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

Nut and Fruit Dessert Etiquette

We have well established, both in New York and London, large vegetarian societies, many with separate branches of “fruit and nut eaters.” Personally, I have tried the experiment, and find it most satisfactory. The difficulty is, one must always eat at home. The untrained cook does not understand “delicate feasting.” Nuts must be carefully prepared, and fruits correctly chilled and daintily served.

The word “nut” is used to express fruits of trees, enclosed in hard, woody covers, which remain closed even after the fruit is ripe. In some, the fruit is drupaceous. Of the almond, for instance, a drupe, we eat the stone kernel, and reject the pulpy covering; of the peach, a drupe of the same family, we eat the fleshy covering, and cast away the seed or stone with its kernel; the one we call a nut, and the other a fruit.

Nuts and fruits furnish the principal food for the inhabitants of many countries, and were, no doubt, the food of primitive peoples. To the vegetarian they are indispensable; they furnish his meat, milk and butter. They are palatable, nutritious, and, if well prepared, easy of digestion. Being of vegetable origin, they are free from the danger of disease germs. Their food value is frequently overlooked by Americans, as they are generally served as a dessert. Under such circumstances, they naturally disagree, as one is adding concentrated, highly nutritious food to a heavy dinner. Then, too, Americans eat rapidly and masticate imperfectly. Nuts of all foods require most thorough mastication; in fact, grinding is to be preferred.

From the general awakening in regard to healthful diet, societies have sprung up all over the world, recommending the use of vegetable foods, especially fruits and nuts. We have well established, both in New York and London, large vegetarian societies, many with separate branches of “fruit and nut eaters.” Personally, I have tried the experiment, and find it most satisfactory. The difficulty is, one must always eat at home. The untrained cook does not understand “delicate feasting.” Nuts must be carefully prepared, and fruits correctly chilled and daintily served.— Sarah Tyson Rorer, 1898

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

The Etiquette of Gilded Age Salads

Due to the diversity of salads available in Western or European dining, salad forks were rather late to the table as a proper implement for dining. The first known “salad” fork was created in 1885. Prior to that time, salads were eaten with regular table forks, which had very little differentiation of tines. Lettuce knives or “salad knives” arrived on dining tables after 1926.
Above— Three different sterling salad forks, with distinctly different tines, all designed to pick up several different sizes, shapes and textures comprising a salad. The Towle Empire pattern salad fork has gilded tines, making it even more beautiful and more functional.

The term salad is applied to certain cold dishes composed either of meats, fish or vegetables. For generations, these have been served with a mixture of oil and vinegar, or oil, egg and vinegar. The oil furnishes the fatty matter for the meal, and being purely vegetable is more wholesome than the ordinary animal fats. 

Butter and cream are wholesome if taken unheated, but to make salad dressing, the butter is usually melted; hence its digestibility is destroyed, and under such circumstances a salad is robbed of its mission.

In these latter days many American cooks make a mixture of fruit, sugar and alcohol, and serve them as “salads.” These are not salads; are heavy, rather unwholesome, and will never take the place of a salad. I much prefer to call them fruit cocktails, and serve them as first course at luncheon or a twelve o'clock breakfast; or a dessert, and serve them with the ices at the close of the meal. 

Fruits mixed with mayonnaise dressing, and served as a salad are unsightly, unpalatable and a little nauseating. One cannot think of anything more out of keeping than white grapes in a thick mayonnaise. The simple so called French dressing is delicate and most worthy of recommendation. Over lettuce, cress or celery it certainly makes a palatable and wholesome dinner salad, and one in which children can be freely indulged. Such fruits as apples, pears, cherries, and pineapples, mixed with celery or lettuce, with French dressing, make an agreeable dinner salad.

A salad, simple in its construction, should be seen on every well regulated table three hundred and sixty-five times a year. Persons living in the country or on the outskirts of towns can, without cost, always pick sorrel, long dock, dandelions, and lambs’ quarters. In the city, one can, for a few pennies, buy sufficient greens for a dainty salad. 

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.

Left-over green vegetables, as beans, peas, carrots, turnips, may be used separately or mixed, dressed with French dressing, and served as a dinner salad. When you are cooking vegetables to-day for dinner, cook double the quantity, saving a portion to serve cold for to-morrow’s salad. Asparagus is much better cold than hot. Cold boiled cauliflower, carefully cooked spinach, leeks, beets, may all take their place in this delightful dish.

The Romans and Greeks used salads at the beginning of their dinner to create an appetite. In later days, however, salads are served at the end of the heavy portion of the dinner, or with the game, to bring back or sharpen the flagging appetite to the greater enjoyment of the final sweet.

The green vegetables contain the salts necessary to the well being of our blood, and oil is an important and essential food. The garlic and vinegar aid in the digestion and assimilation of other foods. In the use of garlic we must be most temperate. Rub the bottom of the bowl, or the bowl of the salad spoon. 

Bits of garlic throughout the salad are most unpleasant. Better use decided flavorings, in the form of flavored or scented vinegars. Put a few cloves of garlic into your vinegar cruet; into another, a little celery seed, or chervil; a mixture of these vinegars, or alternate use, will give variety and agreeable flavor. 

Tarragon vinegar is commonly used with mayonnaise dressing, sauce tartare, sauce Bearnaise and rich dressings of this character. Any small, fine greens that are in season, such as chives, mint, or chervil, may be finely minced and sprinkled over the dinner lettuce.

Standing at the very head of salad vegetables is the cos, or Romaine lettuce, and the ordinary delicate head lettuce, and corn salad, endive, chicory, sorrel, celery, garden and water cress, tomatoes and cucumbers. In the early spring the young tender dandelion leaves mixed with lettuce and a little carefully cooked beet root make a delightful dinner salad. Radishes, tomatoes and turnips are frequently used chopped fine, sprinkled over lettuce. 

Cauliflower, string beans, delicate shelled beans and peas, all add to the dinner salad. In the winter, cabbage and celery furnish us our daily salads. Nothing can be more delicate and delightful than the crisp, carefully cut, hard portion of a well bleached head of cabbage.

A spherical wire basket, known as a salad shaker, or drainer, is used to dry the salad materials after they have been thoroughly washed. The leaves of very curly lettuce frequently hold the water, even after shaking. Dry them with a soft piece of cheesecloth. If not dry, the dressing will not be evenly distributed.

Salads are digested largely in the small intestine. The oil contributes to the heat of the body; the small amount of vinegar aids in the digestion of other materials. —Sarah Tyson Rorer, 1898

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

19th C. Table Manners and Innovation

A napkin or doily used in each hand, would have been much better! – Frederick Stokes’, “Good Form: Dinners Ceremonious and Unceremonious,” 1890, contrasted the crude gnawing from end to end with the more polite grasping with a folded napkin or doily. 

In the 1880s, works such as “Social Etiquette of New York” demonstrated that the ongoing debate between traditional European manners and new American ways favored the Continent. In the late 19th century however, Americans began to become comfortable with themselves and formulate their own rules for formal table setting, serving, and eating.

The serving in eating of corn on the cob has been an enduring issue for American authorities on table manners. In “Hints on Etiquette,” 1844, Charles Day decreed that rather than gnaw at the cob, the diner should scrape the kernels into his or her plate and eat them with a fork. 

The serving in eating of corn on the cob has been an enduring issue for American authorities on table manners. In “Hints on Etiquette,” 1844, Charles Day decreed that rather than gnaw at the cob, the diner should scrape the kernels into his or her plate and eat them with a fork. Frederick Stokes’, “Good Form: Dinners Ceremonious and Unceremonious,” 1890, contrasted the crude gnawing from end to end with the more polite grasping with a folded napkin or doily. 

The ever practical Emily Post simply discounted corn on the cob as suitable food for formal dining.

Food writer and Ladies Home Journal editor Sarah Tyson Rorer, America's first dietitian, proposed more demanding method of scoring each row of kernels and pressing out the content with the teeth, leaving the hulls attached to the cob. The ever practical Emily Post simply discounted corn on the cob as suitable food for formal dining.–From Encyclopedia of Kitchen History by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

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

Corn on the Cob Etiquette

The American Corn on the Cob 

Etiquette Conundrum  

The serving in eating of corn on the cob has been an enduring issue for American authorities on table manners. In “Hints on Etiquette,” 1844, Charles Day decreed that rather than gnaw at the cob, the diner should scrape the kernels into his or her plate and eat them with a fork. Frederick Stokes’, “Good Form: Dinners Ceremonious and Unceremonious,” of 1890, contrasted the crude gnawing from end to end with the more polite grasping with a folded napkin or a folded doily. 

Food writer and Ladies Home Journal editor, Sarah Tyson Rorer, America's first dietitian, proposed more demanding method of scoring each row of kernels and pressing out the content with the teeth, leaving the hulls attached to the cob. The ever practical Emily Post simply discounted corn on the cob as suitable food for formal dining, yet her friends all thought she had lost her mind, when Post served barbecue at a Martha’s Vineyard afternoon tea.

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