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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge and the chosen topic is Dinner Parties and Entertaining at Home.
A few facts:
🥘 The Victorian dinner party was a grand, flamboyant and opulent affair. Picture if you will an endless procession of soups, fish, meats, salads, vegetables, puddings, ices, meringues and pastries served on exquisitely decorated china and serving dishes and a dining table heavily decorated with flowers, ferns and stands of fruit and decorated cakes. By the mid 1870’s it was not uncommon for up to 12 or 13 courses to be served by the conscientious hostess. [Leigh Denton]
🥘 The following directions will, it is hoped, be found useful in preventing some of the errors which commonly attend dinner-giving by inexperienced beginners:-
All invitations should be issued a week or ten days previously, in the joint names of the host and hostess.
As far as practicable the guests should be acquainted with each other, and likely to harmonise in general conversation. Crotchety people, and people that like to absorb too much attention, are as a rule to be guarded against.
An equal numbers of ladies and gentlemen should be invited.
Whatever the desired number of guests may be, the invitations should be limited by the size of the dining-room table. At least sixteen inches of room should be allotted to each individual. If the table be capable of extension, sufficient room should be left for the attendants to pass freely round when serving. Several changes of plates, knives, forks, and glasses, should be provided, over and above the number of guests invited...
As a general rule, the decorations of a dinner-table should only be slightly raised, admitting of an uninterrupted view of each other by the assembled guests. [Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s]
🥘 The order of guests going in to dinner is the same in general society - namely, the lady of the house, or her representative, takes the head of the table, and the master of the house the foot. The most distinguished lady of the company is conducted to the table by the master, and is placed on his right hand, having on his left the lady next in distinction. The same rule is observed with regard to the lady of the house. The two gentlemen it is designed to honour mast are placed on her right and left hand.
During the interval that elapses between the assembling of the company and going to table, the hostess quietly designates to the gentlemen guests the ladies whom she wishes them to conduct to the dining-room. If it should happen that the guests are strangers to each other, an introduction from the hostess is necessary. When dinner is announced, the host should rise and offer his arm to the lady he is to lead to the dining-room, and the rest of the company follow his example. The last to leave the drawing-room are the hostess and the gentleman who escorts her. The reason is obvious: it is the duty of the lady of the house to see all her visitors on their way to the dining- room before she leaves the drawing-room herself...
The head of the table is generally the position farthest from the door, and the foot opposite. The master of the house usually has the sideboard at his back. [Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s]
🥘 Service à la Russe became the usual method of serving dinner in England from the 1870s. It superseded Service à la Française, where a great number of dishes were set out on the table, and were then removed to be replaced with a second course of much the same mixture of game, fish, sweetmeats and roasts.
In Service à la Russe guests were presented with a succession of courses, beginning with soup and ending with dessert. The cutlery for subsequent courses was arranged so that guests worked inwards. Service was always from the left, though wine was served from the right. Dishes too heavy to carry round, like roasts, were carved, often by the host, at a side table. [Brighton Museums]
🥘 Bread and butter plates were not part of a Victorian place setting. Instead, bread was placed on a folded napkin to the left of the dinner plate and forks…
Crystal stemware was placed at the upper right of the dinner plate. A water goblet was placed about an inch above the dinner knife, with assorted wine, sherry and champagne glasses placed to the right of the water glass in an ascending diagonal row or two, depending on what was served...
The place setting began with the dinner plate at the center. Forks were placed on the left side of the plate, starting with the dinner fork, followed by the fish fork, place fork, salad fork and ending with a cocktail fork, which could also be placed on the other side of the plate, following the spoons. The dinner knife was located to the right of plate, followed by the fish knife, butter knife and additional knives for cheese, game or fruit, followed by an iced tea spoon, cream soup spoon, bouillon spoon, hot tea spoon and demitasse spoon. A dessert spoon and fork were placed above the plate, facing opposite directions...
At the end of the dinner, women would retire to the drawing room for coffee or tea while the men remained behind in the dining room to smoke and drink port wine. [SFGate]
🥘 Only simple refreshment should be served at an afternoon tea. Thin slices of bread and butter, sandwiches, fancy biscuits or cake, tea, coffee, or chocolate, ice-cream and bouillon. Punch and lemonade may also be served, but no wine or alcoholic drinks. The hostess should shake hands with her guests and receive them cordially; any formality is out of place on an informal occasion. If the number of guests is small, the hostess should walk about the room, talking with her visitors. If large guest list, she should remain near the door and have the aid of other ladies who should help entertain the guests, ask them to take refreshments and make introductions when necessary. [Welcome to 1876 Victorian England]
🥘 Soirées, parties, musical evenings, dances and balls were all held within the confines of even modest middle-class homes… The abundant hospitality offered to family, friends and sometimes strangers gave the Victorian household a sociability and public character which seem[s] far removed from the rather sedate and claustrophobic family-centred life portrayed in some of the literature. Entertaining and being entertained lay at the heart of Victorian social life… Besides dinner parties, Victorian home entertainments often revolved around piano playing, singing, dancing and assorted games. [Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair]
🥘 Inventories indicate that most middle-class homes possessed at least one piano. Singing songs, usually light popular pieces, was also standard practice. Some homes would arrange more serious musical evenings, at which the invited guests were seated to listen to piano solos and duets as well as songs and operatic excerpts. Rather less often, the middle-class household hosted a grander occasion in the form of a ‘carpet dance’ or ball. This involved the removal of all the furniture from the drawing room, except the piano; the door was removed from its hinges, the curtains taken down, and a white cloth with a smooth surface was stretched over the carpet. The very welathy would have hired a group of musicians, while those of more modest means relied on members of the household or relatives or friends to provide the music. ...even in the ordinary middle-class home these occasions involved a great deal of planning and preparation, including hiring caterers for the refreshments. Although essentially informal occasions, the programme of dances was planned in advance and publicly displayed in the drawing room for the guests to consult. [Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair]
Some useful resources:
The Victorian Dinner Party By Leigh Denton, on The Victorian Emporium.
Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s - Dinner Parties On The Dictionary of Victorian London.
An Edwardian Dinner Party On Brighton Museums.
Victorian-Era Place Settings On SFGate.
How to Set a Victorian Table By Megan Mattingly-Arthur, on eHow.
Victorian Etiquette - Etiquette at Dinner On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
Victorian Etiquette - At Teas and Receptions On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
Public Lives: Women, Family, and Society in Victorian Britain By Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair. Link should hopefully take you a section about the Victorian middle classes entertaining at home. But this is a preview on Google Books so it may or may not work for you.
Planning a Traditional Victorian Dinner Party By Gail Carriger, on her own website.
Victorian cooking: upperclass dinner On The Victorian Era.
Mrs. Pratt's Menu for a Simple Seven-Course Dinner at Bishop's Keep From The Robin Paige Victorian Mysteries by Bill & Susan Albert, on Victoria’s Past.
Victorian Cooking Recipes On Recipes Past and Present.
Etiquette Rules for Dinner Parties from a Victorian Magazine: What Would Lady Constance Howard Do? On History Spinner.
Dining Room Etiquette On Victoria’s Past.
Victorian Era Etiquette at Dinner Tables and Small Talk On Etiquipedia.
Formal Dinners By Angel S, on A Victorian.
Dinner Party Conduct By Angel S, on A Victorian.
Etiquette of Parties in General By Angel S, on A Victorian.
When, Where and How to Visit By Angel S, on A Victorian.
Etiquette of Conversation By Angel S, on A Victorian.
The Art of Conversation By Camille Hadley Jones, on Edwardian Promenade.
Dining and Dinners By Camille Hadley Jones, on Edwardian Promenade.
Victorian Entertainment By Lucy, on vicfun.blogspot.co.uk
House Tour - The Parlour On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
The parlour in a typical working class house in the early 1900s By Florence Cole, on Join Me in the 1900s.
The Victorian Parlour: A Cultural Study By Thad Logan. A preview on Google Books so it may or may not work for you.
Victorian Christmas Parlor Games On CapeMay.
Victorian Parlour Games On The Victorian School.
The Drawing-room Ballad or Parlour Song. Sung by Derek B. Scott Index which gives links to several parlour songs performed in an authentic Victorian style. On The Victorian Web.
A dinner with Sir Arthur Sullivan (rare 1888 recordings) On YouTube: 16 minutes, 56 seconds. Posted by Jack Gibbons. Recordings made at the very birth of recorded sound, by George Gouraud, Edison's representative in London, including recordings made at a dinner attended by Sir Arthur Sullivan on October 5th 1888. The video also features other historic sound recordings from 1888, 1907 and 1912, including recordings made by Savoyard Walter Passmore, as well as historic movies filmed in England and Ireland in 1888, 1896, 1898, 1900 and 1903.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
🥘 The Victorian dinner party was a grand, flamboyant and opulent affair. Picture if you will an endless procession of soups, fish, meats, salads, vegetables, puddings, ices, meringues and pastries served on exquisitely decorated china and serving dishes and a dining table heavily decorated with flowers, ferns and stands of fruit and decorated cakes. By the mid 1870’s it was not uncommon for up to 12 or 13 courses to be served by the conscientious hostess. [Leigh Denton]
🥘 The following directions will, it is hoped, be found useful in preventing some of the errors which commonly attend dinner-giving by inexperienced beginners:-
All invitations should be issued a week or ten days previously, in the joint names of the host and hostess.
As far as practicable the guests should be acquainted with each other, and likely to harmonise in general conversation. Crotchety people, and people that like to absorb too much attention, are as a rule to be guarded against.
An equal numbers of ladies and gentlemen should be invited.
Whatever the desired number of guests may be, the invitations should be limited by the size of the dining-room table. At least sixteen inches of room should be allotted to each individual. If the table be capable of extension, sufficient room should be left for the attendants to pass freely round when serving. Several changes of plates, knives, forks, and glasses, should be provided, over and above the number of guests invited...
As a general rule, the decorations of a dinner-table should only be slightly raised, admitting of an uninterrupted view of each other by the assembled guests. [Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s]
🥘 The order of guests going in to dinner is the same in general society - namely, the lady of the house, or her representative, takes the head of the table, and the master of the house the foot. The most distinguished lady of the company is conducted to the table by the master, and is placed on his right hand, having on his left the lady next in distinction. The same rule is observed with regard to the lady of the house. The two gentlemen it is designed to honour mast are placed on her right and left hand.
During the interval that elapses between the assembling of the company and going to table, the hostess quietly designates to the gentlemen guests the ladies whom she wishes them to conduct to the dining-room. If it should happen that the guests are strangers to each other, an introduction from the hostess is necessary. When dinner is announced, the host should rise and offer his arm to the lady he is to lead to the dining-room, and the rest of the company follow his example. The last to leave the drawing-room are the hostess and the gentleman who escorts her. The reason is obvious: it is the duty of the lady of the house to see all her visitors on their way to the dining- room before she leaves the drawing-room herself...
The head of the table is generally the position farthest from the door, and the foot opposite. The master of the house usually has the sideboard at his back. [Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s]
🥘 Service à la Russe became the usual method of serving dinner in England from the 1870s. It superseded Service à la Française, where a great number of dishes were set out on the table, and were then removed to be replaced with a second course of much the same mixture of game, fish, sweetmeats and roasts.
In Service à la Russe guests were presented with a succession of courses, beginning with soup and ending with dessert. The cutlery for subsequent courses was arranged so that guests worked inwards. Service was always from the left, though wine was served from the right. Dishes too heavy to carry round, like roasts, were carved, often by the host, at a side table. [Brighton Museums]
🥘 Bread and butter plates were not part of a Victorian place setting. Instead, bread was placed on a folded napkin to the left of the dinner plate and forks…
Crystal stemware was placed at the upper right of the dinner plate. A water goblet was placed about an inch above the dinner knife, with assorted wine, sherry and champagne glasses placed to the right of the water glass in an ascending diagonal row or two, depending on what was served...
The place setting began with the dinner plate at the center. Forks were placed on the left side of the plate, starting with the dinner fork, followed by the fish fork, place fork, salad fork and ending with a cocktail fork, which could also be placed on the other side of the plate, following the spoons. The dinner knife was located to the right of plate, followed by the fish knife, butter knife and additional knives for cheese, game or fruit, followed by an iced tea spoon, cream soup spoon, bouillon spoon, hot tea spoon and demitasse spoon. A dessert spoon and fork were placed above the plate, facing opposite directions...
At the end of the dinner, women would retire to the drawing room for coffee or tea while the men remained behind in the dining room to smoke and drink port wine. [SFGate]
🥘 Only simple refreshment should be served at an afternoon tea. Thin slices of bread and butter, sandwiches, fancy biscuits or cake, tea, coffee, or chocolate, ice-cream and bouillon. Punch and lemonade may also be served, but no wine or alcoholic drinks. The hostess should shake hands with her guests and receive them cordially; any formality is out of place on an informal occasion. If the number of guests is small, the hostess should walk about the room, talking with her visitors. If large guest list, she should remain near the door and have the aid of other ladies who should help entertain the guests, ask them to take refreshments and make introductions when necessary. [Welcome to 1876 Victorian England]
🥘 Soirées, parties, musical evenings, dances and balls were all held within the confines of even modest middle-class homes… The abundant hospitality offered to family, friends and sometimes strangers gave the Victorian household a sociability and public character which seem[s] far removed from the rather sedate and claustrophobic family-centred life portrayed in some of the literature. Entertaining and being entertained lay at the heart of Victorian social life… Besides dinner parties, Victorian home entertainments often revolved around piano playing, singing, dancing and assorted games. [Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair]
🥘 Inventories indicate that most middle-class homes possessed at least one piano. Singing songs, usually light popular pieces, was also standard practice. Some homes would arrange more serious musical evenings, at which the invited guests were seated to listen to piano solos and duets as well as songs and operatic excerpts. Rather less often, the middle-class household hosted a grander occasion in the form of a ‘carpet dance’ or ball. This involved the removal of all the furniture from the drawing room, except the piano; the door was removed from its hinges, the curtains taken down, and a white cloth with a smooth surface was stretched over the carpet. The very welathy would have hired a group of musicians, while those of more modest means relied on members of the household or relatives or friends to provide the music. ...even in the ordinary middle-class home these occasions involved a great deal of planning and preparation, including hiring caterers for the refreshments. Although essentially informal occasions, the programme of dances was planned in advance and publicly displayed in the drawing room for the guests to consult. [Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair]
Some useful resources:
The Victorian Dinner Party By Leigh Denton, on The Victorian Emporium.
Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s - Dinner Parties On The Dictionary of Victorian London.
An Edwardian Dinner Party On Brighton Museums.
Victorian-Era Place Settings On SFGate.
How to Set a Victorian Table By Megan Mattingly-Arthur, on eHow.
Victorian Etiquette - Etiquette at Dinner On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
Victorian Etiquette - At Teas and Receptions On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
Public Lives: Women, Family, and Society in Victorian Britain By Eleanor Gordon & Gwyneth Nair. Link should hopefully take you a section about the Victorian middle classes entertaining at home. But this is a preview on Google Books so it may or may not work for you.
Planning a Traditional Victorian Dinner Party By Gail Carriger, on her own website.
Victorian cooking: upperclass dinner On The Victorian Era.
Mrs. Pratt's Menu for a Simple Seven-Course Dinner at Bishop's Keep From The Robin Paige Victorian Mysteries by Bill & Susan Albert, on Victoria’s Past.
Victorian Cooking Recipes On Recipes Past and Present.
Etiquette Rules for Dinner Parties from a Victorian Magazine: What Would Lady Constance Howard Do? On History Spinner.
Dining Room Etiquette On Victoria’s Past.
Victorian Era Etiquette at Dinner Tables and Small Talk On Etiquipedia.
Formal Dinners By Angel S, on A Victorian.
Dinner Party Conduct By Angel S, on A Victorian.
Etiquette of Parties in General By Angel S, on A Victorian.
When, Where and How to Visit By Angel S, on A Victorian.
Etiquette of Conversation By Angel S, on A Victorian.
The Art of Conversation By Camille Hadley Jones, on Edwardian Promenade.
Dining and Dinners By Camille Hadley Jones, on Edwardian Promenade.
Victorian Entertainment By Lucy, on vicfun.blogspot.co.uk
House Tour - The Parlour On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
The parlour in a typical working class house in the early 1900s By Florence Cole, on Join Me in the 1900s.
The Victorian Parlour: A Cultural Study By Thad Logan. A preview on Google Books so it may or may not work for you.
Victorian Christmas Parlor Games On CapeMay.
Victorian Parlour Games On The Victorian School.
The Drawing-room Ballad or Parlour Song. Sung by Derek B. Scott Index which gives links to several parlour songs performed in an authentic Victorian style. On The Victorian Web.
A dinner with Sir Arthur Sullivan (rare 1888 recordings) On YouTube: 16 minutes, 56 seconds. Posted by Jack Gibbons. Recordings made at the very birth of recorded sound, by George Gouraud, Edison's representative in London, including recordings made at a dinner attended by Sir Arthur Sullivan on October 5th 1888. The video also features other historic sound recordings from 1888, 1907 and 1912, including recordings made by Savoyard Walter Passmore, as well as historic movies filmed in England and Ireland in 1888, 1896, 1898, 1900 and 1903.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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Date: 2017-05-21 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-21 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-21 12:21 pm (UTC)On a completely unrelated note, The Tiger of San Pedro inspired a jazz song featuring trombone. It sounds like intro music to a 70's TV show (e.g., Charlie's Angels): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNg4j-EYYE
no subject
Date: 2017-05-21 01:58 pm (UTC)I absolutely see what you mean about the jazz number being the theme for a 70s TV show. I can just see the opening montage - Holmes reading a telegram, Holmes listening attentively, Holmes wearing his botany gear, Holmes crawling about in the shrubbery... ^__^
Something in return. While doing this week's investigations I was introduced to a quotation by GK Chesterton:
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
It made me laugh quite a bit ^^ I shall just leave it here with you...
no subject
Date: 2017-05-21 02:14 pm (UTC)Inky shall have to remedy that. A sonnet for Mouselet or the new Miss Vole.