welcome and an audience this afternoon by King Humberto. In conformity with Italian court etiquette, no speeches were delivered. Mr. MacVeagh and his party returned to the Grand Hotel in the state carriages. Every ceremony due the high rank of the American Ambassador was paid to him. – Los Angeles Herald, 1894

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

Etiquette and a Royal Alpine Hostess

The Italian Alps (above) – “The Queen was overtaken by a severe snowstorm, which obliged her and her few attendants to take refuge in a hut belonging to the Alpine Club, which was soon full of climbers of all nationalities, who, when they knew who she was, at once offered to leave the humble quarters entirely at her disposal. “On no account,” exclaimed the Queen, “the hut must do for all. I am the hostess, and we will spend the night as comfortably as we can.”

Margherita on the Mountains –  Italy’s Queen’s Prowess as an Alpine Climber

Queen Margherita, the delicate woman of fashion, the somewhat indolent beauty of the Quirinal, where the strict and severe etiquette of the House of Savoy surrounds her as with a cloak, has left Rome, and has arrived at Gressoney, in the midst of the Alps, where a metamorphosis takes place and the admired Sovereign becomes an Alpine climber in the real meaning of the word. She dresses in the peasant costume with short skirt, good stout boots and Tyrolese hat, and, alpenstock in hand, does her climbing either on foot or riding a favorite donkey. 

During a famous ascent in 1888 of the Peak of the Giant, 12,4000 feet above the level of the sea, the Queen was overtaken by a severe snowstorm, which obliged her and her few attendants to take refuge in a hut belonging to the Alpine Club, which was soon full of climbers of all nationalities, who, when they knew who she was, at once offered to leave the humble quarters entirely at her disposal. “On no account,” exclaimed the Queen, “the hut must do for all. I am the hostess, and we will spend the night as comfortably as we can.” After this, the Italian Alpine Club presented their Sovereign with a magnificent diploma, of which she is very proud, and replaced the hut with a refuge to which they gave the name of “Regina Margherita.”

The Italian Sovereign during her stay at Gressoney stops at the villa of the Barons de Peccoz. In the Peccoz family, the duty of accompanying the Princes of the House of Savoy in their Alpine climbs seems almost hereditary. The late Baron, who in his youth accompaned the Duke of Genoa and Prince Thomas, father and brother of the Queen, in all their mountain excursions, was the faithful guide of Queen Margherita, until in the summer of 1895, when, while ascending a mountain at her side, he suddenly fell at her feet and died in a few moments. Now his sons have taken his place. The sturdy mountaineers of this part of the Alps tramp many miles to see her, and when she enters any of their villages, they receive her with flowers and enthusiastic manifestations of devotion—her climbing powers, added to her kindness and personal attractions making her come next to the Madonna in their hearts. One might ask. where Margherita feels more a sovereign – in the Quirinal, or on the Alps? — Rome correspondence Pall Mall Gazette, 1897

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

Dining Etiquette of French Royals

                   

      

One popular myth regarding Catherine de Medici, is that she introduced ice cream, sorbets and sherbets to the French, after bringing her personal chefs to France upon her marriage to King Henry II. However, That myth is dispelled in both Elizabeth David’s, “Harvest of the Cold Months: The Social History of Ice and Ices” and Esther B. Aresty’s, “The Exquisite Table – A History of French Cuisine.” Quoting “What’s Cooking, America,” ‘Catherine, fourteen at the time, was accompanied by twelve young ladies-in-waiting near her own age, and, undoubtedly, a large retinue that included cooks and servants to wait on the large party that brought her by ship to Marseilles and cared for the travelers on the overland voyage to the French Court. But as for installing cooks at the court of Francis I to serve her own needs – that would have been bringing coals to Newcastle, and unthinkable in any case with a monarch like Francis I. At that time his court was far more elegant than any court in Italy.’

Napoleon I Bolted Food When He Ate and

Catherine de Medici Was a Heavy Eater

Although furnished as an advertisement, a book has just appeared from an authoritative pen which contains a lot of interesting information on the menus of the Kings of France and how they dispatched them, writes a Paris correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger: 

The great Napoleon, we are told, did not waste much time at the table. His schedule was three minutes for coffee, ten for luncheon and half an hour for dinner, without conversation. In other words, the author says: “He bolted his food, to which he owed the disease which took him to an early grave.” Francois I and Henri II are described as having been only poor eaters; but Catherine de Medici seems to have been, on the contrary, a tremendous gourmand. She was especially partial to kidneys and to a light poultry dish, to which, on one occasion, as a contemporary chronicler records, she did such ample justice that she nearly succumbed.

Louis XVI, like Louis XIV, who would often have a substantial meal served up in the middle of the night, was a big feeder. He had what was called “the appetite of the Bourbons.” He, like Napoleon, did not eat; he bolted his food. But few people in the audience know what is going on behind the drop curtain, and it is probably just as well they don't. – San Francisco Call, 1911

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

Spaghetti Etiquette

Left– Old Italian artwork in background on a 1992 magazine cover, shows how pasta was once eaten properly — Today, spaghetti-eating etiquette demand forks. Fists full of wet pasta are simply not acceptable on any 'civilized' occasion.

“A North American father, presumably initiating his son, aged 15, into the world of adult business affairs, took him out to what the boy described as 'a big dinner meeting.' When the company was served spaghetti, the boy ate it with his hands. 'I would slurp it up and put it in my mouth,' he admitted. 'My dad took some grief about it.' The October 1985 newspaper article does not describe the response of the rest of the company. The son was sent to a boarding school to learn how to behave. 'When we have spaghetti,' he announced later, 'you roll it up real tightly on your fork and put it in your mouth with the fork.'

What he described, after having learned it, is the dinner-table ritual --as automatic and unquestioned by every participant in it, as impossible to gainsay, as the artificial rules and preferences which every cannibal society has upheld. Practical reasons can be found for it, most of them having to do with neatness, cleanliness, and noiselessness. Because these three general principles are so warmly encouraged in our culture, having been arrived at, as ideals to be striven for, after centuries of struggle and constraint, we simply never doubt that everyone who is right-minded will find a spaghetti eating companion disgusting and impossible to eat with where even one of them is lacking. 

Yet we know from paintings and early photographs of spaghetti eaters in 19th century Naples (where the modern version of spaghetti comes from) that their way of eating pasta was with their hands-- not that the dish was likely to appear at a formal dinner. You had to raise the strings in your right hand, throwback your head, then lower the strings, dexterously with dispatch, and without slurping (there are invariably 'polite' and 'rude' ways of eating), into your open mouth. The spaghetti in the picture does not seem to have sauce on it.

Today, spaghetti-eating manners demand forks, and fist fulls of wet pasta are simply not acceptable on any 'civilized' occasion. The son's ignorance cast a dark reflection upon his father: he had not been doing his duty, had not given his child a proper 'upbringing.' Even if the boy had not seen spaghetti before, he subsequently admitted that what he ought to have done was to look about him, watch how other people were eating this awkward food, and imitate them. In any case, the options were clearer after this demonstration of an ineptitude: either the boy learns his table manners, or he would not be asked to 'a big dinner meeting' again by anyone who had heard of his unfinished education.” Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner

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

Etiquette and 19th C. Italian Youth

“The Grand Duchess sent for her daughter, a girl of 17, who had been to her first ball the night before, but was not yet considered as having ‘come out.’After presenting her, during the chat that ensued she was required by her mother to stand, while we remained seated, which to my American notions and experience of the homage paid by their elders to our young girls, seemed to me quite an awkward and painful reversal of the proper order of things.” 

How Italians Educate Their Children:

A regimen which gives prominence to fine manners, free intercourse of the different classes in Italy, and why it pays to be polite.   

Where every one obeys its rules it allows a more familiar and genial intercourse between all ages and conditions of society...

Italian children are drilled in society manners as soon as they can toddle about. Especially are they taught deference and polite attention to ladies and older persons. Complimentary phrases of speech, and an easy, graceful demeanor become as natural to them in a short time as to their parents. Too much stress in comparison with more important things in no doubt is attached to etiquette alone. But where every one obeys its rules it allows a more familiar and genial intercourse between all ages and conditions of society than when there is no prescribed code of manners to emeliorate social contrast and protect individual position, and everybody is on the defensive lest the artificial barriers of differing social positions be invaded.

A state of society in consequence has been long established that admits and encourages pleasant but respectful familiarity between the varied ranks of the population. I will illustrate the practical working of this system in Italy. One of the ancient palaces in my vicinity is occupied by several families of the nobility. In the upper story there is a girl's school for children of the better classes. The daughter of the porter of the palace is received in it without pay, given the same advantages as the daughters of the Countesses and the Marquises her father served, and, treated precisely the same by all, is spared those petty but spirit-wounding reminders of social distinctions and pretensions with which

Anglo-Saxon girls delight to afflict those they assume to look down upon. Another school girl, of similarly humble position, is frequently invited by one of the noble ladies to be the companion of her daughter when she visits her villa during the vacations, partaking of all her privileges. Of course, such familiar intercourse can exist with mutual advantage, and no confusion of the essential proprieties of life, only in a country where society is on an established basis, and the refinement, and polish that belong more particularly to the more favored individuals extend to the less fortunate and become the rule of all. 

19th century Italian women with their children ~ “Italian children are drilled in society manners as soon as they can toddle about. Especially are they taught deference and polite attention to ladies and older persons.”

Royalty is perhaps the most rigid of all the ranks in exacting obedience in children to those rules of etiquette which are considered proper to their age, without regard to their future position. On one occasion, when, by request, I had called on the sister of one of the great sovereigns of Europe, the conversation turned on children. The Grand Duchess sent for her daughter, a girl of 17, who had been to her first ball the night before, but was not yet considered as having "come out." After presenting her, during the chat that ensued she was required by her mother to stand, while we remained seated, which to my American notions and experience of the homage paid by their elders to our young girls, seemed to me quite an awkward and painful reversal of the proper order of things. But I am now persuaded that the European system of discipline of youth, in parting it in seasoned self-restraint, and deference to age, is more salutary to character than the license to self-indulgence not only tolerated but encouraged in America.

Anglo-Saxons, for sanitary reasons, do not permit their children to keep late hours with their elders, eat late meals and go to late amusements, as do Italians, no doubt prematurely maturing the minds and customs of their offspring at the expense of health. Apart from these cogent considerations, the habit of constant familiar intercourse with their parents and elders gives them a quiet, respectful demeanor, and puts them at their ease in any society. Early accustomed to be noticed and praised for good looks, behavior, or points of dress, they seek to emulate the aesthetic style of the adult society of which they make a part.

Socially, an accomplished Italian is, undoubtedly, more or less of an actor, but in legitimately seeking to please he pays a complement to society and an homage to virtue.

According to our ideas, no doubt they often seem tame and colorless, or else unnaturally restrained in one direction and developed in another; but they are early fitted for their future positions without disturbance to the social machinery about them. At their ease and self-reliant in society, when Anglo-Saxon children would be constrained or awkward, they lose much in other respects, in force of character, independence, and self judgment, where initiative action is required, in which essential points American youth excel. The social restraints, narrowness of intercourse, and excessive formula of etiquette a fashionable Italian life, with its extremes of bigotry or atheistical materialism, would ill suit the Anglo-Saxon freer spirit, greater breadth of view and latitude of personal action.

Socially, an accomplished Italian is, undoubtedly, more or less of an actor, but in legitimately seeking to please he pays a complement to society and an homage to virtue. There are instances, doubtless, in which skillful acting is a hypocritical pretense to cover up some base end, but such are the exceptions to a general rule of politeness which is based on the genuine disposition to please and be pleased in social intercourse.

Article Originally Published in the NY Times, Sent From Florence, Italy, 

August 10, 1880, by James Jackson Jarves

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