"In relating all I know of America, I surely must not omit so important
a feature as the cooking. There are sundry anomalies in the mode of serving
even a first rate table; but as these are altogether matters of custom, they by
no means indicate either indifference or neglect in this important business;
and whether castors are placed on the table or on the sideboard; whether soup,
fish, patties, and salad be eaten in orthodox order or not, signifies but
little. I am hardly capable, I fear, of giving a very erudite critique on the
subject; general observations therefore must suffice. The ordinary mode of
living is abundant, but not delicate.
They consume an extraordinary quantity of bacon. Ham and beefsteaks
appear morning, noon, and night. In eating, they mix things together with the
strangest incongruity imaginable. I have seen eggs and oysters eaten together;
the sepiternal ham with applesauce; beefsteak with stewed peaches; and salt
fish with onions. The bread is everywhere excellent, but they rarely enjoy it
themselves, as they insist upon eating horrible half-baked hot rolls both morning
and evening. The butter is tolerable; but they have seldom such cream as every
little dairy produces in England; in fact, the cows are very roughly kept,
compared with ours. Common vegetables are abundant and very fine. I never saw
sea-cale, or cauliflowers, and either from the want of summer rain, or the want
of care, the harvest of green vegetables is much sooner over than with us.
They eat the Indian corn in
a great variety of forms; sometimes it is dressed green, and eaten like peas:
sometimes it is broken to pieces when dry, boiled plain, and brought to table
like rice; this dish is called hominy. The flour [cornmeal] of it is made into at least a dozen different sorts of cakes; but in my opinion all bad. This flour, mixed in
the proportion of one-third, with fine wheat, makes by far the best bread I
ever tasted.
I never saw turbot, salmon, or fresh cod; but the rock and shad are
excellent. There is a great want of skill in the composition of sauces; not
only with fish, but with every thing. They use very few made dishes, and I
never saw any that would be approved by our savants. They have an excellent
wild duck, called the canvass back,
which, if delicately served, would surpass the black cock; but the game is very
inferior to ours; they have no hares, and I never saw a pheasant.
They seldom indulge in second courses, with all their ingenious temptations to the eating a second dinner; but almost every table has its dessert (invariably pronounced desart), which is placed on the table before the cloth
is removed, and consists of pastry, preserved fruits, and creams. They are
"extravagantly fond," to use their own phrase, of puddings, pies, and
all kinds of "sweets," particularly the ladies; but are by no means
such connoisseurs in soups and ragouts as the gastronomes of Europe.
Almost every one drinks water
at table, and by a strange contradiction, in the country where hard drinking is
more prevalent than in any other, there is less wine taken at dinner; ladies
rarely exceed one glass, and the great majority of females never take any. In
fact, the hard drinking, so universally acknowledged, does not take place at
jovial dinners, but to speak plain English, in solitary dram-drinking. Coffee is not served immediately after dinner, but makes part of the serious matter of tea-drinking, which comes some hours later.
Mixed dinner parties of ladies and gentlemen are very rare, and
unless several foreigners are present, but little conversation passes at table.
It certainly does not, in my opinion, add to the well ordering a dinner-table,
to set the gentlemen at one end of it, and the ladies at the other; but it is very rarely that you find it otherwise.
Their large evening parties are supremely dull; the men sometimes play cards by themselves; but if a lady plays, it must not be for money; no ecarte, no chess; very little music, and that little lamentably bad. To eat inconceivable
quantities of cake, ice, and pickled oysters—and to show half their revenue in
silks and satins, seem to be the chief object they have in these parties.
The most agreeable meetings, I was assured by all the young people,
were those to which no married women are admitted; of the truth of this
statement I have not the least doubt. These exclusive meetings occur
frequently, and often last to a late hour; on these occasions, I believe, they
generally dance.
At regular balls, married ladies are admitted, but seldom take much part in the amusement. The refreshments are always profuse and costly, but taken in a most uncomfortable manner. I have known many private balls, where every thing was on the most liberal scale of expense, where the gentlemen sat down to supper in one room, while the ladies took theirs, standing, in another.
What we call pic-nics are very rare, and when attempted, do not often succeed well. The two sexes can hardly mix for the greater part of a day without great restraint and ennui; it is quite contrary to their general habits; the favourite indulgences of the gentlemen (smoking cigars and drinking spirits), can neither be indulged in with decency, nor resigned with complacency.
The sleighs are delightful, and constructed at so little expense that I wonder we have not all got them in England, lying by, in waiting for the snow, which often remains with us long enough to permit their use. Sleighing is much more generally enjoyed by night than by day, for what reason I could never discover, unless it be, that no gentlemen are to be found disengaged from business in the mornings. Nothing, certainly, can be more agreeable than the gliding smoothly and rapidly along, deep sunk in soft furs, the moon shining with almost midday splendour, the air of crystal brightness, and the snow sparkling on every side, as if it were sprinkled with diamonds. And then the noiseless movement of the horses, so mysterious and unwonted, and the gentle tinkling of the bells you meet and carry, all help at once to sooth and excite the spirits: in short, I had not the least objection to sleighing by night; I only wished to sleigh by day also."
Trollope, Frances Milton. Domestic Manners of the Americans, Volume 1. 1832
THIS WEEK'S TALKS deleted
CALENDAR OF VIRTUAL FOOD HISTORY TALKS HERE
©2023 Patricia Bixler Reber
Researching Food History HOME
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment