Part 3 (1/2)

CHAPTER IV

THE SERVING OF MEALS

Perhaps no greater difference exists between any mode of the olden times and that of to-day, than can be seen in the manner of serving the meals of the family. In the first place, the very dining-table of the colonists was not like our present ones; it was a long and narrow board, sometimes but three feet wide, with no legs attached to it. It was laid on supports or trestles, shaped usually something like a saw-horse. Thus it was literally a board, and was called a table-board, and the linen cover used at meals was not called a tablecloth, but a board-cloth or board-clothes.

As smoothly sawed and finished boards were not so plentiful at first in the colonies as might naturally be thought when we remember the vast encircling forests, all such boards were carefully treasured, and used many times to avoid sawing others by the tedious and wearying process of pit-sawing. Hence portions of packing-boxes, or chests which had carried stores from England to the colonies, were made into table-boards. One such oaken table-board, still in existence, has on the under side in quaint lettering the name and address of the Boston settler to whom the original packing-box was sent in 1638.

The old-time board-cloth was in no way inferior in quality or whiteness to our present table-linen; for we know how proud colonial wives and daughters were of the linen of their own spinning, weaving, and bleaching. The linen tablecloth was either of holland, huckaback, dowlas, osnaburg, or lockram--all heavy and comparatively coa.r.s.e materials--or of fine damask, just as to-day; some of the handsome board-cloths were even trimmed with lace.

The colonists had plenty of napkins; more, as a rule, than families of corresponding means and station own to-day. They had need of them, for when America was first settled forks were almost unknown to English people--being used for eating in luxurious Italy alone, where travellers having seen and found them useful and cleanly, afterwards introduced them into England. So hands had to be constantly employed for holding food, instead of the forks we now use, and napkins were therefore as constantly necessary. The first fork brought to America was for Governor John Winthrop, in Boston, in 1633, and it was in a leather case with a knife and a bodkin. If the governor ate with a fork at the table, he was doubtless the only person in the colony who did so. Thirty or forty years later a few two-tined iron and silver forks were brought across the water, and used in New York and Virginia, as well as Ma.s.sachusetts; and by the end of the century they had come into scant use at the tables of persons of wealth and fas.h.i.+on. The first mention of a fork in Virginia is in an inventory dated 1677; this was of a single fork. The salt-cellar, or saler, as it was first called, was the centrepiece of the table--”Sett in the myddys of the tabull,” says an old treatise on laying the table. It was often large and high, of curious device in silver, and was then called a standing salt. Guests of honor were seated ”above the salt,” that is, near the end of the table where sat the host and hostess side by side; while children and persons who were not of much dignity or account as guests were placed ”below the salt,” that is, below the middle of the table.

There is owned by Harvard University, and here shown in an ill.u.s.tration, ”a great silver salt” given to the college in 1644, when the new seat of learning was but eight years old. At the table it divided graduates, the faculty, and such, from the undergraduates. It was valued at 5 1s. 3d., at five s.h.i.+llings an ounce, which was equal to a hundred dollars to-day; a rich gift, which shows to me the profound affection of the settlers for the new college. It is inscribed with the name of the giver, Mr. Richard Harris. It is of simple English design well known during that century, and made in various sizes. There is no doubt that many of similar pattern, though not so heavy or so rich, were seen on the tables of substantial colonists. They are named in many wills. Often a small projecting arm was attached to one side, over which a folded napkin could be thrown to be used as a cover; for the salt-cellar was usually kept covered, not only to preserve cleanliness, but in earlier days to prevent the ready introduction of poison.

There are some very entertaining and curious old English books which were written in the sixteenth century to teach children and young rustics correct and elegant manners at the table, and also helpful ways in which to serve others. These books are called _The Babees Boke_, _The Boke of Nurture_, _The Boke of Curteseye_, etc., and with the exception of variations in the way of serving a dinner, and a few obsolete customs, and in the names and shapes and materials of the different dishes, plates, etc., used at the table, these books are just as instructive and sensible to-day as then. From them we learn that the only kind of table furnis.h.i.+ngs used at that time were cups to drink out of; spoons and knives to eat with; chafing-dishes to serve hot food; chargers for display and for serving large quant.i.ties of food; salt-cellars, and trenchers for use as plates. There were very few other table appointments used on any English table, either humble or great, when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

One of the most important articles for setting the table was the trencher. These were made of wood, and often were only a block of wood, about ten or twelve inches square and three or four deep, hollowed down into a sort of bowl in the middle. In this the food was placed,--porridge, meat, vegetables, etc. Each person did not have even one of these simple dishes; usually two children, or a man and his wife, ate out of one trencher. This was a custom in England for many years; and some very great people, a duke and his wife, not more than a century and a half ago, sat side by side at the table and ate out of one plate to show their unity and affection. It is told of an old Connecticut settler, a deacon, that as he had a wood-turning mill, he thought he would have a trencher apiece for his children. So he turned a sufficient number of round trenchers in his mill. For this his neighbors deemed him deeply extravagant and putting on too many airs, both as to quant.i.ty and quality, since square trenchers, one for use by two persons, were good enough for any one, even a deacon. So great a warrior and so prominent a man in the colony as Miles Standish used wooden trenchers at the table, as also did all the early governors. Nor did they disdain to name them in their wills, as valued household possessions. For many years college boys at Harvard ate out of wooden trenchers at the college mess-table.

I have seen a curious old table top, or table-board, which permitted diners seated at it to dispense with trenchers or plates. It was of heavy oak about six inches thick, and at intervals of about eighteen inches around its edge were scooped out deep, bowl-shaped holes about ten inches in diameter, in which each individual's share of the dinner was placed. After each meal the top was lifted off the trestles, thoroughly washed and dried, and was ready for the next meal.

Poplar-wood is an even, white, and s.h.i.+ning wood. Until the middle of this century poplar-wood trenchers and plates were used on the table in Vermont, and were really attractive dishes. From earliest days the Indians made and sold many bowls and trenchers of maple-wood knots. One of these bowls, owned by King Philip, is at the rooms of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society in Boston. Old wooden trenchers and ”Indian bowls” can be seen at the Memorial Hall in Deerfield. Bottles were made also of wood, and drinking-cups and ”noggins,” which were a sort of mug with a handle. Wood furnished many articles for the table to the colonist, just as it did in later days on our Western frontiers, where trenchers of wood and plates of birch-bark were seen in every log-cabin.

The word tankard was originally applied to a heavy and large vessel of wood banded with metal, in which to carry water. Smaller wooden drinking tankards were subsequently made and used throughout Europe, and were occasionally brought here by the colonists. The plainly shaped wooden tankard, made of staves and hoops and here shown, is from the collection at Deerfield Memorial Hall. It was found in the house of Rev. Eli Moody.

These commonplace tankards of staves were not so rare as the beautiful carved and hooped tankard which is here pictured, and which is in the collection of Mrs. Samuel Bowne Duryea, of Brooklyn. I have seen a few other quaintly carved ones, black with age, in American families of Huguenot descent; these were apparently Swiss carvings.

The chargers, or large round platters found on every dining-table, were of pewter. Some were so big and heavy that they weighed five or six pounds apiece. Pewter is a metal never seen for modern table furnis.h.i.+ng, or domestic use in any form to-day; but in colonial times what was called a garnish of pewter, that is, a full set of pewter platters, plates, and dishes, was the pride of every good housekeeper, and also a favorite wedding gift. It was kept as bright and s.h.i.+ning as silver. One of the duties of children was to gather a kind of horse-tail rush which grew in the marshes, and because it was used to scour pewter, was called scouring-rush.

Pewter bottles of various sizes were sent to the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony, in 1629. Governor Endicott had one, but they were certainly far from common. Dram cups, wine mugs, and funnels of pewter were also occasionally seen, but scarcely formed part of ordinary table furnis.h.i.+ngs. Metheglin cans and drinking-mugs of pewter were found on nearly every table. Pewter was used until this century in the wealthiest homes, both in the North and South, and was preferred by many who owned rich china. Among the pewter-lovers was the Revolutionary patriot, John Hanc.o.c.k, who hated the clatter of the porcelain plates.

Porringers of pewter, and occasionally of silver, were much used at the table, chiefly for children to eat from. These were a pretty little shallow circular dish with a flat-pierced handle. Some had a ”fish-tail”

handle; these are said to be Dutch. These porringers were in many sizes, from tiny little ones two inches in diameter to those eight or nine inches across. When not in use many housekeepers kept them hanging on hooks on the edge of a shelf, where they formed a pretty and cheerful decoration. The poet Swift says:--

”The porringers that in a row Hung high and made a glittering show.”

It should be stated that the word porringer, as used by English collectors, usually refers to a deep cup with a cover and two handles, while what we call porringers are known to these collectors as bleeding-basins or tasters. Here we apply the term taster, or wine-taster, to a small, shallow silver cup with bosses in the bottom to reflect the light and show the color and quality of wine. I have often seen the item wine-taster in colonial inventories and wills, but never bleeding-basin; while porringers were almost universal on such lists.

Some families had a dozen. I have found fifteen in one old New England farmhouse. The small porringers are sometimes called posnets, which is an old-time word that may originally have referred to a posset-cup.

”Spoons,” says the learned archaeologist, Laborde, ”if not as old as the world, are as old as soup.” All the colonists had spoons, and certainly all needed them, for at that time much of their food was in the form of soup and ”spoon-meat,” such as had to be eaten with spoons when there were no forks. Meat was usually made into hashes or ragouts; thick stews and soups with chopped vegetables and meats were common, as were hotch-pots. The cereal foods, which formed so large a part of English fare in the New World, were more frequently boiled in porridge than baked in loaves. Many of the spoons were of pewter. Worn-out pewter plates and dishes could be recast into new pewter spoons. The moulds were of wood or iron. The spoon mould of one of the first settlers of Greenfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, named Martindale, is here shown with a pewter spoon. In this mould all his spoons and those of his neighbors were cast. It is now in the Deerfield Memorial Hall.

A still more universal spoon material was alchymy, also called occamy, alcamy, arkamy, etc., a metal never used now, which was made of a mixture of pan-bra.s.s and a.r.s.enic.u.m. Wooden spoons, too, were always seen. In Pennsylvania and New York laurel was called spoonwood, because the Indians made pretty white spoons from that wood to sell to the colonists. Horn was an appropriate and available material for spoons.

Many Indian tribes excelled as they do to-day in the making of horn spoons. The vulgar affirmation, ”By the great horn spoon,” has perpetuated their familiar use.

Every family of any considerable possessions or owning good household furnis.h.i.+ngs had a few silver spoons; nearly every person owned at least one. At the time America was settled the common form of silver spoon in England had what was known as a bal.u.s.ter stem and a seal head; the a.s.say mark was in the inner part of the bowl. But the fas.h.i.+on was just changing, and a new and much altered form was introduced which was made in large numbers until the opening reign of George I. This shape was the very one without doubt in which many of the spoons of the first colonists were made; and wherever such spoons are found, if they are genuine antiques, they may safely be a.s.signed a date earlier than 1714.

The handle was flat and broad at the end, where it was cleft in three points which were turned up, that is, not toward the back of the spoon.

This was known as the ”hind's-foot handle.” The bowl was a perfectly regular ellipse and was strengthened by continuing the handle in a narrow tongue or rat-tail, which ran down the back of the bowl. The succeeding fas.h.i.+on, in the early part of the eighteenth century, had a longer elliptical bowl. The end of the handle was rounded and turned up at the end, and it had a high sharp ridge down the middle. This was known as the old English shape, and was in common use for half a century. About the period of our Revolutionary War a shape nearly like the one in ordinary present use became the mode; the bowl became egg-shaped, and the end of the handle was turned down instead of up. The rat-tail, which extended down the back of the bowl, was shortened into a drop. Apostle spoons, and monkey spoons for extraordinary use were occasionally made, and a few are still preserved; examples of five types of spoons are shown from the collection of Edward Holbrook, Esq., of New York.

Families of consequence had usually a few pieces of silver besides their spoons and the silver salt. Some kind of a drinking-cup was the usual form. Persons of moderate means often owned a silver cup. I have seen in early inventories and lists the names of a large variety of silver vessels: tankards, beer-bowls, beakers, flagons, wine cups, wine bowls, wine cans, tasters, caudle-cups, posset-cups, dram-cups, punch-bowls, tumblers, mugs, dram bottles, two-eared cups, and flasks. Virginians and Marylanders in the seventeenth century had much more silver than New Englanders. Some Dutch merchants had ample amounts. It was deemed a good and safe investment for spare money. Bread-baskets, salvers, m.u.f.fineers, chafing-dishes, casters, milk pitchers, sugar boxes, candlesticks, appear in inventories at the end of the century. A tankard or flagon, even if heavy and handsome, would be placed on the table for every-day use; the other pieces were usually set on the cupboard's head for ornament.

The handsome silver tankard owned by Sarah Jansen de Rapelje is here shown. She was the first child of European parents born in New Netherland. The tankard was a wedding gift from her husband, and a Dutch wedding scene is graven on the lid.

There was a great desire for gla.s.s, a rare novelty to many persons at the date of colonization. The English were less familiar with its use than settlers who came from Continental Europe. The establishment of gla.s.s factories was attempted in early days in several places, chiefly to manufacture sheet-gla.s.s, but with slight success. Little gla.s.s was owned in the shape of drinking-vessels, none used generally on the table, I think, during the first few years. Gla.s.s bottles were certainly a great rarity, and were bequeathed with special mention in wills, and they are the only form of gla.s.s vessel named. The earliest gla.s.s for table use was greenish in color, like coa.r.s.e bottle gla.s.s, and poor in quality, sometimes decorated in crude designs in a few colors. Bristol gla.s.s, in the shape of mugs and plates, was next seen. It was opaque, a milky white color, and was coa.r.s.ely decorated with vitrifiable colors in a few lines of red, green, yellow, or black, occasionally with initials, dates, or Scriptural references.