Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America

By Susan Williams

Book Overview

Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts offers a delightfully flavorful tour of dining in America during the second half of the nineteenth century. Susan Williams investigates the manners and morals of that era by looking at its eating customs and cooking methods. As she reveals, genteel dining became an increasingly important means of achieving social stability during a period when Americans were facing significant changes on a variety of fronts--social, cultural, intellectual, technological, and demographic.

Focusing on the rapidly expanding middle class, Williams not only examines mealtime rituals, but she looks at the material culture of Victorian dining: the furniture, the furnishings, and the growing array of accouterments--from asparagus tongs to sardine servers and lace doilies--that supported genteel expectations for table side behavior. She also explores changing ideas about meals--how they fit into the daily schedule and what kinds of food and drink came to characterize specific meals and menus. Complementing Williams' analysis and descriptions is a lavish array of illustrations, as well as a rich sampling of recipes from the diaries and cookbooks of the era. The result is at once an informative look at life in Victorian America and a sumptuous celebration of a key moment in the country's culinary experience.

For this new paperback edition, Williams has updated the bibliography and included a new introduction that summarizes trends and advances in the study of dining since the book's first publication in 1985.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870499122
• ISBN13: 9780870499128
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Orange cups? Sardine servers? Read on . . .

I have a longstanding interest in what might be called "domestic social history" of the 19th century -- how American and British households operated, what they ate and how, what were considered good manners, clothing customs, the functioning of the "servant class," and all of that. The author of this excellent work is Curator of Household Accessories and Tablewares at the Strong Museum in Rochester, one of the leading Victoriana museums in this country, and she certainly knows her subject. Per the title, she concentrates on the kitchen and dining room (with short excursions into the garden for tea and into city restaurants for special occasions), explaining where customs like placemats originated, detailing the astonishing amount of china and silverware thought necessary in a proper middle-class home, and analyzing the evolution of table manners over a period of three generations. Period illustrations are plentiful, as are quotations from 19th century sources (the bibliography runs to six pages) and menus from the social pages of the newspapers. There's also a lengthy collection of recipes of the time. If you want to pick up on what William Dean Howells was really talking about, read this book.

Enchanting!

I recently needed to help someone plan a formal tea party. Off I went to my collection of books on cookery. I had such a hard time putting it back. Of course, planning the menu for my friend was secondary. Each page is a delightful taste of time past by yet, helpful in gathering those cherished gifts from Victorian dining to add pleasure to our meals of the 90"s. Enjoy!