Strange English Dining Customs & Furniture

Loretta reports:

~~~

There are some customs here not quite consistent with that scrupulous delicacy on which the English pique themselves.  . . . Drinking much and long leads to unavoidable consequences. Will it be credited, that, in a corner of the very dining room, there is a certain convenient piece of furniture, to be used by any body who wants it. The operation is performed very deliberately and undisguisedly, as a matter of course, and occasions no interruption of the conversation. I once took the liberty to ask why this convenient article was not placed out of the room, in some adjoining closet; and was answered, that, in former times, when good fellowship was more strictly enforced than in these degenerate days, it had been found that men of weak heads or stomachs took advantage of the opportunity to make their escape shamefully, before they were quite drunk; and that it was to guard against such an enormity that this nice expedient had been invented. I have seen the article in question regularly provided in houses where there were no men, that is, no master of the house ; the mistress, therefore, must be understood to have given the necessary orders to her servants,—a supposition rather alarming for the delicacy of an English lady.

—Louis Simond, Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain, During the Years 1810 and 1811, Volume 1 (1817 edition).

Seventeen years later, Prince Pückler-Muskau writes to his beloved Lucie about “one strange custom . . . a relic of barbarism which is extremely repugnant to our notions of propriety.
“This struck me especially today when an old admiral who, clad in his dress uniform, probably on account of Lord Melville’s presence, made use of this facility for a good ten minutes, during which period we felt as if we were listening to the last drops from a roof gutter after a long past thunderstorm.”

Illustration:  James Gillray, A Voluptuary under the horrors of digestion, 1792. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Berry Brothers and Rudd is still there

Loretta reports:

I spent my first visit to London, many years ago, in a state of swoon. As one who grew up in a Massachusetts mill town bent on tearing down all its old buildings (it's a world where late Victorian is ancient= decrepit), I couldn’t believe that so many of the famous Regency locales—the ones that came up in so many books—were still there.

Several London visits later, the thrill remains.  On my last visit, I made yet another pilgrimage to St. James’s Street—this time with very clear purpose, because I was on Book Two of a series about some slightly French dressmakers, and I'd given them a shop at No. 56 (because there had once been a dressmaker at that address).

And so I walked the routes my characters would travel, and decided which of the buildings on St. James’s Street looked most like my idea of the dressmaker’s shop.  It would have been nice had this been the actual building at No. 56, but the address seems to have been swallowed up, along with another number or two, by a large modern building with no personality I could discern.  However, being an author makes me a god of sorts—and I can shape buildings to my will, among other powers—so I turned another more charming building into No. 56 for story purposes.  I also created for it an adjoining court leading to the rear, on the principle that there could have been one.  On the opposite side of the street there exists exactly the sort of court I required.  And the back of a very famous shop runs along this court: Berry Brothers and Rudd.

This is one of the places that makes this NHG excited and swoony.

In Beau Brummell’s time Berry Brothers was already old.  In its early incarnation, in the late 17th, early 18th century, it supplied customers with coffee, tea, snuff, spices, and such.  In the early 19th century, it was the place where Brummell and his friends bought wine and went to be weighed.  No, they didn't have bathroom scales.  Even royal dukes had themselves weighed at Berry Brothers.

The scales are still there, as you can see in these photos, as are the records of who weighed how much.

There's a great deal more fascinating stuff inside.  For a detailed tour of the interior I refer you to The Londonist blog on the subject.

A cure for rheumatism or gout

Gillray, The Gout

Loretta reports:

Welcome back, readers!  We hope you had fine holidays, and return to us refreshed, eager for another year of unbridled historical nerdiness.

We begin 2012 with a holiday that may be unknown to many of our readers, and an infallible cure for gout or rheumatism, courtesy Mr. William Hone’s Every-day Book, whose full title you'll find below.

~~~

The first Monday after new year's day is called Handsel Monday in some parts of Scotland, and is observed by merrymaking. In sir J. Sinclair's " Statistical Account," it is related of one William Hunter, a collier, that he was cured in the year 1758 of an inveterate rheumatism or gout, by drinking freely of new ale, full of barm or yeast. "The poor man had been confined to his bed for a year and a half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening of Handsel Monday, as it is called, some of his neighbours came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always took his share of the ale, as it passed round the company; and, in the end, became much intoxicated. The consequence was, that he had the use of his limbs the next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of his old complaint." This is a fact worth remembering, as connected with chronical complaints.

Rowlandson, Gouty Gourmands

—The Every-day book and Table book:  or, Everlasting calendar of popular amusements, sports,
pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs, and events, incident to each of the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times; forming a complete history of the year, months, and seasons, and a perpetual key to the almanac including accounts of the weather, rules for health and conduct, remarkable and important anecdotes, facts, and notices, in chronology, antiquities, topography, biography, natural history, art, science, and general literature; derived from the most authentic sources, and valuable original communications, with poetical elucidations, for daily use and diversion, Volume 1, 1827 (the Google edition is 1838).

Illustrations:  
James Gillray, The Gout, 1799, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Thomas Rowlandson, Comforts of Bath, Gouty Gourmands at Dinner, 1798, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

A Gothic Dairy

Loretta reports:


Dairies on country estates could be beautiful things.  This gives some insight into hygienic measures.
~~~

HINTS ON ORNAMENTAL GARDENING
PLATE 7.—A GOTHIC DAIRY

The annexed design represents the decorated elevation of a picturesque building, suitable to a bay or garden recess, in which they are appropriately situated, and always pleasing: its interior embellishments should be of marble, relieved by glazed tiles; and if painted in the Gothic forms by which the spandrels of some of our cathedrals are tesselated, it would be in good taste and character; and the windows being judiciously ornamented with painted glass, the whole would be brilliant and agreeable.
 

The requisites for the perfection of a dairy are, coolness and the most delicate cleanliness, a perfect ventilation, and an aspect that will permit the sun to enter the apartment until its altitude would render the dairy too warm; for the damps which remain from the night cannot be too soon or too thoroughly evaporated ; and even the moisture consequent on the morning ablutions should be speedily removed, to prevent the effects of that degree of heat and moisture which in a hot day would else be consequent upon such neglect: on a similar account, this building ought not to be embowered too much by trees and shrubs, and care should be taken that no trees may be placed in its neighbourhood that can impart unfavourable tastes or scents to the milk and cream,which readily adopt incongruous flavours, and are very tenacious in retaining them.

A double roof is essential to the dairy, and a free current of air should pass between them, or no means will prevent the excess of heat, which in hot weather is fatal to its purposes, particularly if the floors are wet or very damp at the same time.
 

Although part of the above observations are at variance with the usual practices in the business of the dairy, a little reflection will shew the propriety of adopting them. 

—Ackermann's Repository, August 1821

Dining with the Tudors

Loretta reports:

A tour of Hampton Court Palace took me through the Tudor-era kitchens.  The fire was on, but nothing was cooking.  There were bowls and utensils and some representations of food, but these only whetted my appe—curiosity.

So let's let the Supersizers give us the lowdown on Tudor food.

The Sluice-house at Highbury

Loretta reports:

Here's where London's Compleat Anglers went to fish.
~~~
THE SLUICE-HOUSE
Ye who with rod and line aspire to catch
Leviathans that swim within the stream
Of this fam'd River, now no longer New,
Yet still so call'd, come hither to the Sluice-house!
Here, largest gudgeons live, and fattest roach
Resort, and even barbel have been found.
Here too doth sometimes prey the rav'ning shark
Of streams like this, that is to say, a jack.
If fortune aid ye, ye perchance shall find
Upon an average within one day,
At least a fish, or two; if ye do not,
This will I promise ye, that ye shall have
Most glorious nibbles: come then, haste ye here.
And with ye bring large stock of baits and patience.
 . . .
The Sluice-house is a small wooden building, distant about half a mile beyond Highbury, just before the river angles off towards Newington. With London anglers it has always been a house of celebrity, because it is the nearest spot wherein they have hope of tolerable sport. Within it is now placed a machine for forcing water into the pipes that supply the inhabitants of Holloway and other parts adjacent. Just beyond is the Eel-pie house, which many who angle thereabouts mistake for the Sluice-house. To instruct the uninformed, and to gratify the eye of some who remember the spot they frequented in their youth, the preceding view, taken in May 1825, has been engraved.
—William Hone, The Every-day Book. —May 23.

Map courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Scan of Sluice-house, from Hone, courtesy me.

Regency style dining on our 500th post

Loretta reports:

Susan has informed me that this is the Two Nerdy History Girls’ five hundredth post.

We sure are a couple of blabbermouths.

But wait.  There's more.  It seems we've also passed the quarter of a million page view mark.  We’re very impressed with ourselves.  Also astounded.  As our blog description notes, we would have been excited if three people showed up.

As you would expect, I sought nerdy history material befitting so solemn an occasion.
But all you get is a funny video.

Five hundred thanks to Kolbaskina Katya, who brought it to my attention.

Milk Below! (or Maybe Not...)

Susan reporting:

As a group, milk-maids have perhaps the best image among historical street vendors. They're almost always shown as young, robust, and ripely beautiful. With their swinging buckets of fresh milk, they're tidily dressed, and represent the healthy bounty of the country. Even today, the dairy aisle of modern grocery stores features idealized images of fresh-faced milk-maids as nostalgic testament to Goodness and Freshness.

But as charming as this image might be, not everyone bought it. One of the TNHG favorite 18th c. authors, Tobias Smollet, presented this stomach-churning impression of a Covent Garden milk-maid in his 1771 novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker:

"The milk itself should not pass unanalysed, the produce of faded cabbage leaves and sour draff, lowered with hot water, frothed with bruised snails, carried through the streets in open pails, exposed to foul rinsings discharged from doors and windows, spittle, snot, and tobacco-quids from foot-passengers, overflowings from mud-carts, spatterings from coach-wheels, dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the joke's sake, the spewing of infants who have slabbered in the tin measure, which is thrown back in that condition among the milk, for the benefit of the next customer; and, finally, the vermin that drops from the rags of the nasty drab that vends this precious mixture, under the respectable denomination of milk-maid."

Above: Milk Below! by Francis Wheatley, as part of his "Cries of London" series, 1792-1795.

Breakfast in February

Loretta reports:

February 21.

BREAKFAST IN COLD WEATHER.
"Here it is," says the "Indicator,''  "ready laid. Imprimis, tea and coffee ; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted ; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives and forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug in coming down into one's breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us; a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things, the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a set of good-humoured urchins, and the sole empty chair at its accustomed corner, ready for occupation. When we lived alone, we could not help reading at meals: and it is certainly a delicious thing to resume an entertaining book at a particularly interesting passage, with a hot cup of tea at one's elbow, and a piece of buttered toast in one's hand. The first look at the page, accompanied by a coexistent bite of the toast, comes under the head of intensities."

THE SEASON.
The weather is now cold and mild alternately. In our variable climate we one day experience the severity of winter, and a genial warmth prevails the next; and, indeed, such changes are not unfrequently felt in the same day. Winter, however, at this time breaks apace, and we have presages of the genial season.

—The Every-day Book, or, The Guide to the Year, by William Hone, 1825.

Illustration: Pavel Andrejewitsch Fedotov (1815–1852), Breakfast of an aristocrat, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Queen Victoria's Wedding Cake

Loretta reports:

When Queen Victoria got married on 10 February 1840, she was not, as many believe, the first bride to wear a white wedding dress—though it was a new look for royals, who’d previously inclined toward silver.  Still, she did start a fashion for BIG royal weddings.  Previously, these had been relatively quiet, private affairs.  But then, hers was a big deal—the first wedding of a reigning queen since Queen Mary in 1554.

The wedding cake was a big deal, too. 

“If taste of design only equal what appears to be intended for the actual dimensions, it will beat any bride-cake ever seen.”*

~~~
  5. THE ROYAL WEDDING CAKE. —A select few have been gratified with a sight of the royal wedding cake at the apartments of the confectionary in St. James's palace, but it is described as consisting of the most exquisite compounds of all the rich things with which the most expensive cakes can be composed, mingled and mixed together into delightful harmony by the most elaborate science of the confectioner. This royal cake weighs nearly 300 lb. weight. It is three yards in circumference, and about fourteen inches in depth or thickness. It is covered with sugar of the purest white; on the top is seen the figure of Britannia in the act of blessing the illustrious bride and bridegroom, who are dressed somewhat incongruously in the costume of ancient Rome. These figures are not quite a foot in height; at the feet of his serene highness is the effigy of a dog, said to denote fidelity; and at the feet of the queen is a pair of turtle doves, denoting the felicities of the marriage state. A cupid is writing in a volume expanded on his knees the date of the day of the marriage, and various other cupids are sporting and enjoying themselves as such interesting little individuals generally do. These little figures are well modelled. On the top of the cake are numerous bouquets of white flowers tied with true lovers' knots of white satin riband, intended for presents to the guests at the nuptial breakfast. This elegant emblem of the felicities of marriage will be placed on the breakfast table of the queen at Buckingham palace at the breakfast which is to succeed the ceremonies in the chapel royal.
—1840 Annual Register.

*The Mirror of literature, amusement, and instruction, Volume 35, 1840.

How Mistress Longe Makes Snow, 1610

Susan reporting:

While today's home cooks can turn to the Food Network or dozens of foodie sites on the internet for inspiration, cooks in the days before published cookbooks created their own books of recipes. These were written out carefully by hand, and often added to by successive owners. They became treasured heirlooms passed from mother to daughter, reflecting not only one family's favorite dishes, but also evolving tastes over the generations as different ingredients became more available and fashions in dining changed.

This recipe for "Snow" comes from Mistress Sarah Longe's Recipe Book, composed around 1610 and now in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library. (Click here for more about Mrs. Longe's book.) Mistress Longe was not a professional cook, but a middle-class Elizabethan housewife who took the time to carefully write out her favorite recipes.

Snow, or snow cream, was a favorite dessert on Tudor tables, and remained popular well into the 19th c. According to one of our favorite books on historical cooking, Martha Washington's Book of Cookery, "Snow cream is the English version of cremets d'Anjou...It seems likely that the Plantagenets brought the sweet to England."

While Mistress Longe's italic penmanship is beautifully elegant, it can be a bit hard to follow. We've taken the liberty of transcribing the recipe below. Most modern cooks will make sense of it, except, perhaps, the "pretty big birch in rod." This was an early version of today's wire whisk: a bundle of flexible twigs (here birch, though more often willow), tied together and used to beat air into egg whites.

                                                               To Make Snow
Take a pint of thicke sweete Creame, and halfe a pint of Sack, and halfe a pound of Sugar, and the white of two Eggs well beaten, and a pretty deale of limon, and mingle all this together, and put it into a pretty big earthin Pan, or Bason, and take a pretty big birch in rod, and beate it till the froth doth rise, and then take it with a stirre, and put it into the thing you would have it goe in, it should bee a glasse Sillibubbe pot, if you have it, if not, a white creame dish will serve: you should let it stand a pretty while before you eate it because it should settle with a little kind of drinke at the bottome, like a Sillibubbe.

Above: "To Make Snow", page from Sarah Longe, Her Receipt Booke, 1610


Thanks to Michael Robinson for suggesting Mistress Longe's book to us.

Putting the Pineapple in its Proper Place

Susan reporting:

This is one of my favorite paintings of Charles II. I like it primarily because he's dressed in the expensive but restrained style and sober colors that he preferred for everyday, rather than in those over-the-top robes of state. I also like it because it's a quirky picture. Kings are always being presented with gifts, and here Charles and a couple of his numerous spaniels are receiving not a priceless jewel or golden trinket, but a pineapple. The giver is John Rose, the royal gardener, and his offering is proof of the rarity and value of pineapples in 17th c. England. The pineapple had earlier been brought to Europe from the Caribbean by Columbus, but it remained an exotic treat, grown only with care in greenhouses, and, apparently, by royal gardeners.

All that makes sense, history-wise. But sometimes the caption on this picture includes a bit more, about how the pineapple represents Charles's reputation for royal hospitality. Most of us would accept that, too. Everyone knows the pineapple as a symbol for hospitality. The fruit turns up everywhere, from cocktail napkins to Christmas decorations, always waving its spiky top in welcome.

But it turns out all those holiday napkins are wrong. One of my favorite history blogs, History Myths Debunked, recently performed a most thorough debunking of the hospitable pineapple. Seems that while pineapples do turn up as 17th and 18th c. decorative motifs, they're used for their exoticism rather than as official greeters. More perplexing is how Dionysian pine cones are often mistaken for pineapples – though I have to admit the examples are convincing.

Even the most famous pineapple in 18th c. Britain – the Earl of Dunmore's fanciful 1761 garden pavilion (above right) – has been included in the debunking. A birthday present for the countess, the pavilion was designed to represent power and wealth, not hospitality. As one commentator notes, "The earl built it because he could." The pineapple on the tower reflected the hothouse on the ground floor, where pineapples were in fact grown for the kitchens of Dunmore House.

So there it is: the truth about historical pineapples. But whether pineapples are welcoming or not, I have to think that the guests of both Charles II and the Countess of Dunmore were mightily pleased when, on a chilly winter night in London or Scotland, this golden taste of the tropics appeared on the supper table.

Top: Charles II Receiving a Pineapple by Hendrik Danckerts, 1675. Copy of an original in the Royal Collection.
Lower right: The Dunmore Pineapple, 1761, Dunmore Park, Airth, Scotland

Silver Tureens & Crowns for Queens

Susan reporting:

Earlier this summer we marveled at a golden soup tureen from 18th c. France. It seems only fair that we show you how the English aristocracy had their soup brought to table.

This gorgeous tureen and stand was made of silver – a great deal of silver, for it's a very large tureen – around 1824. Wealthy Englishmen of the period liked a glittering display of silver on their dining table, and vied with one another for the biggest, most ornate candlesticks, centerpieces, and serving dishes. The tureen is almost alive with marine motifs, including dolphins, lobsters, and shells, a mermaid on one side and merman on the other. While this would make it perfect for serving lobster bisque, more likely the designs would have been considered patriotic for an island nation that was justly proud of its navy.

The tureen was made for Fletcher Norton, 3rd Baron Grantley (1796-1875). A veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Grantley never married, but if this tureen was any indication, he set a lavish bachelor table.  He also must have believed in patronizing the best silversmiths in London. This masterpiece is the work of Robert Garrard, Jr., of Garrard & Company, whose family's shop in Panton Street catered to the highest ranks of fashionable society, including the Royal Princes. Twenty years after this tureen was made, the young Queen Victoria appointed Garrard & Company as the Crown Jewelers – which in turn must have made the baron value his fabulous tureen even more.

Above: Silver tureen and stand made by Robert Garrard, Jr., London, England, 1824-25. Winterthur Museum

Intrepid Women: Julia Child's Kitchen

Loretta reports:

Celebrity chefs are nothing new.  The Regency era had Marie-Antoine Carême, who cooked for emperors and kings.  But he worked in vast palace kitchens, with an army of helpers, preparing extravagant meals for hundreds of people at a time.

Julia Child worked, so far as we could see, in her own kitchen, and in the era before the Food Channel and 24/7 shows featuring celebrity chefs and wannabe celebrity chefs, she brought to American viewers her own unforgettable way with cooking.  While perhaps not as glamorous as Carême’s, her story is at least as exciting.  Maybe working for the OSS during WWII gave her the wherewithal to take on France’s male cooking establishment, or maybe she was just born that way.  But I figure it took some nerve for a woman—and an American—to try to succeed at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in the 1940s.  I guess it helps to be six foot two, towering over all those Frenchmen who are certain you Don’t Belong Here and probably wish you would go away.  But one must have guts, too, (those knives are very big and very sharp) and a certain strength of character and an optimistic spirit.  Whatever it took, she got her diploma, and went on to write a cookbook still considered a classic, and to host her famous and much-loved cooking show. 

The movie Julie and Julia, wherein Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci shone as Julia and Paul Child, reminded me what a delight she was.  So, when I found myself in Washington, D.C., some weeks ago, I went straight to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, to see Julia Child’s Kitchen.  This wasn’t the only item of interest there, but it was Number One on my list.

Here's the diploma and one view of the kitchen.  I'll put up additional photos at my other blog.

Salad Days of 1699 with John Evelyn

Susan reporting:

When we think of dining in late 17th c. England (if, admittedly, we think of it at all), it's the roaring display of roasted beef and venison and pheasant, turtle soup and eel pie. The England of Charles II seems such a time of wine, women, and song, that it's hard to imagine a menu that included...salad.

John Evelyn (1620-1706) was a serious, scholarly gentleman, a public servant, writer, philosopher, and horticulturalist whose agile mind wandered from the study of architecture to gardens, from paintings to the pollution of London. He was a founding member of the Royal Society, and also a friend of Charles II. In a court full of carnivores, Evelyn was a confirmed vegetarian, believing that the key to health was to be found in the garden, not on the hunt. The fact that Evelyn lived to be eighty-six, while the king died shy of his fifty-fifth birthday, might be considered proof enough.

Evelyn was so devoted to his beliefs that he wrote an entire book on the subject: Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets.  Published in 1699, the book  suggested what kinds of plants and herbs to include in a salad garden, their cultivation, and recipes. To Evelyn, raw salads were more fit for masculine tastes, while he recommended that vegetables be "Boil'd, Bak'd, Pickl'd, or otherwise disguis'd, variously accommodated by skillful Cooks, to render them grateful to the more feminine Palat."

On the whole, though, his advice seems remarkably contemporary. Here's how he prepared greens:

Preparatory to the Dressing therefore, let your Herby Ingredients be exquisitely cull'd, and cleans'd of all worm-eaten, slimy, cander'd, dry, spotted, or any way vitiated Leaves. And then that they be rather discretely sprinkl'd, than over-much sob'd with Spring-Water, especially Lettuce....After washing, let them remain a while in the Cullender, to drain the superfluous moisture; And lastly, swing them together gently in a clean course Napkin; and so they will be in perfect condition to receive the Intinctus following.

The "Intinctus" is a dressing of "the Yolks of fresh and new-laid Eggs, boil'd moderately hard, to be mingl'd and mash'd with the Mustard, Olive Oyl, and Vinegar; and cut into quarters, and eat with the Herbs."  Sounds mighty tasty!

Like to try this and other recipes from John Evelyn? Acetaria is available as a thoroughly modern free ebook download here.  With all of John Evelyn's interests, it's very easy to imagine him sitting beneath the trees in his garden with an iPad in hand....

Above: An 18th century kitchen garden in Colonial Williamsburg
Below: John Evelyn, by Sir Godrey Kneller, 1687

A Tureen Fit for a French Queen

Susan reports:

Every so often, I come across an object in a museum that so captures a past time and place that it stops me cold. This wonderfully baroque tureen is one of those pieces.

Made of ormolu-brass between 1720-1750, the tureen was most likely made in France. It's very large, even for a serving dish: I could probably just circle my arms around it.  The tureen was commissioned by Prince Marc de Beauvau-Craon (1679-1754), below, connetable de Lorraine et vice-roi de Toscane. The son of the Marquis de Beauvau, the prince was a well-connected and powerful nobleman, and he was expected to represent both his king and France by entertaining lavishly.

To me this elaborate tureen seems to epitomize the life of the Ancien Regime at its most extravagant: exquisite craftsmanship and taste, elegant hospitality, and a reverence for fine food are all combined in a single piece. Imagine this as part of a magnificent dinner service, carried in from the kitchens by a liveried footman to guests eager to taste the delicious dish that deserved so grand a presentation.

Yet as alluring as this image may be, I have to add a few less pleasant facts about that gleaming ormolu. Also called gilt bronze in English, ormolu is everywhere in 18th c. decorative arts, from jewelry to cradling porcelain vases to the clawed feet of marble-topped bombe chests. But just like hatters and dyers, the gilders who created these masterpieces paid a deadly price for their art. Mercury was used in the process of bonding pure powdered gold to the brass or bronze base, with the result that few gilders survived their fortieth birthdays. The fatalities were so widely acknowledged that France banned the manufacture of ormolu in the 1830s, among the first legislature to protect workers from industrial hazards.

In that light, the tureen becomes an even more poignant (and more ominous) symbol of pre-Revolutionary France: artisans giving their lives for the gilded glory of aristocrats.

Above: Ormolu-brass tureen, c. 1720-1750. Gift of John T. Dorrance, Jr., Winthertur Museum.
Below: Prince Marc de Beauvau-Craon by Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nancy, Musee Lorrain

Nutmeg, My Lord?

Susan reporting:

Most of us self-diagnosed history nerds are familiar with snuff-boxes, and can easily imagine an 18th c. gentleman drawing such a box from his pocket to partake in his favorite sneezing vice. But from the late 17th c. to the early 19th c., a well-equipped male pocket might also include one of these little silver articles: a personal nutmeg grater.

While nutmeg is a common spice to 21st c. cooks (my local grocery sells a half-dozen whole nuts for about $8.00), in the past it was a considerable luxury, grown only on the remote Banda Islands in the South Pacific. Nutmeg was known in medieval Venice, but it wasn't until the early 16th c. that Portuguese and Dutch traders made it more widely available throughout western Europe. Still, the rarity of the little nuts and the peril of securing them made nutmeg a costly status-spice into the 19th century.

Perhaps nutmeg's rarity was the reason it was imbued with almost magical qualities. Herbalist John Gerard wrote in 1597 that nutmeg "is good against freckles in the face, quickneth the sight, strengthens the belly and feeble liver, taketh away the swelling of the spleen...breaketh wind, and is good against all cold diseases of the body." It was also thought to protect against the plague.

But by the late 17th c., nutmeg was more often prized for its taste in cookery, and as an ingredient in the punches popular at the time. While punch today is usually a non-alcoholic kiddie-drink, 17th-18th c. punches could lay a grown man under the table in no time. Gentlemen prided themselves on having their own closely-guarded recipes. Customary ingredients included citrus fruits, sugar, and spices, mixed with prodigious amounts of alcohol: rum, brandy, cognac, canary, and just about any other liquor on hand. (Here's more about historical punch, plus several recipes if you're feeling brave.) The next groggy morning, a dusting of nutmeg could also enhance those other fashionable new drinks of chocolate and coffee.

It's no wonder, then, that every trendy fop and gentleman carried his own nutmeg in his pocket with him. Not only did this display his excellent palate, but it also showed that he was wealthy enough to buy both the nutmeg and one of these little sterling silver boxes, engraved with his initials, for stashing it. In a time of pretty gestures, taking out one's grater to spice one's meal or beverage would have been a charming nicety, and offering the same to one's neighbor (especially a lady) at the table would have been even nicer. Any flirtation that could combine the senses was considered particularly seductive, and a fragrant grating of red-brown nutmeg, redolent of the exotic, must have inflamed the ladies indeed.

The graters shown here are small, only an inch or two in length, just the size to hold a single nutmeg nut. The one top left is the earliest, from the late 17th c., while the other two are from the 18th c. Here's another early one that's cylindrical in design. As can be imagined, today nutmeg graters are popular with collectors of antique silver. The Georgian one, above, is currently for sale via the Internet, with an asking price of a little over a thousand dollars. Ah, true luxury never goes out of style....

Hercules: First Cook to the First President

Susan reports:

The heart of every great household of the past was the kitchen, and its master was the cook. No matter how noble or wealthy a family might be, their reputation for hospitality rested on the skill of their cook.

General George Washington (1732-1799), first president of the new United States of America, was well aware of the importance of his cook. He brought his own cook from his home at Mt. Vernon to run the kitchen of the presidential residence in Philadelphia in 1790. Known by the single name of Hercules, he was reputed to be the very best cook in America, one who could not only produce the most elaborate dishes, but also insist on perfect order among his large staff and spotless cleanliness in his kitchen. Washington spoke proudly of the "labors of Hercules" when the first exquisite dishes were set on his table each night. Even on his days off, Hercules set himself apart, dressing with such impeccable style that he was recognized and saluted by name as he sauntered down the Philadelphia streets.

Only one thing set Hercules apart from his lofty counterparts in the great houses of Berkeley Square in London: Hercules was a slave, and President Washington owned him.

Hercules understood the difference, too, and like so many slaves, must have dreamed of freedom. In 1796, Hercules's son Richmond was caught stealing money from the household, and Washington suspected (correctly) that his cook was planning his escape. The next mention of Hercules in the Mt. Vernon records is not of him in his kitchen, but of being put to hard labor breaking clay and spreading manure with his son in the fields: a punishment clearly intended to provide a humiliating "lesson" to the proud, accomplished cook.

But Hercules's spirit must have remained strong. Soon after, on February 22, 1797 –Washington's 65th birthday – Hercules escaped, his disappearance marked down in the records by the single word "absconded."

It's likely that the president did all he could to recover Hercules after his escape. A skilled cook was an extremely valuable slave to lose. Like most plantation owners, Washington was relentless in his pursuit of what he regarded as lost property, and his agents had once hunted other escaped slaves clear to Canada.

But Hercules was never caught. While he probably escaped from Virginia back to Philadelphia and the early abolitionists who were already assisting fleeing slaves in the 18th century, no one knows for sure where he went from there. He was too well-known to remain safely in America, and most historians guess that he made his way to Europe.

There his culinary gifts could have earned him a place ruling the kitchen of some gentleman powerful enough to protect him, and considering the lavish entertainments popular in late 18th c. London, he would have been a prize indeed. It's fascinating to imagine Hercules in that multicultural world, a dandified Virginian cook in the age of William Wilberforce - and Beau Brummell.

Wherever Hercules ended up, within four years he was no longer a fugitive, but a free man. Washington died in 1799, and by the provisions of his will, he emancipated all his slaves, including Hercules. (To his considerable credit, Washington was the only one of the slaveholding Founding Fathers to do so.) Click here for more information about Hercules and his life as Washington's cook.

Above: This portrait is traditionally called a portrait of Hercules, painted in the late 18th c. by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828.) But just like the other mysteries of Hercules's own life, no one now knows for certain. . . .

Tasting (Chocolate) History

s

Susan reports:

It's not often that historical research involves eating chocolate, but we intrepid Nerdy History Girls will try almost anything in pursuit of the past. Which is why one of our favorite things about Colonial Williamsburg is the the 18th c. chocolate.

Chocolate became increasingly popular in 18th c. Europe. Served primarily mixed with milk or cream as a morning beverage (the way it is being enjoyed by this French family, left) or in coffee and chocolate houses, 18th c. style chocolate is a very different animal from modern sweetened chocolate. It's a more complicated flavor, full of spices: not exactly sweet, but not bitter, with undertones of anise, red pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

In other words, it wasn't a kiddie drink with sugar and marshmallows, but a sophisticated "adult beverage", and an expensive, status-conscious one, too, since all cocoa beans were imported. Chocolate was also praised for its quasi-medical benefits. According to Dr. Quincy's Medical Lexicon in 1782, chocolate was "good likewise not only in all intentions as a nourisher, and a restorative, but as an emollient, by lubricating and relaxing the passages."

In one of those rare, glorious unions between history and commerce, Colonial Williamsburg has recently rebuilt Charlton's Coffeehouse on its original site through the support of Forrest and Deborah Mars of the Mars Corporation (you know, M&Ms, Snickers, Dove Bars, and other necessities of the writing life.) Mr. and Mrs. Mars have also sponsored academic studies of the history of chocolate, as well as a line of historic chocolate products that's for sale throughout the historic district.

The CW chocolate comes in slender, historically accurate cylinders that are dusted with cocoa, and sold in small, cloth, drawstring bags. And as Loretta and I discovered, it's quite addictive, and we both have lots of the little cloth bags to prove it, too. If you'd rather drink your chocolate (and yes, we did that as well), the last stop of the tour of Charlton's Coffeehouse is the kitchen. There visitors are offered a choice of 18th c. style coffee or chocolate – which, from the number of half-full little cups discarded in the trash barrel by the door, may be a little too unusual for the tastes of most modern visitors.

But not for us. We now understand entirely why 18th c. ladies couldn't begin their day properly without the ritual of the chocolate mill and pot (like the one, right), or why so many gentlemen adored their chocolate houses, and the chance to sip away the hours. Who wouldn't?

In addition to eating historical chocolate, we read about it, too, and American Heritage Chocolate has a new book.  I have to admit I haven't read it (yet) but it's on my wish list, and I promise to dust the cocoa from my fingers when I turn the pages. And, as a freebie, here's a video about how 18th c. chocolate was made.

Above left: Le Dejeuner by Francois Boucher, 1739, the Louvre

That Foreign Curiosity the Fork

Susan reports:

A Venetian nobleman sitting down to sup with King Henry VIII in 1530 would have at once noticed something missing from the English table. Each guest would have a silver spoon for pottage, sauces, and jellies and a knife for cutting meat, but no forks. Like most other Englishmen, His Majesty believed that fingers would suffice to carry food to the mouth, and anyone who thought differently was considered over-nice, or maybe just Italian.

While most of the courts on the Continent had been using forks for years, the English were very slow to pick up this particular dining refinement. Charles I's Queen Henrietta Marie brought them from her native France in the 1620s, and Charles II, too, favored them after his lengthy exile in Europe. By the end of the 1600s, diners of the better sort had begun accepting the two-tined fork (a smaller version of those used for carving meat) as a useful invention, and often carried their own with them. Not until the 18th c. did fashionable English forks acquire that extra tine or two, and receive the graceful bend to help carry food. Still, the two-tined variety remained in use into Victorian times in rural areas of England and among those who saw no use in tossing away perfectly good cutlery.

But it wasn't a refinement easily won. Like most Englishmen, traveller Thomas Coryat regarded forks with the greatest suspicion when he first encountered them in 1608 in Italy (perhaps at a grand banquet like the one above), and of course made fun of them – after, I suspect, he was "brow-beaten" himself for using his fingers.

"I observed a custom in all those Italian Cities and Townes through which I passed...The Italian and also most other strangers that are commorant in Italy do alwaies at their meals use a little forke when they cut their meate. For while with their knife which they hold in one hande they cut the meate out of the dish, they fasten their forke, which they hold in their other hand upon the same dish, so that whatsoever he be that sitting in the company of any others at meate, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the lawes of good manners in so much that for his error he shall be at the least brow-beaten, if not reprehended in wordes....The reason of this curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means indure to have his dish touched with fingers, feeling all mens' fingers are not alike cleane."

-- Thomas Coryat, Coryat's Crudities, Hastily Gobled up in Five Moneths' Travells...,vol. 1

Above: Detail from The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese, 1563, The Louvre

Below: Silver filigree knife with steel blade and fork, late 17th c. French