Welcome to the inorganic black podcasts, which is our second episode. And with me today is Greg be senior curator of ceramics and glass, affluent or tripe high. Lovely. Hi, nice to be with you. It's good to have you here and joining the podcast. This is really cutting edge for Bay. I've excited. So you are here today to talk to us about what's for dinner, T10, I introduce yourself and tell us what we're going to be talking about today. Sure. We're gonna be focusing on some research that I've done ever since I started in the curatorial field. I'm not going to tell you how long ago that was, but most of you weren't around yet? What I thought we'd think about is some different kinds of wears and how they were bought, and also how some of the different foods were acquired. So it'll be a little bit about social history or material culture discussion, as well as focusing on some of the different types of ceramics that were in use. Lovely deed English about food with us while we're talking about absolutely, I have a cup of tea here, but I just finished lunch, so I'm going to skip it and no chocolate bars or nearby. Sounds good. So if you're comfortable, I'm going to go ahead and dive right in. As you know, I'm going to repeat the title of this. The full title is what's for dinner table where and traditions in the 18th century. And as you can imagine based on that title, The topic for this talk potentially is quite a large one. To make the discussion a little bit more bite size, I'm going to focus primarily on 18th century dining traditions in America and Britain. Objects that we'll be considering or thinking about will help me illustrate several different themes. One will be dinnerware acquisitions, then the timing of meals, orchestrating dinners by course, the evolution of meal service. And then also we'll think a little bit about cookery books and the foods themselves. Much my talk is going to focus on the furnishing of elegant dinner tables. And this is in part because that's what the preponderance of documentary evidence survives for. There's not a lot that survives with great detail on what was being eaten. Less wealthy homes or in the homes of enslaved peoples. We often rely on things like archeological evidence to learn about that, but that will be a talk on a different day. So Leslie, Can I ask you a question or, you know, because I know that you've done a couple of different shows at winner. Kerry might talk about some of them a little bit. But what got you interested in in researching this in particular, because I know it's been something that's been a part of your your professional life for awhile. While it's to me, understanding what the objects are made of, different materials and the techniques and when those different. Materials and techniques came into being is really important in order to understand how to date an object. For example, if I know that they hadn't figured out how to make the shade of pink that you find on Chinese export porcelain and later. Whereas if they didn't know how to make that before a certain date than this object can't date before the invention of that particular shape. So like, like many museum curators and went into the field learning how to differentiate between objects and date them and what factory made them and all. And then next the object. And that's fine. And you do have to have that skill. But increasingly, I fell in love with why was this thing made? What did it say about the people who owned it? Or their collections around the world or other kinds of evidence that will give a light as a sense of personality to the objects. And that led me naturally to eating. And also I love beverage where drinking, whether it's alcoholic beverages or not. And lots of other things that show how the objects were enjoyed or used within society. Because answer your question. Yeah, definitely. Okay. If you're ready, I'm gonna dive back in scale. So during the 17 hundreds, most people acquire dinner wares from local merchants. And they built their sets over time. Being pretty philosophical about whether the pieces in those sets truly matched. You might have lots of things with blue and white figures on them that you've bought over time depending on what can be the local shop. But some of them might be and Chinese export porcelain. Some of them might be an earthenware is known as pearl. Where's, some might be an earthenware is known as Delft wears. And they were all blue and white and they all might have Chinese it figures on him. So you would feel like they match money to 18th century consumers wherever they lived knew that strict rules must be followed. One wished to remain at the height of fashion or to imitate those who were. The first rule was to purchase up-to-date wears in modern patterns. And second, to update your ceramics as the passions changed. If you couldn't afford elaborate polychromy enameled Chinese porcelain were gilding. You might be able to purchase a similar pattern in blue and white. John not in his 1723 book that was titled cooks and confectioner's dictionary. This was published in London. He explained that if you couldn't afford silver or fashionable ceramics, you could use tin as a sheet, cheaper substitute. It tells us one to China dishes, ten molds or forums in this same shapes as dishes may be used, which will not easily be discovered. The bottoms ought always be covered with leaves or paper, such as Doyle's, before anything is dressed or placed upon them. Educated, fashionable members of society were fascinated by ceramics, the way they were made and traded, whether in China or closer to home. Benjamin Franklin, for example, studied ceramics when he was in England in 1758. A letter and closed with a gift of ceramic sent to his wife, tells her that the different pieces in the package are quote, to show the difference of workmanship. Something from all the china workers in England. Actually, there were a few 100 factories active by this time. And so instead, he probably meant he was sending examples of different kinds of where's that were being made throughout the country. And there were a few 100 factories in America operating at that time. In Britain. In Britain, and this is over in Britain. Yeah. Yeah, America was, was not really producing high-end objects, and we'll talk a little about that as we go on homebrew. Thank you for clarifying that though. Among the elephant, elegant, that an elephant can end well if it's not a single elephant, ceramic elephant. Among the elegant where's that Franklin would sent to his white was so-called China. And he's talking about English factories. So he would have said English China. During this period, the term china with no other modifier refers to Chinese export porcelain. Specifically, harder you haste hard paste Chinese export porcelain. So you might hear English China for the soft pace, whereas they were making this period. If they said dressed in China than there actually referring to the hard paste, where's that were coming out of mice? Germany, which was located near Dresden. Now, as you perhaps know, restrictions on colonial manufacturing crippled most attempts to produce fine ceramics in America. And what was produced on any scale does tend to postdate the revolution. Although beautiful wares from Philadelphia's bond and then Morris factory and Bart limbs, South Carolina works ultimately couldn't compete economically with the Chinese and European ceramics that were being imported. They didn't have the infrastructure to make glazes and colors and have a shipping and all of that over here. While this at all already been highly developed overseas, basically, it was cheaper to import a Chinese export porcelain high-end plate, all the way across the world to Britain. And then have it sent through middlemen to us than for us to make and distribute the pieces here. Wow. Over here, modestly priced earthenware was made in shapes and designs that typically were inspired by German or English prototypes. This especially was true of American slip decorated earthenware or slip where which featured read to buff colored poorest bodies ornamented in liquid clay, that usually was about contrasting color to the body slip where typically was being made for traditional clientele. And these folks lived locally to the potters for the most part. Though there also was some slip where that was traded up and down the East Coast. Atlas. I always wondered why the flip where style became really took off in America was its, Did it have to do it that's economical extensibility? Or was there something else about the aesthetics that appealed particularly to the colonies? That's, that's a great question and it's sort of a history of the world's production of ceramics. Kind of question. The nice thing about slip. Where was that? For the most part, the clays for the body could be dug locally. And the clays for the different colors of slips also could be dug locally and B refine. So you find that from the earliest period of ceramic production, thousands of years ago, that's one of the ways you could decorate your paths. Just what it had been colored, liquid clay on it. You also, you get slip were being imported into America from the various very earliest settlers. And it's coming mostly out of the West of England in an area that's called South Devon. And some are sack, which is nearby. And it's coming in the early 16 hundreds to us. If we want to go deeper in history and look at Spanish-speaking America, we find that there are slip decorated Where's coming from Italy and Spain and all over into Mexico, for example, in the 16 hundreds. Is that answer at all? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Now, as more elegant consumer, new, consumers knew one of the most important rules of fine ceramics acquisition. One purchased dinner wears in the quantities and shapes that could be arranged in bilaterally symmetrical settings or mirror image settings. They were instructed to do so not only in texts, but also in diagrams that were included in 17 through 19th century cookbooks. View period documents provide exact quantities and types of objects that would make up dinner services, and those that do often give inconsistent numbers. The auction house, Christie's in London, would hold it's for sale in 1766. And in that sale, they included three different dinner services among their elegant Chinese and English porcelain lots. Although all three of these lots featured 16 serving dishes such as platters, the numbers of dinner plates, terrains, and other forums buried within the group. And if I step away for a second, if you think about modern, it's maybe not in your generation, but in my generation, modern brides who might be wanting to begin a dinner service. Now I was thinking about this actually is done, is thinking about cookbooks saying, well, you have these are the, I mean, I have cookbooks that say you need to buy these certain cooking implements, but not the type of serving platter that I should be getting for mine, that roast chicken. Even more that the idea of buying a dinner service that would be service for six or eight habits for eight. Service for 12 was common when I was getting married. I got married in the eighties. So, you know, in today's world, people don't really buy services in the same way and we don't often do formal dining. So yeah, actor, this more, more varied approach. I got a lot of flack from all of my aunts who are like, you only want four or six of these, don't you want more of these? It'll slide down during the fancy stuff and the casual stuff. And in this period, people owned the fancy stuff and the casual Step two, we're focusing more on the where's you would have when you're entertaining. And so we're not talking as much about what the family might eat off of. At everyday times. One's tempted to try to determine the original sizes of dinner services from this early period by studying surviving sets. But we need to remember that attrition from breakage or sometimes bequests would change the amount that will be remaining together. This would make such counts of limited accuracy unless the original order survives. One of my favorite orders is one from 1772, which was from a wealthy landowner named Charles Carroll of keratin in Maryland. And he would request from his English agents, quote, a complete table service of the best, strongest blue and white China. Now does he mean strong blue like a bold blue because apparently like that art or thick so that it won't break. We can't tell just from that. He wanted it. He says blue and white China and that tells us it's Chinese export porcelain. Specifically, the carol order would ask for 26 dishes. And by this, he means pretty much platters. All of them of an app long-form thus, and he includes a drawing that shows them beets are long, rectangles with candid corners. Two of those dishes to be at the largest size, that to use at each end of a long table. This is where you would have soups and some of your main foods for a course. The remainder of the dishes to be in six different sizes, with four to each of those sizes. He also wants to terrains with dishes and covers a dozen soup plates, two dozen small dessert plates, 18 deep dessert plates, which are probably saucer shaped, and two very small terrains with dish covers and spoons, proper creams. This is a sort of like a creamed putting that you would have as part of desert or part of the second course. He also says he wants the whole of the service to match. And the dishes and plates must be the thickest sort that can be purchased. Nouns clunky, but it makes sense and when you're shipping them across the world, in 1775, Carol would send out another order for a large dinner service. This time he's requesting what was known as Queen's China. Queens China is a term that was used for cream coloured earth and where Josiah Wedgewood had sold is set to Queen Charlotte. And so the name queens China was, was appended to this type of wear to make it seem more elegant. And Carol asks that the cream where b of quote, the newest pattern, but in no ways decorated. So as to Harper dirt wants to know that mean Well, it does sound weird, doesn't it? Because we think of our dishes today, today and for the most part they're round or they might be square something, but they're smooth. In this period, elegance sometimes was being added to a design by creating relief ornament or perhaps piercing patterns in the border. And those are a pain in the neck to to keep clean and they also can in some cases make it more likely to break. Now he does qualify this order and say that matching baskets and fruit dishes, however, can admit such ornament without that inconvenience. So he's OK and having a coupled so at a nice smile, see looking fancy dishes because it's only a few to deal with as opposed to the entire service having those elaborate, harder to claim designs? Well. It's funny that he's worried about that because he's probably not doing any of the cleaning. That's a great thing that mentioned because one thing it reminds me of is that in many cases it was men ordering the services or the wives would be. In biology, you know, at vary by Couple of course, because every couple is different. But these objects were making a statement about the stature of the family and society. We're not going to be talking much about patterns. But certain designs might be selected because they suggested that you were pro monarchy or aunt, or that you were interested in the sciences and wanted natural history, design, snow, flowers from botanical books. Or that you were aware of the new French passions and wanted French landscape. So the men, typically we're very involved in making these choices. Not so interesting because it really is about the statement that insulin, because I guess these were as you were saying, there only brought out when guests are coming over. So it is literally their showcase. Well, and unlike today, very often the types of designs you had on your dinner where would be echoed in the patterns on the curtains in the room and the prints hanging on the wall or the wallpaper. So you didn't just go out and say, oh, that's nice, dish pattern and bring it home and eat off it. It made a statement as part of an ensemble with the manager of setting. Unlike Carol, who we were just speaking of, most people would build their sets over time. In London alone, between around 17111774, there were over 100 specialists, China dealers, shopkeepers who were in colonial towns, such as overhear in America, also carried a range of both elegant and less costly ceramics. And this is evidenced by newspaper advertisements from the mid 18th century onward. References to individual tableware pieces like plates or covered dishes we're available for sale are by far the most common, but some sets also are recorded. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Gazette is especially rich and such references with sets appearing increasingly from the 17 sixties onwards. Joseph stands varies. Philadelphia store would provide customers with table where during the 17 sixties to eighties. And then one of his 1769 ads he would offer per sale, individual Chinese porcelain plates in blue and white, enameled ones as well. And a terrain and dish in blue and white. And too short sets. King of 20 pieces. These short sets would be sort of part dinner services, perhaps just plates or plates and soup plates are what we call tuple. And when he says named King, he's talking about a sort of generic landscape pattern where more specifically about what Nan Qing design is today. But they were a little bit more generalized than to a shirts that would that be helping someone to fill out their large rooms that are probably and you might think that seems to be the case. He also was offering a range of salt glazed stone ware and cream where terrains and stands as well as sets of dishes in those materials. Presumably for those assets were being mixed and matched with other forms that you might buy right then, or you may have bought some last year and be buying some now and then some more next year. Also in 1769, stands for would advertise goods that had newly arrived from London. He would have in Chinese porcelain dishes, table plates, Nan Qing, breakfast sets, which tend to be pretty small. A very neat terrain and dish, blue and white. Very doh de doh, de doh Nino doesn't mean cool. But in this case, neat commonly would mean something very simple and clean and elegant. A neat design was less elaborate. He also had cream colored or cream where fruit plates and stands, leaves, which are actually dishes in the shapes of leaves and Scala shells of different sizes. And he had white stone plates. This means salt glazed white stone where plates that were both plane or with Figured edges. Figured edges is in reference to relief patterns. And as we move on, you'll hear me talking about edge where. And those are typically ones that have relief such as a shallower, a feather pattern. He also had Delft in both plane and colored patterns. Plane is probably blue and white and colored would be additional colors. And he had elegant glassware, including the Kanter's, as well as plane, opaque, twist and engraved wines. Quote, very cheap himself. Like today's merchants, they're trying to advertise to a broad range of levels of consumers might be off topic, but you think of glasses as whole glassware as holding liquids. But were there firm work? I can't picture any in our collection so much but pleats. And there are, especially as you get into the 19th century, there's more. But you do get plates being used as sometimes serving dishes, composts. There's lots and lots of cut glass. Yeah, that is a all the pressed glass plate, right? And in the 18th century and 19th you'll get the cut glass lanes and dinner where two, but I'd say the 19th century you get more of what would be considered closer to a dinner service or large groupings. And they're a little bit less common. During the 18th century. From the 17 seventies onward, American shopkeepers would put in advertisements that show us that dinner sets in Chinese export porcelain and an English cream where in Perl where we're the most fashionable. And there are quite a number of ads I could refer to. I think I may skip over some of these because I don't want our audience to get bored. But it's a wonderful subject. And looking at the period, newspapers could really be entertaining. But something I find interesting seems to be that as you move further south from New England, you often will get more description within, within the advertisements. It's almost like a caricature of New England people using fewer words are abbreviated. By the time you get down to Virginia, you'll often get a little bit more elaborate detail. And the same is true in inventories that are taken up in New England as you go down. Other scholars may last that me and throw me out of the room. But this is something I've noticed now, I think you're onto something. So let's see if I, if I look at some of my favorite adds, one of my favorites is actually near the end of the 18th century, and it's in a Philadelphia paper. And this is dated to 1795. And this is a sort of frantic merchant who is offering quote, a t and dining table set consisting of above 500 pieces of beautiful cream colored where or cream where it is initialed, JT was imported by a person who is deceased, now gives any person whose name and initial Sue and opportunity of acquiring it. And at a very reasonable rate, you didn't pay for these things until they had a right. And so a few centered order out one year or many months over to England. The dishes are made and they get back and you died to pay for this service. So he's frantically looking for someone who has got JT initials and while by this special order, very high-end service. Huh? No dinner where that bears names, initials, or memorial devices were very much the exception. And usually work commissioned for fairly wealthy households. Sadly, although that subject is truly fascinating, it needs to wait for another time since I can only hint at these exceptional objects in a lecture that is meant to give a little bit broader sense of dining and dinner where instead, now that we've acquired some tableware, let's consider the eternal question. When do we eat? Every day, every hour, every hour. Yet more, in other word, hope. Just as today, the timing of 18th century meals differed by location, background in social class, but we can make a few generalizations. By mid-century, breakfast in fashionable London and presumably places like Philadelphia, typically was served around ten o'clock. Country gentry or farmers more commonly, we're breakfast staying at around nine AM. And the less wealthy classes would eat earlier. Crafts people and other people who are providing services. In fashionable and middling income homes, breakfast typically consisted of bread or toast with coffee or hot chocolate. And it replaced the former mid-morning snack of cold meat with a ill or beer. Paypal settings we're informal. A few dishes placed for convenience. The term luncheon, also known as nun Chen or nutrition, which I had not heard of me now, is recorded occasionally from around 1700 through the 17 fifties, and it seems to have referred to as snack rather than a real meal. Dr. Johnson, 1755 Dictionary defines lunch or a luncheon as quote, only as much food as one's hand can hold. And Munchen, he describes as quote, a piece of victuals are vital eaten between meals. So basically, what is a relation? It'll bills that they're basically just, it's sort of a shorthand for food that is not an elaborately prepared item. It's really more like a snack. Ok. I was afraid you're going to say it was like some kind of like animal that yeah, it may be something grows but it may not be. So it's just a piece of food. And big jewel is just another, another name for that. Or in the country. Sub late 18th century lunches were more substantial, helping to push dinner later and later as an alternative to lunch. And one might snack on small pastries, fruit or nuts that would accompany afternoon tea. Now, I'm going to skip over dinner for a moment and we'll find that the casual family supper also was moving later in the day by the 17 seventies, where it's still survived suffer typically was more of a late light snack than a formal meal. Leftovers were most common. But Charles masons 1773 book titled The ladies assistant for regulating and supplying her table, does offer a more elegant supper menu titled quote, a little family suffer of four things. Got four main dishes, perhaps with a few sides, included 11774 cookery book called a collection of 137 approved receipts or recipes, solves a perennial problem with instructions, unquote. How to make up a supper when company comes unexpectedly having nothing but what was left at dinner. So basically, how do it look to entertain you? Guess when Eliot happens leftovers. So now we've been dancing all around it. But let's go ahead and take a look at dinner. A German visitor named Arkan Holt's, who visited London in 1791, record, recorded quote, mealtimes among Londoners are very variable. Artisans dine at about one o'clock. Shopkeepers and other traits. People at about three, the aristocracy does not go to dinner until about four, or even later. So this is dinner, the main meal of the day. Remember this isn't a time when lighting is expensive. And so having what we would call dinner that night carried with it some additional cost. When fashionable society, whether in Britain, continental Europe, or America, did finally sit down to dinner. And especially when they were entertaining guests, expected that the table would be gloriously arranged in quantities and shapes of dishes that facilitated bilaterally symmetrical settings. As I said before, throughout the century, both the dishes and the foods themselves that were placed on them needed to reflect visual balance. So you might have, say, a large turkey at one end of the table being balanced by some other large food that possibly would be similarly colored eta, symmetrical arrangement. Mrs. Alice Smith, who wrote The Art of cookie cookery that was published in England in 1758, provided a whole chapter. Unquote, the economy of that table or placing the dishes. So in other words, setting the table, she tells us, quote, the best dinner will have button ill aspect if the dishes are not properly disposed on the table. It is the custom in England to eat off of square or long tables. The French in general ITA and round or oval ones. It is true that we sit more conveniently, but the French have vastly at the advantage and disposing and placing their entertainment, meaning laying out the table. The first course, typically petri, dishes produced in the kitchen, such as soups, salads, and butchers mate. And by butchers mate I mean usually things like beef, mutton, VLR ham, and also hunted foods such as Venice were available. The second course would include fresh dishes from the kitchen. And he wants it had just been cooked, as well as some earlier prepared ones that came from the still room. And the still room is where you put certain foods aside, like savory jellies or potted fish are potted meat. So things that were made ahead and were put in Pat's to, to store them. More typical of the second course also were game birds, ones that you've taunted. Vegetables, meaning something beyond just garnishes. Also tarts and creams and dishes that involved fruits and suite mates. Now, I don't know if you're picking up on this, but the first course tended to be more meats and sort of heavy kinds of foods. The second course would have some mates, but also would include sweet dishes intermingled with them. There were certain foods that were okay desorb at either the first or the second course. And among these for certain types of puddings or pies, pickled foods, lamb I don't know why lambs okay. Marked above and some kinds of files such as ducks, geese, and also many fish and certain egg dishes. And I don't know why this rule existed, but it was accepted in the co-create books that were recommended what you would eat, that these types of groupings of foods would be the best when you're entertaining. Isn't it really just the upper classes that are having nice group these separate courses or is it really kind of the general practice across the board? Well, the proportions have what were considered the upper classes to the lower classes. And I know those are qualifications that are not good terms has changed a lot. So the middle-class was much smaller. The percentage of society that included the middle and upper or well, yeah, classes was quite small. So I would say that the vast majority of people were eating in a more casual way. Also, the middle classes were not entertaining anywhere near as frequently as the wealthy work. And so their average meal might have been more casual. So we've talked a little bit about what was being served at the different courses. But we also need to remember that there were conventions regarding the seeding of guests. This is at an elegant entertainment. Much of the century, meaning the 18th century, hosts and hostesses would avoid disputes by placing the most important female guests in order of precedence or importance beginning at the right hand of the mistress. This would be at what was referred to as the top of the table. Similarly, gentlemen guests would sit at the bottom near the host. If the mistress where serving the soup or carved a large joined to meet, she would offer the best pieces to the most important guess. Over time, however, it began to be considered bulgur to notice distinctions between one's guests. John trust lose 1788, honors of the table, which is sort of teaching not only servants, but also young masters and mistresses of households. Trust flow tells us, quote, custom has lately introduced a new mode of seeding. A gentlemen and ladies sitting alternately around the table for the better convenience of a lady's being served by the gentleman next to her. But notwithstanding this promiscuous seeding, ladies are still to be served in order according to their rank or age and after them, the gentlemen in the same manner. And one thing this is reminding me of is when I was growing up, it still was not uncommon in some households for the mother and father to sit at opposite ends of the table? Yeah. My mind to Growing up. Yeah. And this is all descended from the same idea. The host and hostess would be. The opposite ends. In more casual, if you're taking care of kids and trying to feed them and stop them and that can change. But but there's actually no, it's actually they, even now when you are giving a dinner party, you'll often have at opposite ends of the table that the host and hostess, Yeah. Probably also for conversation, as well as making sure that the two ends of the table or having a good time. Yeah. Are they saying when you're saying that it became more vulgar to in surveying like the best pieces to the most distinguished guests. Are you saying that the change was because of this desire to have like men and women alternating and are they talking about women being less distinguished? Or is it I think a so finds a status thing. In this case, they're trying to get away from having the most, you know, you hear about my right hand man or my right-hand woman. The people who were most important used to set immediately to the right of the host or hostess based on gender. And by breaking this up and having people be boy girl, boy, girl going around the table than that sort of evens everybody out. It also makes it hard because you have to have an equal number of men and women at an elegant table. But so this was one way to start treating all of your guess equally. So during the 18th century, and in some areas, continental Europe remains a little bit more conservative. But in Britain and America, it becomes more and more appropriate to try and treat everyone equally. And so not to just be. Sitting most important people by the host or hostess and or giving them. They are the most important cuts of meat. This had begun to change a little bit in the late 16 hundreds though. So it wasn't brand new then, but it became more common as you get towards the middle of the 18th century. Pheno one, what was happenings? Like, what was happening that was starting to spark that social change. There's a greater sense of literacy. There is social unrest at, it's before some of the revolutions, but there are increasing concerns and differences between the haves and have-nots in greater awareness by the have-nots on what's going on with the halves are more newspapers are being published and are talking about special events and all so that you start just people who we're seeing, the wealthy folks in a totally different world starts to be some windows into that and some animosity. Yeah, I'm guessing I'm not a scholar in that area, but this is the impression I get from the readings I've done and would make sense, right? A window into some of the unrest in the colonies. And like seeing that there's there might be something afoot here. Yeah. Yeah. And what, you know, there's a sense of frivolity on the part of the, when you're looking at someone quite wealthy and you're just scraping to try and eat. So again, do not take me as a scholar in this area. I am, I'm just guessing based on what I'm saying. In fact, there are this I am speculating and many others are better at that. Now, once you were at the table, the stress for you to act appropriate would appropriately would increase. As early as 1672 in Antoine to Cortez book of manners, diners are instructed to quote, take food only from the part of the dish opposite you, meaning the one right near you, still less should you take the best pieces? Dakar Town also warns, quote, to wipe your fingers on your bread is very improper. Formerly, one was permitted to dip ones bred into the sauce. If one had not already Bitnet and one was allowed to take from one's mouth what one could not eat. So you'd think like bristle bone and stuff like that and drop it on the floor. Now, that would be considered very disgusting. And he imagine being the one to right needs rules. Well, that was important because in 1672, very few people had napkins and some of the most, most costly materials that might be on your table would be the textiles. So your tablecloth could sometimes cost as much or more than the dishes placed upon it. You do get tablecloths being lifted. You lift up the edge and wipe your mouth and that, that would be one action. But as you get to 1700 and a little bit later, some textiles increasingly are available and people do begin to start having individual napkins. But that's still and comparatively affluent homes. Now, following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. A number of, the number of dinner service such as meat carvers are Cup bearers, began to decrease. Carping became the province of the master and mistress of the house, or sometimes an honored guest. And The Butler took on many of the former responsibilities about other servants. Now granted, not that many houses had lots of servants, but many did have at least a feel. Giles roses 1682 London publication that in turn was a translation of a 1652 French edition, is titled quote, a perfect School of instructions for the officers of the mouth. Let Yeah. Perfect School of instructions for the officers of the mouth and all armpits, Aristotle mouth. Their office or their duty was to serve a table. The officers of the mouth would be those servants. And this teaches the reader the arts of carving, cookery, pastry, and also laying a cloth for a grand entertainment. And that means setting the table for one of these grand entertainments. Rose would describe ahead servants accoutrements that resemble some of those of modern servers. He says, The hour of meals being calm and all things are now and readiness. The maitre tell are basically today's butler takes a clean napkin, folds it at length, so in a long rectangle, narrow, and throws it over his shoulder. Remember aiding, remembering that this is the ordinary mark or symbol of his office. And I don't know if you've ever been to a restaurant. Lauren was there often, sort of the fancy continental type restaurants where the maitre d will have a white napkin that is thrown over his shoulder and why you can identify him as the head servants had servant in the dining area. So this is the origins of that kind of looks so that you know who to go to. If there's a problem. Everyone might be in uniform, but he would be identified as the guy in charge. So this is being recorded in as early as 1652 and then in 1682, I think I'd like better than, you know, when the manager comes around everything today and I hate that. Well, and you don't usually say the truth. He's going away, it's flat. And so this book I was mentioning, bye, bye. Rose, also instructs the Butler on how to direct all the lesser workers in the highly choreographed arrangement of the pool filled dishes on the table, how to place them, how far they need to be a part in everything. And the book provides numbered dish layouts that you could use either for rectangular, oval, round, or octagonal tables. These are patterns that you might work from when figuring out your menu. The late 16 hundreds saw formal serve and have a court style service to increasingly giving way to a more casual approach that was sometimes referred to as so V sada Francaise or the French approach to service, the servants duties. And these new fashions often dealt more with passing drinks. With serving food, the major central dishes sometimes continue to be served by the hostess or by servants under her direction. But smaller delicacies were self-served from nearby plate. A little over a 100 years later. Waiters must have been on pins and needles. When trust lose. 1788 book titled the honors of the table, would provide 14 different rules for waiting at the table. Some of which are still demonstrated at buying restaurants or that elegant dinners today, among these 14 rules, he tells us if there is a soup for dinner. We lay each person a flat plate and a soap plate over it, a napkin, knife, fork and spoon. If any of the garnish of the dishes falls on the cloth, remove it from the table in a plate, thus keeping the table free for letter. If anyone's bread helped them to it before it is called four. Never reach across a table or in serving one person, put your hand or arm before and other. And this really is how people are still taught today to serve. And this book was published in 1788. So that's how he telepathic. Yeah, yeah, the serving bread, you can tell that people are almost done, so you at least offer it to him. Although formality in terms of table plan would continue by the time Martha Bradley's British house wife would appear in weekly installments in a newspaper in 1756. Modern elegant dining, clearly different from that of the old days. She says it was, are accustomed to let, to let the lady of the house helper visitors. And this, though troublesome to her, gave her an opportunity of showing with what satisfaction she waited on her guests. At present, however, everyone takes care of himself, helping himself to what is next, or sending his plate to the person who sits near what he likes so that the lady fairs like the rest of the company and has no more trouble than the others. Bradley says also that the old manner was troublesome to some guess, we might not want to bother their hostess each time they wanted another serving. She writes, When there are about two or three people at table and, but two or three dishes that mistress of the house should help everybody wants and desire them afterwards to take care of themselves. Where there are a great many dishes and a great deal accompany she should tell them she leaves them to take French ease. The dinner is before them and they are expected to take care of themselves and of one another. And thinking about how stressful dinners must have been these social hours because everything you're doing is judged. And it's also, may I have a question for you? So I'm a very slow eater. And when I go out to restaurants or people's house, but more about more going to restaurants. I get so annoyed when everyone else has done before me and they come and they take the plates away to clear them off. Is there what was the etiquette back then? Do you know or was it to wait till everyone was done with one course to then clear things away. Through most of my life. It has been to wait till everyone was done and then clear the course. I would say it's only really, maybe 20 years ago. Let's say 20 to 30 years ago. That has become the fashion, especially at restaurants. It'll start taking away on a plate that's empty. Cuz that would have, the waiters would have been fired for doing that in the old days. But I guess it's an obsession with neatness. That's about the same time we start getting exaggerated use of cleaners on everything and a lot a lot of the fears of cross-contamination and all were began to be stopped at that time too. So I can only figure that maybe this is just a time where an obsession with neatness started coming about. Yeah. But back in the times you're talking about the 18th century, you would never hate glared. Okay, now, now you might, you might bring, if you finished with one plate, you might be brought a fresh plate to continue within that course. And you also often there were, depending on where you were, you might pay It's on the plate or your your flat where on the plate and set it down that way. There were certain ways to signal the fact that you are finished. But then you would just wait till everyone at the table had done that similar type of signal. Or you could write anything. Although some wealthy families did prefer traditional foods and dining styles, many bullet near busy seaports eagerly awaited new shipments of current ceramics and equally important cookery and etiquette books with instructions on how to use those new where's 17th century and later cookery books stress symmetry, as I'd said. And that had to do with regarding setting formal tables. And in some cases, they were providing those number dish layouts for different shapes of tables. Through the mid 17 hundreds, many such books illustrated grand feasts of the British nobility. Although some more middle-class tables were also creeping in showing the serving dishes, but typically execute excluding given individual place settings. And this might be hard to think about Rarely without visuals. But if you can imagine looking down at a table top and you're seeing all of the dishes laid out and there would be words, might say Hamlet and one and soap on another one and vegetables and some of the other plates, I mean, excuse me, serving dishes that were like a like a label in front of the plate. You mean? This is what then they'll cookbook within a giving you a table plan, I think. All right. So, so you're, you're you're a bird looking down at this table. So they'd have the shapes and arrangements of the plates and each of those shapes would have within at the label of what food was appropriate. Typically, those table plans do not include the place settings. So the plate that goes in front of each individual sitting there. Why waste the space on the page what that they would just assume everybody knows how to put your dinner plates down. And so they look more like you're looking almost at a buffet table. Not the arrangement of all the food filled plates. It doesn't show the dinner plates and that was just a convention and the time just mentioning this for those folks who are listening, who might at some point be taking a peek at some of these table plans. I don't want them to be confused. By around 1700 increases. And in both expendable income and literacy among women, saw the London cookery book market widened to include, include members of the middle-class. Wealthy families prided themselves on reproducing or outdoing the grand tables of their betters and less moneyed hostesses imitate those elegant settings as best they could. Many at the cookery books provided discussions and seasonal availability of foods, as well as suggesting possible substitutions. So I couldn't serve something that grows in nature only in the summertime if it's mid-winter, unless I had preserved it and in some some types of things were preserved for Bolin, You might have instructions on that. Yeah, their listings for seasonal availability often in the back of the cookbooks. They'll say OK, it's January, These are the vegetables that will be available to you. Aphids book that's come from London and urine, South Carolina. He it's not necessarily going to be accurate. It was an attempt to try and give you that guide of what your selections might be, times that we should all eat that way, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if you were rich enough and you had a greenhouse or something, then you could MBA's, the times of year when you could eat things. But that costs and what we eat as everyday food was totally different than what everyday people could eat at the time. And so what are the actual foods being eaten? In England in the 18th century would see increase in consumption of meat. Much of it traveling southward on foot or hoof along the often poor roads from Scotland, wailed whales and the North of England. Not uncommonly, many head were sold at country fairs or to butchers along the way. So the animals that finally made it to London, the cosmopolitan center of Britain off more of lesser quality than what had been sold off on the way down, which is a little counter-intuitive. But it makes sense when you think about, you know, if you have an opportunity to sell yourself, obvious advantages came with owning farmland that was outside the city, which could supply higher-quality meats and other foods. And although I'm using Britain as an example, the same would be true and cosmopolitan areas in America, continental Europe, and all over the world. Cooked meats at fashionable tables were prized for their variety and taste. Well, if their appearance, meets served and middling or less with wealthy households were more notable for their monotony. The mid 17 fifties diary of an English tradesman named Thomas Turner, indicates that his dinner typically included a row store boiled meat and some sort of a putting, as well as vegetables. Turner's Sunday dinner was quote, a pig roasted, a piece of beef boiled, and a plum rice pudding and turnips. Meat also would feature, as well as being eaten on an everyday basis at home. It would feature in obligatory meals that were being provided to the quote, lower classes, end quote by the wealthy. 11730, Christmas in England would see a fellow named Lord Fermont off of a place called Clayton, entertaining 400 tenants, laborers, townspeople, and school children at a party that lasted several days. This was basically an obligation of being a good, good landowner. He was irritated by the noise, especially from the musicians and complained, quote, besides the vast expense, it has been very tiresome. And a few years later, permanent would escaped to London and leave his son in charge of the event which has now been reduced to a single day. The Sun would provide, quote, a sirloin of beef and five ribs roasted. Now presumably, he means like a rack of ribs, not a single rib. He also had for geese and for plum puddings. They presumably meaning the people behave very well and we're very moderate, both in eating and drinking. And came at one o'clock and went away at six. Meets also were common fare when one dined out. Tavern public rooms, most often frequented by men, serve foods that were simple and range and presentation, including mostly roasted meats. Some elegant establishments like done in Williamsburg, Virginia at the rally tavern. They had both public and private dining rooms, the latter being rentable for things like dining clubs or private parties. The ladies who visited rallies, Daphne room could enter by a nearby private entrants, avoiding contact with the hoi polloi in the public room. Once inside, the Ladies and gentlemen were served in elegant meal, unfashionable dinnerware that was reserved for that more elegant setting. As an alternative to a tavern, one could buy a midi meal at a quick chop, chop house or beef steak house. 16 nineties visitor to London. They mature, MY song, wrote, they were a cook shops enough in all parts of the town where it's common to go and chose upon the spit, any part of the meat you like and to eat it, they're butchers mate, meaning again, beef button park, or sometimes Lamb was most common. And according to my song, you could have what quantity you pleased, cutoff, fat or ln, much or little done. They'd be chopping it off of the spit or you a little salt and mustard were put on the side of the plate and you received a bottle of beer and a role he tells us foul or a pigeon were available at special requests. But the meets with a little bit more common. 17 years later in the 17 sixties London journal, The Scottish lawyer and author James Bond's well, would tell them to eating at a somewhat similar establishment. He says it has a warm, comfortable lounge room where a number of people set a table. You take whatever place you find empty. Call for what you like. What you get well in cleverly dressed or prepared to play the food critics or the restaurant critics. Absolutely, that becomes a bigger thing in the 19th century. But you do have by word of mouth as well as by newspaper advertisements, discussions of. You should go to eat when you go to these different towns. Same thing with where you should go to stay. You know, this one has bed bugs that when he says that, he concludes with a typical meal, includes beef, bread and beer and a penny for the waiter. Which reminds me to the idea, the idea of tips. Leaving tips. Originally, tips, where that name comes from. A box that was put on the wall or container that was in a room that had was to ensure promptness. Tip is is a reference to that. And initially, you would go into your Go into the Romani which throw some money in there to make sure that we're cramped. But presumably pretty quickly people realized a bit tip before the work is done. They already have the gas, right? They changed it so that now tipping is done afterwards. I had no idea that it stood for that. I guess I never thought about it. Yeah, because it is where tips what does that mean? That it doesn't have anything to do with male, but it is to ensure promptness. Let's see. Why don't we talk a little bit about birds and gain, okay? Most 18th century Americans were fairly free to hunt game to supplement their dinner menus. But in England during the 18th century, ordinary families were fine to get more and more difficult to acquire gain. The big landowners were increasingly receiving power to enclose their properties. Think of fencing, for example, and stricter gain laws, such as the so-called black Act that was passed in 1723, increased the punishment for poaching. The death penalty now could be awarded to any poachers who were taken either when armed or masked, wasn't because they were starting to see species dying out. I don't think it was that noble. I think it was just a control, the Wellesley keeping, you know, you have a Medieval tradition of people being able that there were no laws of trespass and a lot of areas so that you could go absolutely everywhere. The 18th century they start containing these spaces so that, you know, you still were not supposed to go and the King's land to hunt deer. Yeah. But this becomes stricter and stricter controls so that you can't fish in a Scottish lock that's owned by a particular landowner, especially et cetera. So it's limiting more and more what people have to eat. Tradition and need, however, would lead small games such as rabbits and hares to continue to appear on many tables in Britain and more frequently in America. Such food could sometimes be made more fashionable by recipes that explained how to disguise those lesser or less elegant animals as trust. Trust sort of cut and arranged and roasted game birds. Large birds like pheasants, Partridge and grouse, continued in popularity. Unfashionable tables during the 17 hundreds. Smaller ones, like thrushes, blackbirds and sparrows, that had been so fashionable and elegant tables in previous centuries now were relegated almost exclusively to the tables of the poor. Domesticated fowl, such as chickens, geese, ducks and alike, were kept privately, both in city and rural settings. Alternatively, you could buy either living birds are dead or cooked ones, as well as eggs from street sellers. As was true for me, it's the cookery books listed are illustrated, illustrated presentation styles for various types of birds. Lots of them were being served pole with the head still line and required elaborate carping at the table. And you'll find in cookbooks they'll show these birds with little dotted lines showing like serrations where you would cut the bird. Table. And evidence suggests that garnishes for the birds commonly included things like little tarts or potatoes or certain types of greens. Though there weren't gradual improvements in transportation. Inland Britain, as well as America typically did not have access to much in the way of fresh seafood where one could get it. The obsession with shellfish and especially oysters, is something hard to be believed. Oysters were adored by the rich and poor alike. And based on archeological evidence, huge oysters from 18th century American word waters were nearly a million themselves. Now, as an aside, early in my career, I began down at Colonial Williamsburg. And one of the ways I kept body and soul together was by making fake food for dinner tables there. And so I would work with the archeologists and we would go not only to look at the ceramics they were taking up, but the fragments of different types of foods. They were taking up oyster shells that were as lounges from the tips of my fingers to halfway to my elbow mouth because I'm guessing maybe a pound of meat in them. My comment was just enormous. By this time in Britain, the shellfish had, ignoring the fact that a lot of the waterways were polluted. The shellfish had often been kinda fished out, so they were usually getting much smaller ones. But one thing that you get touted in 17th, 18th century America is the fact that so much of the shellfish and the fish not been pushed out to there way, way bigger. So there are some differences, but oysters were a biggie on both sides of the Atlantic. Mmm, I'll pass. I love voices can take years, they're therapy. Near the coast. Soul was quite popular as a fish and a fairly good Grange of freshwater fish were raised in purpose-built pons at some great houses. As a century progressed, however, many of those ponds were being remodelled as more aesthetically pleasing water features or were filled in altogether and paper of new landscape designs. Trout and salmon continued to be available in many rivers. And in England, you could still catch great big fish-like sturgeon in the Thames, Severn, and time Rivers. I believe that they're now virtually extinct. And those areas, fresh fish and also turtles, seem often to have been served toll and were carved at the table as they were preserved. Padded fish such as lampreys are eels and char from England's lake district could be eaten year round. Aes could either salted or dried fish. The seasonality of foods such as salad greens, fruits and vegetables is discussed in many 18th century co-create books. Charles Carter's 1730, complete practical cook includes monthly plans and foods as we've heard brother typed. And he shows some of those different shaped tabletops with dish outline supplied. Among the more famous publications are Hannah glasses, popular 747s book titled The Art of cookery, made plain and easy, which also discussed food seasonality. And like her 1788, complete confectioner was reprinted several times for English and American audiences. By the early 17 hundreds, most fruit and vegetable phobias were going out of fashion. Such foods were eaten when available and mapped too costly by rich and poor alike. Cooks and elegant homes prepared artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower are mushrooms, less costly cabbages and root vegetables, such as carrots or in some regions, potatoes were served and middling income to poorer homes. Just reminding folks that things like asparagus, you know, it's not cheap but we can, pretty much everybody can have asparagus or broccoli or cauliflower nowadays. In this period, however, those were newly refined and elegant foods that were only accessible to people who are quite wealthy, and potatoes which are pretty basic Today, we're of course not yet being distributed internationally on, on the same level. And they were in areas such as Ireland and Britain before they were being used on a large scale over here. Yeah, you know, talking about eating practices and bring, it does make me think about famines that have occurred. I mean, the, in Ireland that was later than what we're talking about now. But in India, which was a British colony at the time and to thinking about it makes me think about it. And we'll be discussing in a few minutes a different time type of famine rather than the potato famine that did happen in Britain during the 18th century. And it's a, it's a big deal. Yeah. They didn't have the pesticides. They might have problems with too much or too little water, meaning rain, precipitation, the same as today, but they didn't have any stopgap, so but protect them on any level, especially if you were not a quite wealthy farmer. Yeah, and also the development of agricultural science to, to understand how to you foresee issues that could be, could arise. But also, they I know there was a lot of experimentation in best practice too. Yes, diversification of crops. Anyway, it's true that there were publications I think relate from certainly the 1600 onward. We're trying to teach people how to raise orchards and what might grow best or worst doping to plant something that would drop pests away from your craft. Does that is available. But the books were published and limited numbers and were not accessible to every farmer throughout the world. So that was a bit of a problem. Ideally, you would raise your greens or vegetables on your own property. But alternatively, you could buy them from street sellers are market gardeners, some of whom grew their stock in enclosed plots or greenhouses right within the city. For most people, the fruits that were available in the 18th century were pretty much limited. And in cities at least sometimes we're indifferent quality is selling techniques also. Were that always praiseworthy? Tobias smile it. Who wrote the 1771 story accompanied clink. Tobias small. It is the person. By a small it, wow. I didn't know what a smile at. It sounds like a kind of fish. Dubai is small. It wasn't an author actually. And he wrote a book in 1771. That was, that was fiction, but it was about a guy named Humphrey clunker. And he said, yeah, they're, they're juicy in it. And he describes in the book that there's a woman who's selling produce from her wheel barrow and she's cleaning the dusty fruit with her own spinel. Yeah. It sounds gross, to be honest. It's not that big a stretch to think that this did occasionally happen. It's a time before germs, Right? Yeah, the understanding of how illness with spread was different. And not everyone had a complete awareness of the advantages of cleanliness. Now if you could afford it, you might buy imported or hothouse grown exotic fruits, such as oranges, lemons, mangoes, limes, figs, pineapples, and private orchards and vineyards. Some of them experimenting with new types of fruits were being developed both in England and in America. In America, for example, Thomas Jefferson at motto, cello, was quite involved in refining different ways of growing fruits. 11761 Pennsylvania Gazette add lists that mirror fellows at Philadelphia. There was a lot per sale quote, which contains about two acres of garden ground. One acre is planted with fine apple, peach, and cherry trees, which bear a great deal of choice fruit. The other acre is almost all planted with the largest Battersea asparagus. The early 17 hundreds saw milk beginning to replace the seventeenth-century obsession with butter in elegant recipes for sauces, red Goos and deserts. By the time Josiah Wedgewood, who was a ONE does factory that produced ceramics in Staffordshire. But by the time he began taking orders for dairy wears in the 17 sixties, ladies at some important country houses were dabbling at dairy work in elegant, purpose-built spaces, or there were supervising others and the production of cheeses screen and milk. So you can imagine a wealthy woman having this beautifully tiled pristine Dairy where she could go out and I'm sort of pretend that she was living a rustic life is elegant things while the reality of dairy work, although it needs to be clean, if you're lucky, it was a much more earthy type of process. So milk becoming a huge part of cuisine. Dairy was but cream and butter and those really rich, rich, YES. Fatty type dairy products were more popular until you start getting into the 18 hundreds, I'm excuse me, 17 hundreds. And then you start seeing milk being used instead. And changes in the recipes themselves. So some food start changing, but there, I think some of the heavier foods maybe give away to certain white ones. I'm not a cook. My husband does all the cooking. There does seem to be a general change in the way the foods go. Is a wonderful, brilliant, marvelous researcher. His name is Ivan de, and he has done not only really enjoyable, brilliant publications on the history of food, but he's also done some magnificent YouTube videos where he makes different kinds of foods and jellies and talks about the history. And I would really recommend that for people who like food history, he's just a really nice man. But he's also brilliant at presenting on the history of foo. Okay, yeah. And this whole time I've been trying to think of show's name and that this is all making me think about. And I finally remembered it is called lords and labels. Oh, it's fantastic. I don't know if it's I don't know if they're still doing episodes, but it was it set in Ireland and they go to, it's, it's kind of a reality, it's a reality show, cooking show, history show. And they go to these different country estates. They're kinda like these old castles and will find historic cookbooks and recipes that had been cooked there on the estate by those set by the staff. And so there's three of them and one will be the chef for the evening, one will be the like person overseeing, gathering all of the food. And the other person is the one like going into the archives and doing the research. And anyway, it's really and there, there you might go crazy because they're, they're using. Or sometimes like the dining wears in this person's in these people's home. And I remember one in particular was like, you know, they, they typically we still do in Yan Liang great houses. They're eating off of that stuff. And I, we won't talk to them about lead glazes. Now because that's an issue. There's a wonderful show that was, I think in the footsteps of Queen Victoria, and I'd have to double-check the name. But it's a similar thing where they go through her procession, where she would go and stay at different grade houses. And Ivan de is working down in the kitchen. And then there's a woman who was a famous cook over there who is upstairs and is talking, is doing more research related stuff that has to do with the serving. But that's a great one. And a recent film that came out is called Pride and Prejudice goes to the ball. And it's brilliantly research and presented. They, they pick that ball where Darcy, mates, Elizabeth. And they go to all of the different cookbooks and spaces that would have been known to. So Emily Bronte, Jane Austin, Jane Austin, I did. My grain fill out. The Jane Austen would've been familiar with. They find her book of music where she had transcribe music. And they pick a typical male that was served at her brother's house, and her brother's house had a hole in it. So they reproduce. They go to textile past whom specialists. And they reproduce the whole thing and just put on that one ball. And it's all about how you learn the dances, how you cook the foods, how you set the table, how you eat at the table, and it's really good. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Now, white wheat was considered preferable for bread, especially in the Midlands and the south of England. And it seems also here in America. But a crisis that was brought on by core harvests list lead to higher prices during the latter half of the 18th century. The darker breads that were made when baker's substituted other grains are included being our potato meal, we're not very well-received and this resulted in lesser weight, lesser white tweet sometimes being filled out unhealthily with either chalk or alum. Dave, 117, fifties pamphlet was publish and it's titled poison detected or frightful, true? And if accuses bakers of stealing and grinding up the bones of the dead to fill out. And now, now I gotta say it's aims I, getting a cow bomb would be a lot easier than the United. So, so it's possible unless you're trying to cover your track. And that's incredibly adult life. But I don't know that they ever proved this was true, but it was sort of a scare tactics. But that's ever was the case. Those who had money were really not that terribly inconvenienced by the problems with the wheat harvest. They just paid a little more for their weight. And the elegant Breakfast tables continued to feature toasted white bread. And the dinner tables also tended to include a phenomenal range of pastries. Where might such pastries and felt at home. Some of those sweet ones were featured at the second course of formal dinners. Others were reserved for the usually comparatively modest final course of a male, which might include fruits, jellies, candies, or nuts. So you have the great big first course we talked about with the sort of heavier meats and things. You have a great big second course with some lighter meats and some sweet dishes. And then you end with just some little sort of snaky suites like some fruits, jellies are candies. If you could afford it, you might purchase a dinner I dessert service in a different pattern from the one that you've used at the first, second courses. As I already mentioned, the services were becoming more available in the latter half of the 18th century. And Chinese porcelain and cream colored earthenware. Cream where or its cousin curl where were popular as desert services. And in Britain and America. At the time of the revolution, the royal governor of South Carolina, William Campbell, owned a set of Queens where or cream where with green borders for dessert and also one with blue borders. Now these squares probably had a shell like edge, sort of an undulating, striated, rough edge. It's one of those edged wears. And then they would use a cap or green to just run a line around the outer edge. Or in some cases cobalt blue to run a line just to give a little bit of color. There were also available left in the white in fort george, New York. Governor triad, his inventory of 1773 with list a large full set of English China. Remember English China is English porcelain or a dessert. And he also had a desert set of Queens where, and that Queens where is cream wear? As well as specialised dishes for the sweets course, THE 17 hundreds, how the evolution of different types of dessert table food, presentation and ornament. In 1725, my Marcellus law runes painting of desert being served at a dinner party. And this was a dinner party in England, shows low kind of pyramids of fruit. Basically a think of a big saucer shaped dish that has a pile approved on it, but fairly low. A 100 years earlier, those pyramids of fruit might be two feet tall, but this is a little bit more gentle with just natural stacking. Approved 1719 diary referenced by one lady, gazelle Bailey, of a London dinner party that featured a dessert with quote in the middle of the table, a pyramid with Scylla bumps and orange cream and the lower part Cell Above square type of whipped suite to sort of a cousin to, uh, putting kind of liquidy. And orange cream is another kind of liquidy, frothy dessert. Above those items were dry sweet meats, such as nuts and sugar, fruits. And wet suite mates, such as jellies preserves, marmalade type things. Desert pyramids usually composed of stacks of graduated glass stands are solvers, but remain popular throughout the 17 hundreds in somewhat feature silk or live flowers as well as confectionery, sugar work or ceramic figures. Or we get to the fakers. Vegas. Shopkeepers, BellKor and broad down in Norfolk, Virginia. Aren't Norfolk. If you're from there. Advertised in his 1766 Virginia Gazette that they had for sale, quote, figures for ornament, end quote. And these were in the forms of birds, boys, dogs, flowers, Harlequins, lamb, sailors, and squirrels, among other things. And they also had those glass stands for creating desert pyramids. These are things they look a lot like. Cake stands. If you imagine a big round, flat surface that supported by a stem with, with a base on which he win on the great British bake off. Exactly like them, but they usually have taller stems. And then you could stack them up and you might end up, I've, I've seen some stacks and head up to seven, but usually two or three. Of those graduated stanzas, more common. Alright, I'm officially hungry. It's not quite the sweet time yet. By the 17 nineties, glass pyramids with individual sweet make glasses began to be superseded by so-called a parents. This is E P, E R, G, and S, a parents, obviously a French word. These were often made in glass or silver. And the head fixed or removable containers that would hold fruit, flowers and sweep meets. Some of them might have arms sticking out. So if you imagine a sort of central form with four arms and off of each of those arms there might be little hooks that would have baskets. The 1795 well of Philadelphia can't tavern keeper named Samuel Francis, would include this weather as well as other fine table accoutrements, a silver plated, a pattern, and a 127 piece set of blue English, China. We think that that was desert China. Cream where or cream colored earthenware appearance also were available from several factories, including Wedgewood, Some of you may have heard of, as well as the leads powdery in Yorkshire, fully coordinated figural scenes formed centerpieces on some 18th century dinner tables, perhaps were more common at Late Night single course desert suffers that might accompany a ball or some other elegant entertainment like card playing. These were inspired by continental European prototypes and such scenes were produced more frequently from the 17 fifties onward. 11757 Boston desert add, offered for sale, quote, a complete set of desert scenes with arbors, alcoves, hedging China flower pots and with grass and gravel. The grass maybe was Moss. Kanter glasses 1758, complete confectioner or the whole art of confectionery made plain and easy. A plane and E The again played an easy Matt, easy enough for me. It includes figures and some of its centerpieces on the desert plants that she has drawn out. On one of them, she lists that just a large dish could be set with figures and grass on loss all around it, and flowers only for show. So in this case, she's not talking about edible figures and site marzipan flowers. It might be that these were either confectionary That would be reused over time or maybe like would they use like a resin to bind sugar, like that kind of thing or not, you didn't really need to. I mean, some of the confectionery figures actually were more costly. They'd lasted a long time. You could reuse them. It's just solid sugar. Okay, good reuse them. Some of them were more costly than buying somewhat similar figures in ceramics. Ceramics start to take over and the centerpieces, while the, all the early ones, pretty much all the early ones were sugar work. And then you would buy ceramic ones and they might be tinted green. A lot of them are those green glazed earthenware ones. And those are imitating the sugar work that was tinted green with spinach Jews. And then you get ones that are all yellow. And that's imitating the sugar work that was tinted with saffron. Might be aware of a book that's known or an encyclopedia known as de de rho for the author. And there was a French wonderful encyclopedia that was trying to capture all of the different crafts. Just some but all of them. And included in there they talk about confectioner's and they have drawings and illustrations at the different molds and how the bolts are used. And so there there's a lot of information about how they were made. Some of them would, the sugar work might be gold left or silver leafed, or it could be tinted. And there's a lot of different, different ways to modify it. As we continue thinking about these, we find that a fashionable Chinese temple. And some of the 56 pieces of ornamental China that were listed in 1770 inventory of a Virginia governor named bought attach. The, almost certainly these Chinese temples were being included in table scenes. And probably similarly used was the set of desert frames with Italian temples, vases, China images meeting porcelain images, baskets and flowers. That was recorded in 1773 at the fort george, New York Holman government try on wealthy, let's late 17 hundreds consumers, increasingly important continental porcelain, especially from sev 70-90 ladder from Tobias Lear and Philadelphia writing to George Washington at Mount Vernon. Complaints that the Philadelphia residents lacks a closet in the large dining room to store the SEV porcelain figures. Says, by the way, as I'm a French factory that was producing lotsa where's for both domestic and export US during the late 17 hundreds, later that month, layer with bright again suggesting that they let the large images, images, meaning figures, stand on the side boards in the dining room. The glasses which cover them, meaning large domes, will preserve them from the dust and prevent delicate parts from being touched. The small images can be put in the closets with the china, meaning the dishes. As we come to the end of my babbling at you, I think about the idea of George Washington being worried about his stuff getting broken. And there's a wonderful satirical article that was published in 1756 and the London connoisseur. And it is a satire, but it reflects what I think lots of people do in terms of how we beat each other and deal with our objects when we're at home alone versus when we have guests over it. So in this article, the husband laments, I am never allowed to eat from anything better. Delft plate so that the covered, which is embellished with a variety of China, may not be just arrange. And indeed my wife prides herself on having arranged among the rest, some old China not fit for use, but disposed are turned in such a manner as to conceal the streaks of white paint that cement the broken pieces together. I must drink my beer out of an earthen mug. Though a great quantity of elegant where is constantly displayed on the side board and all the furniture except when we have company is done up in paper as if the family to which it belongs were gone out into the country. Luckily, we don't have to deal with these sort of things today, especially during the pandemic. But I'm not sure that things have really changed all that much when you think about it. Not so much. Yeah. And also, I mean, think about in museums because that's kind of what these cupboards have now, where are these cupboards full of fancy China end up oftentimes in museum then that's where, you know, now we're the caretakers of these objects and we still do turn them to show the good side and hide the cracks that are repaired. Oh, sure. That especially when I think about when we work together to do conservation work and we think about, you know, where, where is it going to be placed? Is going to be. In a case that people could walk around, be three inches away from the object at which place we don't have many places the high? Or is it going to be shown with a whole group of objects where nobody's going to notice that the little tip of that teapots vout has been nicked. Mm. But also thinking about all of this history and how these pieces were used and so much, I mean, all of the context of customs of eating and dining and entertaining those repairs that are still present, that might have been the repairs might have been made at the time they are being used in these ways. It gives you a new understanding of what those repairs might mean for the life of the object and whether we want to remove them at all. Or how we, how we think about removing them or documenting what we're doing. Now. Sadly, ceramics do not usually make their way through the arts market width and retain their original original ownership. So yeah, I can't know that. What was once an elegant cream where tea pot, you know, if it got broken in the home of a wealthy consumer, they might give it to the servants or throw it away for that matter. And it might be repaired by someone of that same time who then was able to find a use for it. Sometimes with your help, we figure out that those repairs take place over time. May be an object is considered special because it was handed down from ancestors. So when one of the kids breaks off the handle, you revert it back. N may not be able to drink out of it anymore, but at least it still looks more or less intact. So that those stories, a lot of times with ceramics, we have to make them up because there's no documentation at all that says how or why this particular repair was happening? Yeah. And like you said, the sense get broken up. I would imagine that when lifestyles change, society starts to change and the bigger houses become a thing of the past that the sets get sold off in component pieces. And then or sometimes he'll break up a set so that each of the kids gets part of it. Yeah. Part of the inheritance. Primogenitor, or the first male sun inheriting, was a fashion that starts dying out. But you still often will have the firstborn might get more stuff. And all the other stuff will be bad days. I'm number three, what shouldn't I also would have less to clean up when we're huh. So I think that's all that I had in terms of the formal presentation for you, did you have any questions or well, it'll be good to talk as a group when we convene with the class Monday. But for me, I think it's, you know, we've talked a lot about high society practices and in, in a slice of time and then focus on a geographical region. But I think that it's, it's given this context to understanding because what the, the objects that drove those practices, those customs are really what influenced so much else. And not just that country, but what that country colonized elsewhere in the world. It had influence there too. And, you know, thinking about the objects that we see are these utilitarian objects, but that were also used in these other ways within Expression of status and you know, in, in serving food but also serving entertainment. And thinking about them and all these different ways is really great because, you know, as any kind of objects like this gives a new light on it. Even though the dishes that my husband and I picked out for our wedding registry, I think of differently and that we have just four of them. I think, you know, the history of dining is one that is never going to be done big researched. Touched on primarily British and British America. But just think in America alone. We obviously ignored under-represented groups. And sadly, there are under-represented here TO enslaved people, Native American customs. We didn't even talk about really, Germanic people have Germanic background or French background. That would have deviated a bit from what we were saying. We could only focus on the most prominent type here. But there's just tons of wonderful research and discoveries that are being made all the time and that, that threads that would weave all these things together. Any one of us could weave that new clot that we'd be like like putting the time into it. Yeah. Well, and other people have really people have those expertise and a lot of what you're talking about relates to the wondered tech collection. Do you wanna say anything about the objects that you have that you'll be putting out that students can go and see. Sure, I'm happy to the group of objects that are going to be out on the table for you. Where we will have shared with you a PDF that'll show you images of what this talk would have been if it were, were done as a PowerPoint. And based on the sequence of things we've talked to in the types of objects I referred to. I've grouped things out on the table for you. So you'll be looking, for example, at some slip wear or slip decorated and where you'll be looking at Delft where, which is a type of earthenware with a lead glaze that's made white and opaque. With the addition of tin oxide. You'll be looking at cream where, which we talked about also calling at Queens where and Pearl where which is a close cousin. And we'll look at a little bit of the porcelain too. The bulk of the things on the table will be British. But I brought in a few piece of, pieces of Chinese hard pays porcelain just so you can see him next to each other. Do a little bit of comparing. And there were some doubts in my childish are all that aren't on the table for you that might give you a little bit of guidance. But it's really just a very light approach. It is not a scientific discussion, which you can get from my pal Lorin. But this is a little bit more of how I deal with the general public when I'm teaching them about objects, right? So let us say, I think that what we need to do next is find somebody's hysteric recipes and have our own lords and labels event. And I will set from one day to them. Though many dishes anyway, it's by Vancouver, including today's bug. Here, it's been a real treat.
inorganic block podcast: what's for dinner?
From Lauren Fair February 04, 2021
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What’s For Dinner? Tableware and Traditions in the 18th Century, with Leslie B. Grigsby, Senior Curator of Ceramics & Glass at Winterthur
As you can imagine, based on the title, the topic for this talk potentially is quite a large one. To make the discussion a bit more bite-sized, the focus is on 18th-century dining traditions in America and Britain, and the presentation is divided into several main themes: Dinnerware Acquisition; The Timing of Meals; Orchestrating Dinners, by Course; The Evolution of Meal Service; and Cookery Books & Foods.
Much of the conversation focuses on furnishing “elegant” dinner tables, for which documentary evidence is more plentiful. (Consideration of dining in less wealthy homes, those of underrepresented people, and/or those where residents are neither British nor British colonial, must wait for another day.) In response to the quantities of ceramics recorded in early documents and found among the archaeological record, English and Chinese wares are the main types mentioned in this discussion.
As you can imagine, based on the title, the topic for this talk potentially is quite a large one. To make the discussion a bit more bite-sized, the focus is on 18th-century dining traditions in America and Britain, and the presentation is divided into several main themes: Dinnerware Acquisition; The Timing of Meals; Orchestrating Dinners, by Course; The Evolution of Meal Service; and Cookery Books & Foods.
Much of the conversation focuses on furnishing “elegant” dinner tables, for which documentary evidence is more plentiful. (Consideration of dining in less wealthy homes, those of underrepresented people, and/or those where residents are neither British nor British colonial, must wait for another day.) In response to the quantities of ceramics recorded in early documents and found among the archaeological record, English and Chinese wares are the main types mentioned in this discussion.
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