Royal Taste: Food, Power and Status at the European Courts After 1789

Royal Taste Food, Power and Status at the European Courts after 1789

Edited by Daniëlle De Vooght

Royal Taste

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Royal Taste Food, Power and Status at the European Courts after 1789

Edited by

Daniëlle De Vooght Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

© Daniëlle De Vooght and the contributors 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Daniëlle De Vooght has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Royal taste : food, power and status at the European Courts after 1789. 1. Europe – Court and courtiers – Food – History – 18th century. 2. Europe – Court and courtiers – Food – History – 19th century. 3. Europe--Kings and rulers--Social life and customs--18th century. 4. Europe--Kings and rulers – Social life and customs – 19th century. 5. Food habits – Social aspects--Europe – History--18th century. 6. Food habits – Social aspects – Europe – History –19th century. 7. Social status – Europe – History – 18th century. 8. Social status – Europe – History – 19th century. I. Vooght, Daniëlle de. 394.1’2’08621’094-dc22

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Royal taste : food, power and status at the European courts after 1789 / [edited by] Daniëlle de Vooght. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-6837-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7546-9478-6 (ebook) 1. Food habits—Europe—History—19th century. 2. Dinners and dining—Political aspects— Europe—History—19th century. 3. Courts and courtiers—Europe--History—19th century. 4. Political culture—Europe—History—19th century. 5. Europe—History—1789-1900. I. Vooght, Daniëlle de. GT2853.E8R69 2010 394.1’209409034—dc22



ISBN 9780754668374 (hbk) ISBN 9780754694786 (ebk)

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Contents List of Figures and Tables   Notes on Contributors   Acknowledgments   Introduction. Food and Power: Studying Food at (Modern) Courts   Daniëlle De Vooght and Peter Scholliers 1

The Historical Models of Food and Power in European Courts of the Nineteenth Century: An Expository Essay and Prologue   Ken Albala

vii ix xiii 1

13

2 A Culinary Captatio Benevolentiae: The Use of the Truffle as a Promotional Gift by the Savoy Dynasty in the Eighteenth Century 31 Rengenier C. Rittersma 3 4 5 6 7

Drinking for Approval: Wine and the British Court from George III to Victoria and Albert   Charles C. Ludington

57

Food at the Russian Court and the Homes of the Imperial Russian Elite, Sixteenth to mid-Nineteenth Centuries   David I. Burrow

87

Pilaf and Bouchées: The Modernization of Official Banquets at the Ottoman Palace in the Nineteenth Century   111 Özge Samancı The Ceremony of Dining at Napoleon III’s Court Between 1852 and 1870   Anne Lair

143

Culinary Networks of Power in a Nineteenth-Century Court Society: Dining with the Kings of the Belgians (1831–1909)   171 Daniëlle De Vooght

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Conclusion   Stephen Mennell

191

Bibliography   Index  

201 227

List of Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 The change in the geopolitical position of Savoy during the eighteenth century (source: Gianni Oliva, I Savoia, 1998; by kind permission of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A.). 3.1 Sherry’s rise to parity with port, 1817–1846 (source: Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Parliamentary Report C.8706, Custom tariffs of the United Kingdom from 1800–1897, with some notes upon the history of more important branches of the receipt from 1600 (London, 1897), pp. 150–51). 5.1 A banquet given for a European envoy at Topkapı Palace in the eighteenth century (source: M. d’Ohsson, Tableau Général de l’Empire Ottoman; author’s collection). 5.2 Banquet given in honor of Prince Napoléon at Beylerbeyi Palace on May 8, 1854 (source: L’Illustration: Journal Universel, Paris, 1854; author’s collection). 5.3 The layout of the banquet arranged for the commander of the English navy at Yıldız Palace on June 28, 1914 (source: Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 20 a). 5.4 The menu and concert program of the banquet arranged for the commander of the English navy at Yıldız Palace on June 28, 1914 (source: Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 19b). 5.5 The layout of the banquet prepared in honor of the commandant of the German navy at Dolmabahçe Palace on May 17, 1914 (source: Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 18a). 5.6 The menu of the banquet prepared in honor of the commandant of the German navy at Dolmabahçe Palace on May 17, 1914 (Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 17b). 6.1 The large dining room at the Louvre Palace (source: Musée du Louvre). 6.2 Christofle basket (source: Musée du Louvre). 7.1 Visual representation of all dinner occasions at the Belgian royal court in 1835 and how these are linked by guests (Pajek software).

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75 114 123 128 129 131 132 151 180

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7.2

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Visualization of the component of the one-mode network consisting of guests (tied by occasions), 1869 (Pajek).

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Tables 2.1 Quantities of food gifts sent from Turin to Vienna (1738–1774). 45–6 5.1 Dishes served during late Ottoman official banquets. 137–142 6.1 Three menus served at the imperial court of Napoleon and Eugenie, spanning a period of five years. 159 7.1 Line values of the one-mode network consisting of dinner occasions, 1835 (Pajek Report Window). 181 7.2 Line values of the one-mode network consisting of dinner guests, 1835 (Pajek Report Window). 182 7.3 Interpretation of the line values of the one-mode network consisting of all dinner occasions (tied by guests). 185 7.4 Interpretation of the degree of all vertices in the one-mode network consisting of all dinner guests (tied by occasions). 186

Notes on Contributors Ken Albala is Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He is the author of nine books ranging from academic monographs such as Eating Right in the Renaissance (2002) and The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (2007) to popular titles such as Beans: A History, the 2008 IACP Jane Grigson Award winner. He also edits three food series for Greenwood Press, including Food Culture Around the World. He has recently completed a textbook for the Culinary Institute of America entitled World Cuisines, and has begun a book on food controversies in the Reformation era. David I. Burrow is Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Dakota, where he teaches European and Russian History. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005. His research focuses on the concept of the public in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Russia. Daniëlle De Vooght graduated from the History Department at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2001. As of January 2002, she is a researcher at that same department. She conducted research for the research project ‘(Un)sustainability Developments of Product Systems, 1800–2000’, an interdisciplinary project in cooperation with Vito (Flemish Institute for Technological Research) and commissioned by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. In April 2010, she obtained her PhD with a thesis on the relationship between food culture and (political, economic, social, and cultural) power within an elite, and more particularly on food culture at the nineteenth-century Belgian royal court. She has recently published an article about her research in Food & History and in an edited volume entitled The Dining Nobility: From the Burgundian Dukes to the Belgian Royalty (2008). Anne Lair received her PhD in French culture from the Ohio State University in 2003, she is an Assistant Professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Northern Iowa. She studies the ways in which a literary text can also be read as a source for information about culture in a certain period of time. As a French culture specialist and expert on the symbolism of



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food, she taught a course on famine and abundance, focusing mostly on the Middle Ages and medieval literature. Charles C. Ludington received his PhD from Columbia University in 2003. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches British and Irish history since 1400, early modern European intellectual history, and two different courses on the history of food and drink. He has published a variety of articles on the Huguenot diaspora, British intellectual history, and the history of wine consumption in Britain. He is currently writing a book on the meaning of the taste for wine in Britain, 1649–1860. Stephen Mennell read Economics at Cambridge, and was then Knox Fellow in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard (1966–1967). From 1967 to 1990 he taught sociology at the University of Exeter, becoming Reader in Sociology and Western European Studies. In 1986, his book All Manners of Food was the first English-language book to be awarded the Grand Prix Internationale de Literature Gastronomique, and the French translation (Français et anglais à table) won the Prix Marco Polo in 1988. In 1987–1988 he was a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Wassenaar, and he has spent three periods as a Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford. From 1990 to 1993 he was Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He moved to the chair of sociology at University College Dublin in August 1993. He has been an associate editor of Theory, Culture and Society since 1989, and is now international editor of the Irish Journal of Sociology and an editor of the journal Food & History, based in Tours, France. Rengenier C. Rittersma graduated as a Master in History from the Universiteit van Amsterdam in 1999. He also obtained his Masters degree in Germanic Studies at the same institution in 2000. In 2006, he succesfully defended his PhD on the myth of the count of Egmont in European culture (1568–1830) at the European University Institute in Florence (published by Waxmann Verlag, Münster and New York, 2009). He is currently writing a book on the cultural history of the truffle in Europe since the late Middle Ages. He recently published Luxury in the Low Countries. Miscellaneous Reflections on Netherlandish Material Culture, 1500 to the Present (2010). Between 2008 and 2010, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Universität des Saarlandes, where he now teaches at the History Department. Since 2007, he is the secretary of the editorial board of the journal Food & History.

Notes on Contributors

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Özge Samancı completed her graduate studies in History at Boğazici University in Istanbul in 1998 and continued her PhD studies in Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Recently, she finalized her PhD thesis on the culinary culture of the Ottoman palace and Istanbul in the nineteenth century. Samancı is Assistant Professor at the department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at Yeditepe University in Istanbul. She is also working as the culinary culture section curator in Antalya’s City Museum Project in Turkey. Peter Scholliers studied History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where he obtained his PhD in 1984 with a dissertation on wages, purchasing power, and the standard of living in Belgium in the interwar period. In his research he focuses on the history of the standard of living, labor history, wages and prices, material culture, and industrial archeology, and on the history of food. He was a researcher at the Center for Contemporary Social History between 1976 and 1985. In 1986, he became a staff member of the Department of History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Since 2000, he has also been a lecturer in that department. He is a member of the editorial staff of Food & History, Food and Foodways, and Food, Culture & Society. On top of that he is vice-president of the International Committee for the Research of European Food History and he is a member of the Comité d’Orientation of the Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Cultures de l’Alimentation. Recently, he received the Vlaamse Cultuurprijs – Smaakcultuur (Flemish Award for the Culture of Taste) for his research on food.

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank the International Institute of Social History for giving me the opportunity to organize a session on courtly food at the ESSHC 2008. Thank you to all authors for their contributions, and to Stephen Mennell for his editorial remarks. Thank you, Jay Paul Bullard, for proofreading the manuscript. Thank you to the peer reviewers, for their useful comments and suggestions. Thank you to my supervisor, Peter Scholliers, for his never-ending enthusiasm and support. And of course, a special thanks to Emily Yates and Nick Wain, editors at Ashgate Publishing, for their enthusiasm, patience, and suggestions. Daniëlle De Vooght

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Introduction Food and Power: Studying Food at (Modern) Courts Daniëlle De Vooght and Peter Scholliers

The Importance of Food and Everything That Comes With It The social and cultural importance of food has been examined and confirmed at length by anthropological, sociological, and historical research, which has ascribed to it status, identity, and power. Clearly, (public) dining, social position, and hierarchies are tightly interconnected. This explicit association between food and status was, academically speaking, first acknowledged on the food production level. Landowners, millers, and bakers were the rich, the famous, and the powerful, since they owned the essential foodstuffs—grain, flour, and bread, respectively. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz analyzed this relationship meticulously. Taking sugar as an example, he demonstrated the relationship between the possession of sugar plantations and slavery and, thus, how ownership of food was directly proportionate to the occupation of the most important positions in society. Moreover, this was a dual conceptualization of power; next to the obvious demonstration of power on the production level, the social significance of sugar consumption could hardly be neglected: “As a rare and costly substance, its very consumption expressed a kind of power.” Food consumption not only reflects power and status, but it also demonstrates the quest for power and status, regardless of the lack of either ownership or affluent income. In early nineteenth-century Spain, for example, some impoverished aristocrats ignored their formal bankruptcy or judicially constrained patrimony,   P. Fieldhouse, Food and Nutrition: Customs and Culture (New York, 1995), p. 78.   See, for example, R. Gibson and M. Blinkhorn (eds), Landownership and Power in

 

Modern Europe (London, 1991).    S.W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: the Place of Sugar in Modern Society (New York, 1985).    S.W. Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past (Boston, MA, 1996), p. 12.

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and continued buying (via seemingly endless credit) costly foods in order to uphold their status. The consumption of rich food—in terms of quantity and quality—was and undoubtedly is a manner of showing one’s social status, creating or maintaining power, or aspiring to powerful circles. “Taste and dining preferences,” as Ken Albala put it, “point to broader values, desires, and sometimes explicit food ideologies. Like any ideology, this term denotes a conscious way of behaving, in this case eating, intended both to set the individual or group apart from others […] .” This book addresses the relationship between food consumption, status, and (political, cultural, social, and economic) power by focusing on the traditional top layer of society; it considers the way royalty, nobility, and aristocrats wined and dined in the rapidly changing world of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a period during which the bourgeoisie and even the menu peuple (i.e. common people) obtained political rights, economic influence, social importance, and cultural authority. Although the book deals with all the elements that arise when kings, sultans, or czars are mentioned, it moves beyond the effulgence of extravagant feasts. It questions the role of food consumption at courts and the significance of particular foodstuffs or methods of preparation; it deals with the number of guests at parties and with table decorations; it studies the way courts influenced one another; and it considers whether and how dining preferences at court diffused throughout the society as a whole and, indeed, how society’s food practices interact with court food. This relationship, interestingly, was also illustrated in a present-day democracy prior to the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama. The choice of who was to become the new White House chef stirred up debate among foodies, since “his [Obama’s] eating habits could set an example for the rest of the country.” Food, of course, makes up the central issue of this book, but because food is much more than the simple act of eating and drinking, the book addresses issues of social networks, prestige, politics, and diplomacy, banquets and their design, income and spending, economic aims, taste and preference, cultural   C. Sarasùa, “Upholding Status: the Diet of a Noble Family in Early NineteenthCentury La Mancha,” in P. Scholliers (ed.), Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking since the Middle Ages (Oxford and New York, 2001), pp. 37–61.    K. Albala, The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (Urbana and Chicago, 2007), p. 2.    H. Bailey, “No White House Food Fight,” Newsweek, January 17, 2009. As read on: http://www.newsweek.com/id/180097 (accessed on January 20, 2009). J. Huget, “Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy,” Washington Post, January 19, 2009. As read on: http://www. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/16/AR2009011604152.html?refe rrer=emailarticlepg (accessed on January 20, 2009). 

Introduction



innovations, social hierarchies, material culture, and many more social and cultural issues. Food is crucial to all humans, yet it may be even more essential to the rich and famous because of these multiple connotations with prestige, codes (of behavior), and display of sheer power. The specific issues addressed in this book will be presented more thoroughly in the final section of this chapter. Food Historiography, Social Differences, and Power Exertion The link between food consumption and (economic) status has been studied and empirically verified more or less continuously since the late eighteenth century. Recurring investigations into household expenditures established, not surprisingly, that richer households spent more money on food, mostly due to the variety in their diets. In 1855 for example, the Belgian statistician Edouard Ducpétiaux recorded the yearly per capita consumption by various families of four foodstuffs that were considered a genuine marker of wealth, including meat. His findings revealed striking differences between the “rentier, grande aisance” (106 kg of meat), “the boutiquier, avec petit commerce de mercerie” (65 kg), and the “ouvrier maçon” (13.5 kg), all living in Brussels in 1853. By 1900, numerous statistical studies of mainly working-class households in a great variety of countries led to more detailed insight into this relationship, confirming that higher income groups ate more, and more varied food. Moreover, this led to one of the first sociological “laws” formulated by the German statistician Ernst Engel: as income increases, the share of total spending on food declines. Subsequent research showed this to be universally valid both through space and time, as well as within a particular society. Since the 1920s, these inquiries gradually began to include other social categories such as blue-collar employees or independent workers. From the 1950s on, partly because of the development of more sophisticated statistics, data were refined, groups were reorganized, and other classifications were introduced (e.g. dwelling place or age group). Although these changes raised doubts among some scholars about the close link between income and food consumption, the data substantiated the importance of family income, regardless of family composition, age, or place of residence. Moreover, since most people spent at least 50 percent of their household budget   E. Ducpétiaux, “Budgets économiques des classes ouvrières en Belgique,” Bulletin de la Commission Centrale de Statistique, VI (1855): p. 415.    See the survey by G.J. Stigler, “The Early History of Empirical Studies of Consumer Behavior,” The Journal of Political Economy, April (1954): pp. 95–113. On the relevance of household budgets, see T. Pierenkemper, “Das Rechnungsbuch der Hausfrau,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 14/1 (1988): pp. 38–63. 

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on food (in Western Europe this was true up to the 1950s), the possibility to obtain other goods or services was inevitably restricted. The ability to make at all times consumption choices, thus, was the privilege of a small elite. This elite used quantity as well as quality of food to enjoy and express material comfort and prestige. If the particular aim of studying budget inquiries was to know about the standard of living of working-class households and inequality between these families, another type of research, which also used expenditures, emerged in the 1960s. These studies considered the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Here, a totally different world appeared, one of luxury, social occasions, conspicuous consumption, snobbery, and networking. This type of research started as part of a vast program in various European countries, but most benefited from France’s influential journal Annales. Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations. Its 1975 special section Histoire de la consommation dealt with food and, more importantly, it paid specific attention to the nobility.10 The ongoing (and still modest) research outlined three significant issues: the enormous amounts spent on food (although clothing, travel and other types of conspicuous consumption were important, too), the great variety of food (particularly wine and meat), and the huge quantities of food (with, for example, an average daily consumption of 2 litres of wine per person at minor courts in southern France during the fifteenth century). Thus, historical research again confirmed Engel’s law: as the household income increases, the diet becomes more diverse, and the percentage of the budget spent on food declines. Unfortunately, historians of the 1970s (not exclusively the French) were entirely focused on a quantitative and highly economic approach to food; because of this, they neglected what had been happening in anthropology and sociology since the 1930s.11 In the first half of the twentieth century, the functional sociologists, displaying an interest in food, addressed its physiological and nutritional aspects, and linked food production, preparation, and consumption to interpersonal relationships.12 Food and cuisine were used to maintain social structures of a group, community, or society. Scholars who opposed this approach raised objections based on the ideas of teleology, circularity, a-temporality, and biological reductionism. By the   B. Bennassar and J. Goy, “Contribution à l’histoire de la consommation alimentaire du XIVe au XIXe siècle,” Annales. Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 30/2–3 (1975): pp. 402–30. 11   See the survey in P. Scholliers, “Twenty-five Years of Studying un phénomènè social total: Food History Writing of Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Food, Culture and Society, 10/3 (2007): pp. 449–71. 12   S. Mennell, A. Murcott, and A. Van Otterloo, The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture (London, 1992), pp. 7–18. 10

Introduction



late 1950s, structuralist sociologists, strongly influenced by social scientists like Claude Lévi-Strauss, Norbert Elias, and Mary Douglas, focused on cuisine, taste, and manners as opposed to the functionalists’ attention to food and calories. They considered the meaning, symbolism, and aesthetics of food in order to learn about the underlying, and thus hidden, cohesion of a group, community, or society. Cuisine is a language, they claimed, and as with language there are both unconscious and conscious messages. Therefore, studying cuisine reveals the very core (or structure) of a society. The most important critique expressed against structuralism was regarding its static approach. This led to an increased interest on the part of sociologists in historical developments; Stephen Mennell’s and Anneke van Otterloo’s work are fine examples of this development. Finally, in the 1980s, socioeconomic historians gradually discovered the sociologists’ and anthropologists’ approaches and debates, which contributed highly to the cultural turn in history writing. Jean-Louis Flandrin may be cited as a pioneer.13 Food historians continued their research about particular communities — such as schools, poor houses, towns, wealthy families, and courts — but took a much more cultural outlook than previously. Werner Sombart’s Luxury and Capitalism of 1913 and Norbert Elias’s Die höfische Gesellschaft of 1969 (with the English translation in 1983) were read or reread. Both showed an interest in the conspicuous consumption of courts, and particularly of the Italian Renaissance courts of Ferrara, Urbino, Milan, or Rome and that of Louis XIV’s Versailles, where cuisine clearly played a central role in forging status and identity. Most of these places were studied thoroughly in the 1990s.14 Calories and expenditures were still research subjects, but they were situated within the study of taste, preferences, prestige, and significance. Household budgets were still used too, of course, but they were set within a qualitative approach.15 The subject of food studies currently revolves very much around how food was and is used to create, confirm, and change social relations, identities, behavior, and power hierarchies.16 Through food, people are socially, culturally, and even   See, for example, J.-L. Flandrin, “La diversité des goûts et des pratiques alimentaires en Europe du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 1983: pp. 66–83. 14   Albala, The Banquet. 15   A good example of this shifting approach is B. Laurioux and P. Moirez, “Pour une approche qualitative des comptes alimentaires: cour de France et cour de Rome à la fin du Moyen Âge,” Food & History, 4/1 (2006): pp. 45–66. 16   A. Beardsworth and T. Keil, Sociology on the Menu: An Invitation to the Study of Food and Society (London and New York, 1997); T.L. Bray, “The Commensal Politics of Early States and Empires,” in T.L. Bray (ed.), Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires (New York, 2003), p. 2. 13

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politically positioned within society.17 To use Warren Belasco’s words: “Food indicates who we are, where we came from, and what we want to be.”18 Today, historiography connects issues of food, diet, and nutrition to cuisine, taste, preferences, communication, demarcation, identity, and power.19 This relatively new approach frequently appears in the bulk of literature about culinary culture, no matter what language it is written in. Very recently, nineteenth-century court food began to benefit from this approach. Most of this literature is presented and used throughout this introduction and the chapters in this book. Admittedly, this new attention has also led to the production of some entertaining and superbly illustrated coffee-table books, some of which may contain relevant information.20 Food at the Court and Within the Modern Society Sebastian Olden-Jorgensen stresses the multiple functions of courts, “In early modern Europe the court of a prince was many things: the household of a prince, a point of contact between the ruler and the elites, a cultural trendsetter, a focal point of patronage and an important institution of regional and international politics. In short, the court had many functions.”21 Moreover, according to Stephen Mennell, this role of the court, with its elites as a culturally powerful establishment that shapes good taste and appropriate manners, must be seen as a blueprint of power relations in society as a whole.22 Thus, court life differs from one country or even region to another, according to dissimilar political, social, and cultural elements in each country or region (hence, the difference between   See, for example: M. Jones, Feast: Why Humans Share Food (Oxford, 2007); M. Dietler, “Feasts and Commensal Politics in the Political Economy. Food, Power and Status in Prehistoric Europe,” in P. Wiessner and W. Schiefenhövel (eds), Food and the Status Quest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Providence and Oxford, 1996); C. Counihan and P. Van Esterik, “Introduction,” in C. Counihan and P. Van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader (New York and London, 1997). 18   W. Belasco, “Food Matters. Perspectives on an Emerging Field,” in W. Belasco and P. Scranton (eds), Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies (New York and London, 2002), p. 2. 19   Scholliers, “Twenty-five years,” pp. 461–6. 20   For example, K. Jones, For the Royal Table: Dining at the Palace (London, 2008). 21   S. Olden-Jorgensen, “State Ceremonial, Court Culture and Political Power in Early Modern Denmark, 1536–1746,” Scandinavian Journal of History, 27 (2002): p. 65. 22   S. Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford and New York, 1985), p. 108. 17

Introduction



a conspicuous Louis XIV and a somewhat more frugal Charles II).23 With this statement, Mennell follows in the footsteps of sociologist Norbert Elias. In Die höfische Gesellschaft, Elias emphasized the importance of not thinking of the concepts “individual” and “society” as two different and therefore isolated entities.24 He is convinced that the individual position of the king, the structure of the court, and the figuration of society as a whole are correlated. Studying the court is apposite, and even compulsory, if one is interested in power relations on a micro-level (the court) as well as on a macro-level (society as a whole).25 Links between the court and its context, or society, may be illustrated by referring to the court as a display window for impressing local nobility and foreign visitors, but also the little people (e.g. artisans, workers, and even the poor). If the court is indeed a display window, then it is conceived and set up to be seen and commented upon. So, the court does not exist outside or above society, but it is part of it in practice (e.g., providers, servants, diners) and in discourse (e.g., narratives, imagery, renown, later journalism). Also according to Elias, foodways, cuisine, guests, etiquette, drinks, presentation of dishes, décor, et cetera reflect societal configurations.26 Thus, since food is central within the court and the court is fully embedded within society, the importance of studying food at the court can be accepted with little argument. To be absolutely clear, the impending study is not only about the demonstrative consumption of the wealthy (which would be a great research topic on its own); it is primarily about the position of the rich and famous within society, and how their position is mirrored in their dining habits. The importance of studying food at the court is fully acknowledged by Bruno Laurioux, who claims that the courtly images of abundance and refinement that appear within a very specific political and social situation are necessary to understand a broader societal context.27 Most of the aforementioned theory and empirical study relates to absolutist courts with powerful sovereigns, a wealthy court life, and complex relationships between court and society. From the late eighteenth century onward, the   Mennell, All Manners of Food, p. 118.   N. Elias, The Court Society (Dublin, 2006), pp. 20–21. 25   D. De Vooght, “Culinary Networks of Power: Dining with King Leopold II of 23

24

Belgium (1865–1909),” Food & History, 4/1 (2006): p. 85. 26   J. Goudsblom, J. Heilbron and N. Wilterdink (eds), Norbert Elias. Het civilisatieproces. Sociogenetische en psychogenetische onderzoekingen (Amsterdam, 2001), p. 111; J. Allard, “Repas et manières de table à la cour d’Espagne au Siècle d’Or,” in J.-L. Flandrin and J. Cobbi (eds), Tables d’hier, tables d’ailleurs (Paris, 1999), p. 172. 27   B. Laurioux, “Alimentation de cour, alimentation à la cour au Moyen Âge: nouvelles orientations de recherche,” Food & History, 4/1(2006): p. 9.

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role and status of courts changed radically and irrevocably, and with that, the historian’s interest seems to have diminished. Absolutist kings and emperors in Europe have gone or have continued their reign as constitutional monarchs, meaning they have little or no real influence. Yet, new courts appeared as loci of power. Think about the presidential houses of large nations like France28 and the United States, or consider international organizations like the European Union. Moreover, it is questionable whether the old monarchs’ role really became irrelevant. It is clear that the role of the aristocracy and royalty altered when confronted with the enormous transformations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulting from the numerous revolutions in agriculture, transportation, dwelling, manufacturing, politics, time usage, social structure, employment, infrastructures, et cetera. New powerful groups, gathered under the term the “bourgeoisie,” forged a new cultural hegemony, with their own codes and practices. The fancy restaurants that began to emerge in Paris in the 1780s and conquered the world are only one example: they became the new meeting places of the rich and famous.29 So, what did happen to court society after 1789, the chronological ending point of Norbert Elias’s Die höfische Gesellschaft? Did the aristocracy and, consequently, the monarchy, indeed lose its influence and power completely? Or did it succeed in entering the new financial, industrial, and commercial elite of the nineteenth century? Some new countries emerged, and chose a new king and court, such as Belgium or Greece. Some old monarchies re-emerged, as with Napoleon III’s coup in France in 1852. What were the implications for the nineteenth-century monarchies, and how did they affect society’s functioning? Assuming that nineteenth-century courts did retain a certain amount of power and influence, what then was the role of food at the court? For example, could the food that was served at the court “compete” with the food of the new fancy restaurant? Did food (still) create and maintain hierarchies at nineteenthcentury courts, and this within the society wherein it existed? Who got invited to dinner by kings and queens, and did the table arrangement of the guests (still) reflect contemporary social hierarchy? And how about the presumed bond between food and power? Did the new bourgeoisie appreciate being invited at royal courts, or did it not care?   M. Lavandier, E. Flament-Guelfucci et al., La table à l’Elysée. Réceptions officielles des présidents depuis la IIIe République (Milan, 2005), p. 11: “Offrir un bon repas privilégie l’entente et l’amitié tout en les rendant publiques, et d’aucuns en ont fait depuis des siècles un véritable outil diplomatique.” 29   R. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Cambridge, MA, 2000). 28

Introduction



Surprisingly, these questions have rarely been asked by academic researchers before. Indeed, the (exhaustive) bibliographical database on court history that can be consulted on the website of the Society for Court Studies contains virtually no titles concerned with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.30 Yet, to interpret (luxury) food and grasp the hierarchies, conflicts of power, and indeed the general development of European society, it is of utmost importance to understand court society after 1800. European Courts and This Book The European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC) convenes researchers who tackle historical questions by using the methods of the social sciences. At the 2008 ESSHC in Lisbon, the research unit Social & Cultural Food Studies (FOST) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels) organized a session on Food, Court Cultures, and the World since 1850. For this book, the four papers that were presented at the ESSHC were transformed (very thoroughly) into chapters. The book is completed by three additional chapters, an introduction, and a concluding chapter. It tackles the question of the relationship between food and power by looking at (nineteenthcentury) courts in different parts of the world. Ken Albala sets the stage in an expository chapter. He states that dining is always, and certainly at courtly events, an expression of power. He convincingly argues that, to demonstrate their authority, leaders from all times and places looked for inspiration “from the past or from the colonial ‘other’.” His contribution should be read as a guide to different historical models that may have affected nineteenth-century European courtly food culture. It takes us to ancient Greece, which apparently served as an example for the healthy eating habits that are currently very much in fashion, and to ancient Rome, of which the decadent banquets are probably the best-known example of sheer perversity as far as eating habits are concerned. However, there was more to dining in Rome than hedonism alone, as the author shows. From Rome, Albala leads us past the food dictates of early Christianity and illustrates the importance of the medieval institution of kingship for nineteenth-century nobility. Of course, Albala does not neglect the significance of the Italian (Renaissance) courts and of the French Sun King’s Versailles, both of which are also treated in the chapters by Rittersma and by Lair. Finally, the author demonstrates how European courts were influenced aesthetically by the colonies.   http://www.courtstudies.org (accessed December 31, 2008).

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In his chapter, Rengenier Rittersma examines the use of truffles as a promotional gift by the Savoy dynasty in the eighteenth century. By looking at the rich diplomatic correspondence of the court of Savoy, Rittersma reveals how the gift-giving practice was always used as a political tool and how food each time played a part in this tradition. What is striking is the fact that the use of the truffle as a promotional gift coincides with the emergence of the state of Savoy on the European political scene. Rittersma argues, persuasively, that this custom indeed had a key role in the development and preservation of diplomatic relations, and even in the development of a dynastic culture. Finally, the author points out that the organization of this gift-giving culture can be useful to evaluate the (power) alliances between the different parts of the Piedmontese state administration. Charles Ludington’s chapter also commences in the eighteenth century. He takes us to the court of George III and his successors, describing a century of wine consumption at the British court. The author argues that the taste for wine at the British court was evidence of a changing society as well as a changing British monarchy. Ludington wishes to oppose the widespread idea that, as of the midseventeenth century, the British court was culturally dead. By examining the court’s consumption of wine, he studied a commodity that had been associated with the court and aristocracy since long before the early modern era. Ludington shows that there was a shift in courtly wine consumption in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The royal family became more “middle class” in its tastes, and its choice of wine should be regarded as a political move to keep the monarchical institution alive. David Burrow’s chapter puts, what Richard Wortman terms, the “scenarios of power” on trial. Burrow applies the idea of these scenarios to food and its presentation at the Russian court. By examining different types of sources, for example diaries and household books, Burrow demonstrates how service and meals among the court-affiliated Russian nobility shifted from an emphasis on sociability and the “open table” to events designed to inculcate courtapproved manners, a shift corresponding with a parallel deepening of Russian nationalism. As described by Özge Samanci, at the Ottoman court too, food was one of the key components of the ceremonial code. Until the early decades of the nineteenth century, foreign ambassadors who visited the sultan were welcomed in a traditional Ottoman style, which included dining at low tables and eating without knives and forks. As Samanci convincingly demonstrates by examining menus and diaries, changes inspired by European culture were introduced during the nineteenth century, and foreign guests were served with a new kind of cuisine known as alafranga (in the European style). In this chapter, Samanci

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looks for the underlying reasons of this modernization of the food language and she examines the importance of food in the positioning of the Ottoman court within (global) power alliances. Anne Lair discusses the ceremony of dining at the French court of Napoleon III. Before elaborating on the courtly dining habits of the Second Empire, Lair takes us back to Louis XIV’s dining table in Versailles, since he imposed ceremony, etiquette, codes, and table manners. With this elaboration, she puts the choices that were made by Napoleon III in perspective. According to Lair, Napoleon III and his wife Eugénie were not gourmets; nonetheless food was still in abundance at the Tuileries Palace. By examining courtly menus and comparing these to the food that was served in some of Paris’s fancy restaurants, by looking at the décor of the imperial couple’s apartments, and by discussing some of the details that were designed to inspire awe, like the Christofle silverware, Lair concludes that dinner occasions at Napoleon III’s court were merely a display of wealth and power. The food itself however, lacked refinement, and French haute cuisine was no longer to be found at the court, but rather in the public sphere of fancy restaurants. Daniëlle De Vooght examines the usefulness of sociologist Norbert Elias’s concept figurations of power. In his Die höfische Gesellschaft, Elias uses ample historical empirical material to formulate and test sociological theories. The framework of his study is the courts of the ancien régime, especially focusing on the French Louis XIV’s reign (1661–1715). When studying a court, Elias cannot be ignored. But can Elias’s findings actually be used as a guide when researching all courts? De Vooght tests Elias’s views by examining the composition of the dinner guest lists of the kings of the Belgians of the nineteenth century. Who was invited to join the king and queen at the dining table? How did the guest lists evolve over time; can subgroups be detected; and do the culinary networks at the king’s dining table reflect a (shifting) balance of power within Belgian society at that moment in time? By performing a social network analysis, the author reveals that the Belgian royal court can be regarded as a place to be, but perhaps not the place to be. Finally, Stephen Mennell provides the afterword, in which he relates the chapters to the central issues of this book. He also looks to the future, pointing out possible other angles of research. *    *    *

This book explores the extent to which the connection between food and power, which has clearly been defined for medieval and early modern courts, can also be identified for nineteenth- and twentieth-century court elites confronted

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with gigantic societal turmoil. It adds to our understanding of the importance of food, as well as of the power of royal courts in modern Europe. Apart from exploring this fascinating period of time in history, the subject of these chapters covers a substantial geographic area of the world. Nonetheless, as is almost inevitable, there are geographical hiatuses. This book does not talk about, for example, the Habsburg court, the Brazilian imperial court, Meiji Japan, or Qing China, even though, according to William Chan Tat Chuen, in China the organization of the court, including court meals, was already meticulously described more than 2,000 years ago.31 We acknowledge the reality of this lacuna, but instead of allowing it to keep us from publishing this book, we would like to take this opportunity to encourage scholars to fill in the gaps and to take up the modern court, and, even more specifically, food at these loci of power, as a subject of research.

  W. Chan Tat Chuen, A la table de l’empereur de Chine (Arles, 2007), pp. 7–8.

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Chapter 1

The Historical Models of Food and Power in European Courts of the Nineteenth Century: An Expository Essay and Prologue Ken Albala

In the Western Tradition, the plastic arts have often taken their formal inspiration from historical precedents, notably the idealized reconfigurations of either classical Greek and Roman or medieval and indigenous art. For example, columns and pilasters on a town hall or bank evoke ancient Imperial Rome and convey a feeling of strength and stability. A neo-Gothic spire celebrates the intense heaven-soaring piety of the Middle Ages in an attempt to elicit a comparable emotion in the modern spectator. Artistic taste alternates between these historical styles, sometimes motivated by explicitly nationalistic goals—as in the rejection of classical objective dictates of beauty for the local and homegrown. The nineteenth century witnessed erratic and sometimes violent shifts in taste between the classical models and the romantic, naturalistic, or neoGothic. Paintings, sculptures and buildings, especially when publicly funded, regardless of style, were conscious expressions of power, meant to provoke reaction in the spectator by means of associated symbols and ideas. More often than not, these symbols were drawn from historical models. Hence, Napoleon’s court exploited universalist Roman and then Ancient Egyptian symbols at the same time he was attempting to build an empire to surpass these. In the age of nationalism, new states like Germany drew inspiration from their folk tales and pagan legends in order to exhibit their own inherent greatness. It was in this same era that the Brothers Grimm and Wagner sought to create art as a manifestation of the soil, its people, and their values, which included the ancient German idea of kingship. Historical models were sometimes drawn from a specific artist of the past—perhaps Michelangelo during the Florentine Republic—or were meant to recall a certain time and place: the court of Louis XIV, Tudor England, and so

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on. In every case, the art relays an implicit message of identification with the historical court depicted or echoes its form of political power. How the plastic arts serve as tools of propaganda has been studied in great detail. Yet one art, among the most ephemeral in nature, remains to be analyzed as an expression of a certain type of power, be it authoritarian or populist, imperial or national, idealized or folk; or, as Friederich Nietzsche would have schematized it, Apollonian or Dionysian. This remaining art form is food. One reason for this neglect stems from the difficulty in analyzing the historical record, the objects themselves having completely vanished, except for the intrepid archeologist or coprolithographer. The food served, and its stylistic inspiration in great state banquets, has for all practical purposes disappeared. As with the other ephemeral art forms, music and its forms of notation, there survive historic cookbooks and banquet guides which describe how dishes can be recreated, and accounts which give a reasonable report of the proceedings, table settings, modes of protocol and service, and even sometimes individuals’ reactions. From these the historian is able to recreate, sometimes literally if necessary, the historic meals of the past. It should not come as a surprise that the great state functions of the nineteenth century, like other arts, drew inspiration from the past. It might have been straightforward—in the elaborate architectural follies of a genius like Carême which depicted classical ruins in pastry and sugar work—or more subtly in Victorian gelatin molds recalling Gothic tracery and crocketting. Or it might have been a message of exoticism, recounting the history of a recently conquered colony—hence we find an interest in Northern African cuisine, couscous in particular, at the same time paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme become popular in France in the late nineteenth century. The historical reference may equally have been a form of seating arrangement, a recreated ceremony or even sometimes a recipe recovered from a historic cookbook to evoke the rulers’ ancestors, or named for a great gourmand of the past such as Apicius or Lucullus. No less than in the other arts, these meals were not merely flights of fancy incidentally using forms drawn from the past. They were expressions of power intended to evoke explicit associations among diners. The artistic statements—not only in the food, but also in the table settings, uniforms of the servants, the seating, and perhaps the entertainment—were all ultimately expressions of political power, and often in the nineteenth century of a specific type of political power. A meal may thus evoke an egalitarian past, an aristocratic past, a past replete with exotic novelties drawn from the far corners of a tropical empire, or simply remind diners of a regal bygone sovereignty bedecked with the baubles of majesty. One can easily   I. Kelly, Cooking For Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef (New York, 2004).    G. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme: His Life, His Works (Courbevoie, 1997). 

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understand, for example, why King Victor Emmanuel was fond of elaborate neo-Roman tiered wedding cake forms in architecture (witness his tomb) and on the table, just as a bourgeois king like Louis-Philippe chose to serve more simple unaffected foods. Quite plainly, taste reflects political leanings, and the desired associations are often, particularly in the historicist nineteenth century, drawn from the past, or at least an imagined past. This being the case, a discussion of the great banquets which served as models of inspiration for the nineteenth century is in order. What historical precedents did nineteenth-century courts draw from and why? How did the political vicissitudes of the era stimulate them to change their models, and what prompted the constant interplay between grand elaborate meals and the simple unaffected? What messages of power were nineteenth-century courts attempting to broadcast? This chapter will serve as a prologue to the general themes of food and power in modern European courts, specifically how these courts used historical models to elicit particular associations and how expressions of power are always grounded in past political forms which are manifested in terms of style, in the arts, and in cuisine. It should be noted from the outset, however, that courtly meals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were not merely historical recreations or set pieces. Other dramatic forces were equally transforming dining in general and especially at court. Perhaps the most important of these was the organization of the kitchen itself, a result of both the professionalization of cooking and the development of restaurants. Kitchens were indeed organized like armies, into batteries with a strict chain of command. The scale of operation was now naturally far beyond anything even thinkable merely a century before. This was also due to industrialization, new forms of energy, and new cooking technologies. The entire infrastructure of the food supply of Western Europe would change in the Industrial Era, and this would make the organization of the kitchen as well as the types of food available totally new. Refrigeration, the ability to import meat from the other side of the world, fruits out of season, or canned—these were totally different culinary substrata than those known to courts of previous eras. Precisely as in the arts, cooking became commodified, something sold to the masses and advertised. This had a direct effect on the popularization of taste and styles of serving. That a celebrity chef like Escoffier would work in a hotel and publish his culinary guide is a measure of how dramatically elite and courtly    A. Trubek, Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession (Philadelphia, 2000); R. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Cambridge, MA, 2000).

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dining had changed. This was no longer merely publicized, like the dining manuals of the early modern period, but intended to be used in any restaurant, patronized by literally anyone with money. That is, popular taste and preferences now influenced courtly cuisine, and of course to serve plebian food is itself a specific political statement. Americans, for example chortle when hearing that Franklin Delano Roosevelt served hot dogs at a picnic to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during a state visit, assuming this was pure incompetence. In fact, it was a clear political statement of informal amity and concord—as well as pride in an indigenous and industrial American commodity. But it was a different world, and culinary milieu, that made such an act even thinkable in the twentieth century. Nonetheless, we might assess on a similar level the great egalitarian potato banquets of the Jacobin era, the exotic food halls of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, the celebrations of traditional folk foodways at state functions of the late nineteenth century—whether Hungarian goulash, a Swedish smorgasbord, or Spanish paella; and of course when monarchs and emperors set out to impress with food, they have ample historical precedents, as well as the financial wherewithal and staff to execute any whim. What follows is essentially a catalogue of possible historical models on which nineteenth- and early twentieth-century courts drew their inspiration, and with which they hoped to project some kind of affinity, or in the case of the exotic, those states over which they hoped to exercise dominion. Greece Ancient Greece has long been identified as the birthplace of democracy, whose culinary habits embraced a generally egalitarian style of commensality. That symposia and other meals were exclusive to only the highest ranks of enfranchised male citizens was not exactly important, since nineteenth-century egalitarians were often of a similar mind: equality for those of wealth and standing and the leisure to afford the cultivation of taste. The Greeks also left copious documentation of their culinary customs, stretching from the earliest Homeric barbecue-sacrifices all the way up to the luxurious courts of Alexander the Great’s successors—the Ptolemys, Seleucids, and Aechmenids of Hellenistic Greece—corrupted by Eastern exotics. That is, there were numerous examples drawn from ancient Greece, both positive and negative. Most of these were   A. Escoffier, The Escoffier Cookbook (New York, 1969); K. James, Escoffier: The King of Chefs (London, 2006). 

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also recorded in Athenaeus’s massive food history, the Deipnosophistae. Within this text was one author in particular who revealed that there were among the Greeks certain cultivated connoisseurs whose knowledge of fine dining in many ways anticipated their own, and even in some respects rivaled the great pillars of gastronomic writing in nineteenth-century France—Brillat-Savarin and Grimod de la Reynière. This author was one Archestratus, whose culinary testament survives in fragmentary form, in sections mostly about fish, within the work of Athenaeus. Archestratus was unique in that he singled out quality over quantity in foodstuffs, refinement over lavish presentation, and went so far as to specify exactly where the best of ingredients could be obtained. The best barley flour for bread comes from Lesbos, followed by Thebes and Thasos, which seems merely passable. His attention to what we would now call “terroir” is unparalleled in ancient literature. There are also recipes, the most interesting of which specify not to over-season or garnish the main ingredient (good evidence that many cooks did just that). For example, about the amia, probably a kind of bonito, he counsels to wrap it in fig leaves with a little oregano, no cheese and no fancy stuff. It is then simply placed onto hot embers. This fish, the best of which comes from Byzantium, needs no adornment, the quality of the ingredient will speak for itself. In any case, the impression bequeathed to modern Europeans by writers such as Archestratus was that the Greeks had managed to achieve that most worthy of gastronomic ideals: good taste without excess, attention to health, balance and moderation—in short, a culinary culture as well conceived as their political forms. This may have been an entirely self-delusionary image of what the Greeks were actually like, but in the nineteenth century they were still accepted as the ideal unspoiled roots of Western civilization in the arts, sciences, and dietary practices. Ironically, though, not many Europeans knew much about ancient Greek food. Those who went to aid the Greek war of independence—and romantics like Byron who wanted to experience it first hand, and certainly consumed enough of it—encountered the same ruddy wine, pita bread, feta cheese, fish, and olives that proponents of the modern Mediterranean diet find there today. Readers of Plato’s Symposium, meaning virtually every educated person in the nineteenth century, would learn little about foodways. Even in the more raucous symposium by Xenophon, we get naked flute girls, ample amounts of wine and snacks, but not a proper meal. Thus the model of dining which   Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae), ed. S.D. Olson (Cambridge, 2007).    Archestratus, The Life of Luxury, ed. J. Wilkins and S. Hill (Totnes, 1994).    Ibid, pp. 73–4. 

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Greece provided was entirely in the abstract. It dealt with moderation, even sometimes Stoic self-denial, but not specific recipes or ways of eating. Even in the Greek revival period of the early nineteenth century, which was itself inspired by democratic ideals, one finds day beds reminiscent of Greek dining couches, modern politicians posing in togas, haircuts drawn directly from Athens, and of course pediments on facades and imitations of the Elgin Marbles in statuary. But there is little evidence of Europeans looking directly at models like Archestratus for culinary inspiration. If not in content, they did imitate the Greeks in form and function. This was a period of great dietary reform, when health and a well-built physique were considered indispensable components of the good life. Gymnastics suddenly gained prominence in educational theory, as witnessed by Matthew Arnold’s interest in “muscular Christianity.” Likewise the Romantics emphasized wholesome, clean, and natural food, inspired first by Rousseau but then adopted with enthusiasm by Shelley, vegetarians, and similar groups. The historical model is ultimately the well-fed egalitarian Greeks, who listened to their physicians, exercised rigorously, and ate pure, simple foods. This general fashion for Greek taste did not originate in European courts, but it certainly left its mark. Rome Ancient Rome afforded two diametrically opposed models of culinary taste. On the one hand there was the republican period, consciously imitated by every revolutionary state in successive waves—1789, 1830, 1848—for its egalitarian culinary virtues. This model stood in sharp contrast to the decadent Imperial Era, when Romans became addicted to luxury if not outright perversity in their dining habits. The republican period is best exemplified by the stern Roman statesman Cato the Elder. Best known as the instigator of the last Punic War, Cato also composed a farming manual, an investment guide for young aristocrats eager to buy land and make it productive. While his advice is mostly for an absentee landlord, growing grapes, olives, and other southern Italian crops, the model of self-sufficiency and landed wealth was one that resonated with many nineteenthcentury Europeans in power—notably landed aristocrats. On their estates, such men prided themselves on the produce of their own domains. They invited similar-minded peers, and regaled them in country houses modeled directly on   J.-J. Rousseau, Emile, trans. A. Bloom (New York, 1979).   Cato, On Farming, trans. A. Dalby (Totnes, 1998).

 

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those of early Rome, which in many cases survived in ruined form in proximity. This particular classical aesthetic originated in the eighteenth century, especially in England and its American colonies, but remained a powerful model well into the nineteenth century. While the meals actually served may have had little to do with ancient Roman dining practices, nonetheless a prejudice toward homegrown, and simple, unaffected fare dominated, often in direct contrast to the more lavish regal courts. Even if subconsciously, the food culture of men like Cato, alongside the rhetoric of Cicero and ornamental forms of the same epoch, had a profound impact on elite dining in the nineteenth century. In fact, the dining habits of the Romans were also becoming better known, partly through archeological findings. There had been early food histories, academic Latin discourses, going back to the sixteenth century,10 but the nineteenth century witnessed a real interest in learning about the daily habits of the Romans, in particular stemming from the apprehension that they were in many ways similar to European states in the imperial nineteenth century. Alexis Soyer’s Pantropheon of 1853,11 while not considered reliable history today, nonetheless reflects a wide and popular interest in ancient Rome, and in many cases meals were modeled directly on ancient precedents. The image of Rome as a culinary model also benefited from the survival of a full cookbook from the Imperial Era, attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius.12 Although the historical figure Apicius was almost certainly not its author, it was widely accepted until recently that he had written it. This was, however, a very different image than frugal republican Rome. This was a luxurious state, whose resources and far-flung trade routes could bring in exotic spices such as pepper from India, rare animals from Northern Africa, and even some products from the Far East. It is no wonder imperialist Europeans could identify with these people; they were undergoing the same enterprise in many of the same locales. This assumed affinity is historically fascinating in itself. The very name Apicius, once his text became known during the Renaissance, was consistently associated with gluttony and lavish excess. Stories were circulated about his wild profligacy and eventual suicide once he realized he could no longer entertain on a massive scale. But over time the name’s meaning changed. In the late seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century the name came to be associated with discerning taste and refinement; there were books titled the Modern Apicius in Italy and then

  See for example Stuckius, Boulenger, Chacon et al. in M. Jeanneret, A Feast of Words (Chicago, 1998). 11   A. Soyer, The Pantropheon (London, 1977). 12   Apicius, trans. C. Grocock and S. Grainger (Totnes, 2007). 10

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elsewhere.13 By the nineteenth century to be called an Apicius was fairly positive. This shift is similar to that enjoyed by the term “epicurean”; though having little to do with the original ideas of Epicurus, it gradually shifted from gluttonous associations (as with Sir Epicure Mammon in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist) to a term denoting those who appreciate the finer things in life, especially good food. Thus what began as general censure of Imperial Roman dining habits as corrupt during the Renaissance gradually became admiration, and sometimes not so veiled imitation, in European imperial courts, whether of Napoleon III, Leopold II of Belgium, or any empire of the late nineteenth century. This is not to say that Europeans suddenly adopted the salty garum fish sauce of the Romans, ate flamingo tongues or sow’s womb, in fact, they continued to gawk in disbelief at what they naïvely construed to be culinary perversities. But the style of imperial dining, the table settings, the service, and sometimes fanciful recreations of supposedly Roman dishes certainly interested these courts. There is another very interesting similarity between what might be considered the vulgarity and flashiness of Imperial Rome and that of the nineteenth century, especially in the so-called “gilded era.” First, it seems unlikely that many ancient Romans ate exactly as Apicius’s cookbook describes. These were foods intentionally intended to impress, with expensive ingredients or strange dishes like dormice dipped in honey and sprinkled with poppy seeds. This dish in particular was singled out for ridicule in Petronius’s Satyricon, as something in very poor taste served by the nouveau-riche upstart Trimalchio (a former slave who struck it rich speculating in grain).14 In this case the dormouse appears in dishes borne by a statue of a donkey. The foods found in Apicius’s cookbook are precisely those that would be served by a newly wealthy merchant or businessman, exactly the sort the old patrician Petronius scorned. It may be mere coincidence, but the nineteenth century witnessed a comparable and shocking growth of the bourgeoisie, whose new-found wealth was flaunted in meals intended to imitate if not surpass their social superiors, often to their own embarrassment when it could not quite be pulled off. This class would of course never have consciously imitated the rising mercantile classes of ancient Rome, but the snobbery and effetism of the court attempting to exclude those not “to the manner born” might be considered directly parallel to figures like Petronius, who was in his day arbiter of taste at the court of Nero. In other words, the nineteenth-century taste for Imperial Rome may stem from a very real similarity of social circumstances: trying to protect their privileges and vaunted taste from encroaching middle classes with their filthy, commercially derived lucre. This in   G. Vasselli, L’Apicio overo Il Maestro de’Conviti (Bologna, 1647); F. Leonardi, L’Apicio Moderno (Florence, 1790); Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook’s Oracle (London, 1817). 14   Petronius, The Satyricon (Harmondsworth, 1965). 13

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turn led to culinary innovations, rarer ingredients, and elaboration for its own sake. This may, strangely enough, explain the aesthetic similarities between these two disparate eras—grandeur, an obsession with ornamentation and stylistic innovation, and just plain kitsch as these styles were imitation down the social ladder. The Christian Tradition One powerful historical current influencing all European civilization stems from the food dictates of early Christianity. Although Jesus himself and his followers explicitly rejected the food prohibitions of the Jews from whom they originated, the early church eventually instituted ritual fasts as well as feasts which punctuated the medieval calendar. A fast meant specifically abstinence from meat and meat products during Lent, on Friday, sometimes on Wednesday and Saturday, sometimes during Advent. Roughly a third of the year was designated fast days, though in practice this could merely mean an elaborate fish-based meal. In contrast to these were the feasts: in the case of Carnival or Mardi Gras, raucous opportunities to indulge in excess, in particular to consume all remaining meat before Lent. Adherence to these strictures underwent various tumultuous reversals in the millennia since their institution, especially during the Reformation. By the nineteenth century they were almost completely abandoned in Protestant countries. Yet in Catholic Europe they still remained in force, sometimes strictly so by various ultramontane movements. That is, in France in particular, in the wake of secularization of the state in the Revolution, there was a conservative reaction which sought to uphold papal authority and its decrees regarding food. The Papal States themselves hung on tenuously, even being occupied by French troops before finally succumbing to the new nation of Italy. In any case, fasting and feasting became a political message in nineteenth-century Catholic courts. It could have been merely a ruse to garner popular approval, or to signal real assent to papal authority, but the publicly acknowledged Catholic dietary practices of nineteenth-century courts must be construed at some level as political statements. France itself wavered between conservative and democratic regimes, and thus there is no consistent pattern of courtly fasting, but in countries like Spain and Portugal, the new nation of Italy, as well as the Central European Catholic states, fasting was practiced as it always had been, albeit, again, often as lavish meals of seafood and vegetables.

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The Middle Ages The Middle Ages became an artistic model in the nineteenth century for many varied reasons. First there was the reaction against the tyranny of the formal classically bound academic arts rooted since the Renaissance in imitation of ancient standards of beauty, and which upheld painting and sculpture as the highest artistic forms. This reaction is more apparent in the plastic arts than in the culinary, but a parallel rejection of the formalities of haute cuisine and modes of protocol demanded in formal dining did indeed go hand in hand with a new fascination for the medieval. The clearest example of this can be found among the Pre-Raphaelites, whose new-found reverence for medieval textures and colors extended into not only an intense interest in what we now call crafts, but into cooking as well. The Arts and Crafts Movement even better exemplifies the new fascination for organic medieval domestic arts, pottery and textiles, as well as tableware drawing inspiration directly from medieval models. We get glimpses of how the nineteenth century conceived of food culture as inspired by the Middle Ages in William Morris’s News From Nowhere.15 In it, healthy Englishmen of the future are fishing for salmon in the Thames. Gone are all the factories, and instead little cottages surrounded by gardens, clean and orderly, provide the ideal habitat for humans in this modern Utopia. As for food, there is no buying or selling; everything is shared freely, each person producing what they need with plenty to spare for others, since they are motivated by joy deriving from working itself. This is only possible of course due to the absence of luxuries; needs are met with good healthy food, unpolluted and unadorned with superfluous frippery. For Morris, this was an explicitly political vision of a socialist society which resembled in his mind something like the Middle Ages. It is both a rejection of the modern state and nineteenth-century imperialism and, most importantly, a rejection of the socalled “benefits” that were supposed to derive from industrial capitalism. While certainly not a courtly food aesthetic, it did have a major impact on society and perhaps indirectly on a rather different approach to food, which has perennially resurfaced down unto our own day. For courts, however, the Middle Ages meant something more concretely rooted in their own ancestry—the medieval institution of kingship. As reactionary governments quelled the uprisings of republicans, and later socialists, they sought to justify their own authoritarian and conservative forms of government. The Middle Ages, in its imagined form, provided the aesthetic grounding. Nineteenth-century rulers built fantasy castles—Neuschwanstein   W. Morris, News From Nowhere (Harmondsworth, 1980).

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in Bavaria is merely the best known of these. Replete with grand medieval banqueting halls, there was indeed an effort to eat like medieval kings. Although the details may have been wildly off, whole roast venison, stately pies and medieval confections came into fashion, just as had medieval décor, and brica-brac. In many cases, particularly among Germanic states and fledging nations, focus shifted anew to their own origins, in rejection of what were considered foreign classical influences. One example would be the eleventh-century dining hall of the Imperial Palace (Kaiserpfalz) in Goslar, Germany. A nineteenth-century mock medieval cycle of paintings of past emperors now lines the walls, beneath which one can easily imagine diners on long benches, consuming quasi-medieval fare. The idea at least is to associate the present Reich with the earlier, as the proper form of government native to Germany. Perusal of menus of this period reveals not only a return to the German language instead of French, Gothic script, but also to local, traditional dishes. The Königliche Tafel in Munich on June 21, 1886 reveals Ochsenschweifsuppe (oxtail soup), Königseeforellen (trout from Konigsee); Kalbsrücken (saddle of veal), Fleischpastetchen (meat pies—although these are nach Richelieu), Hühnerbrüstchen (chicken breast), and so on.16 Perhaps we might not be surprised to see Germans eating German food; but at court, not to serve French food was indeed a statement of nationalism. It is of course in this same period that many new nations looked to their own native folk traditions in all the arts: Sibelius in Finland, Tchaikovsky in Russia, Bartók in Hungary, for example in music. A comparable reawakening of local food traditions also begins here, with the gradual rejection of French taste as the model for all European courts. It is also, not coincidentally, the first time historians became actively interested in recovering and editing their own medieval cookbooks. The Early Modern Era In this period there were several disparate aesthetic models for European courts—the aforementioned French model in haute cuisine reigned the longest and still exerts an influence. At first this was based on seventeenth-century monuments of gastronomic literature such as La Varenne, Massialot, L.S.R., and ultimately, the eighteenth-century Menon.17 These figures and the dishes they invented came to be codified as the ultimate forms of dining appropriate for   K. Wanninger (ed.), A la Carte (3rd edn, Rosenheim, 1988), p. 171.   La Varenne’s Cookery, ed. T. Scully (Totnes, 2006); L’Art de la cuisine française au

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XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1994).

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European courts, especially those of the ancien régime, whose political style still in some measure reflected the precedent set by Louis XIV and the Palace of Versailles. Why French taste came to dominate practically all European courts is difficult to determine, but must stem in part from the meticulous attention given to gastronomic matters in France. It should be noted that this was not merely imitating the latest contemporary French fashions, but evoking the French court of the Sun King, and to a lesser extent his successors, as a historical model of the ideal court. That is, in the nineteenth century for rulers with aspirations or delusions of absolutism, the formal Baroque and Rococo forms of dining— replete with waiters in starched wigs, mirrored walls and gilt ceilings, as well as grand pièces montées, virtual towers of food—sent a clear political message. We intend to dine as we would rule, in grand formal style befitting majesty. It is impossible to overestimate the influence French taste in general had on European courts of the nineteenth century. Menus were for the most part written in French, rulers hired French chefs, served dishes devised by the French or made to look like them. In a word, French cuisine and fine dining became synonymous, and not to serve French food at state functions could only be construed as a statement of national pride. Naturally overt reference to the ancien régime could stimulate rancor in more democratically minded eras, and it is actually surprising how resilient the Baroque trappings of kingship were in the nineteenth century, even in constitutional monarchies. A gala dinner menu for Edward VII, executed by Escoffier and held at the Carlton restaurant in June 1902, is not only all in French but is also festooned with ermine, a crown, and regalia that more properly should belong to Charles II, though the French menu cannot help but remind one of Louis XIV.18 France was not the only stylistic model. Italy of the Renaissance, just as it remained the inspiration for painting, sculpture, and architecture, also exerted a certain influence on the culinary arts. This is partly because Italy was the gastronomic trendsetter in the sixteenth century, due to a wave of publications extending from the first printed cookbook in the 1470s, Platina’s De honesta voluptate (On Right Pleasure and Good Health), through monumental works such as Scappi’s Opera a century later, which influenced practically all of Europe.19 Moreover, banqueting guides and carving manuals produced in the seventeenth century became the authorities in the field, and the inspiration for rituals used in royal courts throughout the continent. Not only Italian service, but also ingredients such as olives and lemons, eventually tomatoes and other   T. Shaw, The World of Escoffier (New York, 1994).   Platina, On Right Pleasure and Good Health (Tempe, 1998); B. Scappi, Opera

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(Venice, 1570).

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vegetables associated with the Mediterranean, and even pasta, left a permanent impression on what was considered good taste at court. In the nineteenth century there was also an Italianate revival, inspired by the same motives that had drawn European nobles on their grand tours long before, but now imbued with a strange taste for decay and poverty. This was not fascination with ruins and classical detritus, as in the archeologically minded sixteenth through seventeenth centuries, but an attraction for the squalor and violence of Italian cities, and the desuetude of the countryside. Of course, one would never see such a style imitated in courtly meals, but elites found themselves strangely compelled to witness it, to follow their guidebooks into louche corners, and perchance to eat a plate of spaghetti on the street in Naples. Italy had gone from being an artistic model to being an exotic other, though perhaps this was the result of discovering the south for the first time. Incidentally for those truly interested in Italian cuisine, at least at the bourgeois level, the publication of Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiare bene offered ample recipes, and itself played a crucial role in the nationalization of disparate regional cuisines into something recognizably Italian.20 The emigration of Italians would also stimulate restaurants where one could sample these foods outside Italy. Almost the same impulse toward the exotic south can also be found with regards to Spain. It was as if an unknown and for some reason backward part of Europe had been left behind by time. This was a place where spicy Flamenco dancing, seedy women like Bizet’s Carmen, and not coincidentally Spanish food suddenly gained attention outside Spain. Spain had actually already been a trendsetter in the seventeenth century, when olla podrida, or olios as they were called in England, came into fashion. Spanish and Portuguese wines had long been popular among the English, especially when at war with France, and Bordeaux embargoed. Hence the popularity of sherry and port. But the ninteenth-century attention toward Spain was now quite different, its interest not in the great Hapsburg court, but in dirty back alleys and cigar factories, street urchins breaking a loaf of bread or sharing a jug of coarse wine. One can only speculate that this was a kind of condescending fascination for a kind of life that was unimaginable yet close, the gaze of the tourist rather than the humanitarian. In any case, it does influence cuisine, with an interest in Spanish dishes such as gazpacho and paella. There remains one other European state that deserves mention for its influence on nineteenth-century fine dining: Romonov Russia. Fascination with Russia sprang from its distance and that few had any contact with its   P. Artusi, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (Toronto, 2004).

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culture or cuisine. That would change after Russian soldiers appeared in Paris after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870; they arrived with the Prussians. It is even said that the word “bistro” derives from their command for quick service, in Russian buystro. Of course service à la Russe had taken hold long before, meaning that courses were individually plated rather than presented on the table en masse—but the foods themselves were still always French. But eventually culinary interest shifted toward Russian ingredients, whose reputation for quality and elegance remains to this day. Caviar of course tops this list, but so too does fine vodka, blini, soups such as borsch, and other Russian specialties such as coulibiac, which enjoyed a vogue in the nineteeth century and beyond. In England the fascination may have sprung from the royal marriages between the two houses. For example, for Christmas dinner at Osborne House in 1896 Queen Victoria was served kromeskys as an entrée— they are a kind of cork-shaped croquette.21 From the cookbook written by her chef, Charles Elmé Francatelli, we find a recipe for this Russian dish, which instructs us to bind chopped roast fowl with mushrooms and truffles and béchamel sauce, chill, cut into cork-shaped pieces, wrap these with slices of braised calves’ udder, batter, and fry.22 Whether the procedure is authentically Russian or not is beside the point; Victoria’s court wanted to formally express its affiliation with the Russian imperial family through food. We might add that most great courts of this period held a measure of appeal, thus Hungarian palatschinken (a kind of stack of crêpes laden with fruit and cream) appeared on menus, as did fine Tokay wines. Austrian pastries, indeed anything hailing from a royal or imperial court, gained attention, especially when families intermarried. Colonial Style Although not necessarily historic in their gaze and appropriation, European courts were consistently thrilled aesthetically by their own recent colonial acquisitions. This was partly fascination with anything exotic and novel, but it was also an interest in the raw, overtly sexual and primitive nature of the arts they encountered in their newly acquired territories. Colonial powers reacted with equal measure of disgust and delight over new ingredients, new ways of dining, and new cooking methods. At least to borrow aesthetic elements from these exotic cultures offered a frisson of release from the demands of modern   Menu image online at http://www.btinternet.com/~sbishop100/osmenu.jpg.   C.E. Francatelli, The Modern Cook (London, 1880), p. 313.

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industrial society, an opportunity to express deep, fundamental, instinctual urges. To dress in a turban and eat with the hands while seated on the floor was at once an expression of the rejection of stiff, formal values; but it was also an expression of power over people who eat this way, a means by which the inherent fear of pollution through contact with them is sublimated into an aesthetic and gastronomic act. Consuming the strange and exotic can be an expression of machismo, but also a way to consume the other and use him or her as a means to our own ends, which is colonialism in a nutshell. Even the seemingly innocent dessert garnished with a flourish of coconut or banana is a vivid expression of imperial power, for it exhibits not only the ability to import such items, but also the ability to force others to provide them. Colonial regimes and adopted foods were nothing new in the nineteenth century. The Spanish gladly adopted chocolate from the Aztecs whom they conquered. The English for a while were fascinated by Native Americans, and some foods (including tobacco) gradually made their way to the English court, even if some were mistakenly associated with Virginia, like potatoes. Actually, the French court did enjoy a North American native plant, the topinambour ( Jerusalem artichoke)—erroneously named for a Brazilian tribe. Both Portuguese and later Dutch colonies in Asia were founded expressly to control the spice trade, and thus it is not surprising that they both influenced the culinary cultures with which they interacted and adopted many local foodways in turn. Coffee and tea were both exotic imports explicitly associated with the Ottoman and Chinese empires respectively. Exoticism itself was nothing new. Neither of course were plantation economies, in which millions of humans were subjected to slavery merely to provide nutritionally superfluous flavorings, such as sugar. The novel element in the nineteenth century was the appeal of the primitive itself, not necessarily with an interest to convert, reform, and civilize as in previous centuries, but to enjoy and consume and even, ironically, to preserve “native” culture among the more ethnographically and anthropologically minded of observers. This attitude stems from the very different nature of colonies in the nineteenth century. Not only were these in new and relatively unknown regions such as Africa, Southeast Asia, and Australia where relatively “primitive” peoples were found, but nineteenth-century colonies were also quite different in scale and purpose. Most were founded with tacit and sometimes quite open political encouragement of large corporate interests. Such companies’ motives were first and foremost profit and more often than not through growing, trading, and processing foodstuffs. It was also partly petty nationalistic rivalries that motivated nations which had never had a colonial legacy to suddenly engage in empire building. Thus we see Germany and Belgium in Africa, as well as Italy in northern Africa. All

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the colonial powers without exception were also industrial nations—France and especially England should be added to this list. The United States and Japan after the Meiji Restoration were also important to the late-nineteenth-century wave of imperialism. In colonies these nations sought raw materials, sometimes embarking on invasion without even knowing what natural resources they might find. Equally important was the opening up of markets where they might sell manufactured goods, precisely those newly mass-produced goods which were advertised as the necessary accompaniments to civilized life. As industrialized capitalist nations, expansion of markets and constant growth was essential to survival. For the colonizers there was also an avowed mission of bringing culture to the “lesser races,” as it was sometimes put in explicitly racist tones. But there was also a fascination with the culture and food of these indigenous peoples, a desire to appropriate the other at precisely the same time that these regions were being “modernized” or “civilized.” In practical terms this meant a strange and eclectic borrowing of artistic motifs, as well as ingredients. Tropical fruits, now able to be shipped by steamer straight to Europe, now became de rigueur on courtly menus. They were tangible evidence of the value of subjugating less powerful peoples. Bananas, pineapples, coconuts, not to mention new plantations of now requisite colonial goods such as sugar, coffee, and tea—all became indispensable elements in any fine meal, increasingly at every level of society. Courts would also adapt certain colonial recipes to their own tastes before these were popularized by immigrants and popular “ethnic” restaurants. For example, vague approximations of Indian chutneys and curry powder appeared in England among elites long before they went mainstream. In a similar way the Dutch obtained rijsttafel, the French creole recipes of the Caribbean, and rum, or reworked versions of West African and Algerian dishes. These exotic impulses began among rulers and especially colonial administrators first, in particular those who had “gone native.” There is perhaps no better example of this impulse to absorb and ingest indigenous culture than the big game hunt, especially when edible species could be cooked in the open field and consumed on the spot. Hunting was always a privilege of European nobility, but the ability to bag enormous elephants, tigers, and such, reflected the most immediate way one could consume a colony at its most direct and authentic level. The long-term global legacy of these colonies, beyond the initial courtly fascination, can also not be underestimated. What began as an influx of ingredients, and perhaps an odd utensil, eventually grew to a torrent of new cooking methods and familiar dishes. This was partly because colonial administrators returned home with a new taste for spicy food; but gradually in the course of the nineteenth century immigration from these places also

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intensified. Indians were sent to England for education, Vietnamese learned French in Paris, as did West Africans. While the opening of so-called “ethnic” restaurants only became apparent in the twentieth century, a growing awareness of food cultures around the world, an internationalism of taste, ran concurrent with the expanding global economy. Enjoying strange and exotic dishes showed off the court’s cosmopolitan outlook and toleration for diverse cultures, although this may have served as a guise to assuage the conscience of what was in reality naked exploitation. In a certain sense, exhibiting formal acceptance of the other is a convenient way to ignore the real plight of such people. We have seen that nineteenth-century courts had numerous historical and exotic models to draw from in terms both of ingredients and recipes and overall fashion in dining and décor, however much superficial or bastardized. How these impulses were carried out in actual menus, recipes, and courtly events I leave to culinary historians of the nineteenth century, who will hopefully fill in the picture of stylistic models for cuisine as they have already been discussed for art. My intention here has been merely to suggest that all periods seek inspiration from the past or from the colonial “other” as an expression of their own power; and in this respect dining is always a political statement, an iteration of power, at the level of sheer display and opulence, but often with an implicit message codified by a particular historical stylistic choice as well.

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Chapter 2

A Culinary Captatio Benevolentiae: The Use of the Truffle as a Promotional Gift by the Savoy Dynasty in the Eighteenth Century Rengenier C. Rittersma per Umberto, fine conoscitore del bosco

Since the late Middle Ages, the local elites of Piedmont were well aware of the value of the truffles indigenous to their region. The first recorded instance in which truffles were given as a promotional gift by Piedmontese magnates was when the ally of the Savoy dynasty, Prince Amadeus VII of Acaia, presented truffles to Bona di Borbone, the wife of Count Amadeus of Savoy in 1380. No    I would like to thank the following people and institutions for having been of great help during the preparation of this chapter. First, the staff of the Archivio di Stato di Torino and, in particular, Dottoressa Paglieri, Marsaglia, and Niccoli. I am also grateful to Irma Naso, Albina Malerba, Monica Cuffia, and Philippe Marchenay for their help. This chapter benefited greatly from the stimulating observations of Allen J. Grieco, Professor Geoffrey Symcox, Gustavo Mola di Nomaglio, Daniëlle de Vooght, and Peter Scholliers, to whom I extend my sincerest thanks. Last but not least, I would also like to thank Milton Kooistra and, again, Allen Grieco for their rigorous linguistic corrections. I owe you all an immense amount of truffes, bertavelle, and vacherins savoyards. The remaining errors and inadequacies are, of course, all my own. This research—which forms part of the project “Manifestations of Truffle Mania in Italy (1400–1800): Towards a Cultural History of the Truffle in Europe,” conducted at the Center for Social & Cultural Food Studies (FOST) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel—has been made possible by a Rubicon grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). For more information: http://www.nwo.nl/projecten.nsf/pages/2300136061 (accessed August 20, 2008).    For the first mention of the use of the truffle as a gift, see: Archivio di Stato Torino (henceforth AST) C. Tes. gen. d’Acaia, rot. 2 and Casa Bona di Borbone, rot. 33. For an account of the exchange of food and other regional products by the princes of Savoia in the Middle Ages, see: L. Vaccarone, “I Principi di Savoia attraverso le Alpi nel medioevo (1270–1520),” Club Alpino Italiano, Bollett. nr. 68 (1902): pp. 1–91.

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systematic research in Piedmontese archives has been done for the period between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, but since truffles were frequently used as prestigious gifts in other Italian regions, it is likely that Piedmont was no exception to this rule. The princes of Savoy were, however, very “truffle-minded,” from roughly 1730 to 1830, as archival material in Turin suggests. In this period the dukes of Savoia showed in different ways that they were highly aware of the instrumental value of their subterranean mushrooms. The most remarkable manifestation was the use of the tartufi as a promotional gift in diplomatic relations. Due to the perishability of these mushrooms, the utility of the truffle as a present was naturally limited by transport terms, since truffles, even when preserved under the most favorable circumstances, tend to decay after 10 to 14 days. Among the different capitals which were situated within reach of a 10-day trip, Vienna appears to have received the most truffles as gifts. However, this exchange between Turin and Vienna is intriguing not only because of its frequency, but also because of the supplementary information in the correspondence and, in particular, the specific background of the Piedmontese– Austrian relationship, which, when combined analytically, sheds light on various aspects of the foreign politics and state administration of Savoy. For that reason, this chapter will primarily focus on a detailed analysis of the diplomatic correspondence between the Savoyard and the imperial court from approximately 1730 to 1780. In order to place this Piedmontese–Austrian truffle connection in the right context, other cases of diplomatic instrumentalization of the truffle by the Savoia will also be briefly presented, but they will serve an illustrative purpose. This chapter attempts, thus, to examine the following issues: first, it will demonstrate that the Savoy were perfectly aware of the unequivocal instrumental value of their tartufi; second, it will shed light on the giving of gifts as a political tool, used to facilitate the development and maintenance of diplomatic relations during a period in which the dukes of Savoy entered the scene of European Großmächte. Finally, this contribution will also show that the management of this gift-giving culture can be considered a “barometer” of the relationships between the various sections of the Piedmontese state administration, especially between the chancellery in Turin and the diplomatic corps abroad. Do ut des, About Giving and Owing: Some General Observations on Gift Exchange There is no such thing as a free gift. If we expect nothing in return for a given object, then we simply discard it. A gift, on the other hand, appeals to deeper

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motivations and should at least evoke gratitude, a strong sentiment, described as nothing less than the “moral memory of mankind.” A gift will inevitably tip the balance of the social relation between the persons involved. A present affects a social relation and engenders a differentiation between the partners, even before the gift has been offered and received. This intrinsically divisive dimension of giving gifts finds expression especially in the Spanish and Italian verbs regalar and regalare respectively, which originally meant to present a gift to the king, and is even more apparent in archaic forms such as offerte, offrande, offerieren, or offrir, which literally refer to the humble activity of bringing something toward someone (ob-ferre) and whose aspect of vertical differentiation stems, of course, from sacrificial practices. Something of this idea of eternal debt (coram dei) remained in the notion of gift-giving, since social scientist theories—in spite of the many nuances each one of them might introduce—basically share the idea that gift-giving results in an irreversible incommensurability. Simply said, while the first gift can (but must not) be voluntary, the return gift is inherently compulsory. Explicit or not, there is a claim of reciprocity in every present. Since the time of primitive societies, victuals have played a dominant role in gift-giving culture, either in a direct way by exchange or in an indirect way as an expression of hospitality. Hospitality without food is unthinkable, because food is the most elementary form of sociability. The fundamental social dimension of food also becomes clear in the tacit claim to share one’s food, as long as hygienic concerns allow, even with strangers. Everybody has experienced the situation of invidious eyes when entering a train compartment with an ice cream or fresh cherries, and everybody can confirm the favorable role exercised by the act of sharing food when socializing with unknown people. Perhaps it is this very basic quality of food that turns the presenting and sharing of it, in terms of gift practices, into a unique one-way communication where no reward is expected, yet everybody is stimulated to reciprocate because they are certain to experience a similar situation in the future.   G. Simmel, “Faithfulness and Gratitude,” in A. Komter (ed.), The Gift: an Interdisciplinary Perspective (Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 39–49, p. 45.    B. Schwartz, “The Social Psychology of the Gift,” in A. Komter (ed.), The Gift: an Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 69–81, p. 78.    See the various contributions in Komter, The Gift. For a study of gift giving in medieval societies, see G. Algazi, V. Groebner and B. Jussen (eds), Negotiating the Gift: PreModern Figurations of Exchange (Göttingen, 2003).    See, for example, M. Sahlins, “On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange,” in A. Komter (ed.), The Gift: an Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 26–39; and M. Fantoni, “Feticci di prestigio. Il dono alla corte medicea,” in S. Bertelli and G. Calvi (eds), Rituale, cerimoniale, etichetta (Milan, 1985), pp. 141–63, pp. 153–60. 

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In much the same way, the use of food as a gift is a universal phenomenon in all social classes. In Umbria, even an exclusive product like the truffle was, particularly until the rise of the packaging industry in the area of Spoleto-Norcia but also thereafter, popularly exploited as a rewarding gift during the feastdays of December. This usage was practiced by the truffle hunters themselves, who were commonly crofters, in order to thank the landowners for letting them exploit their truffle grounds or to do a favor for a prominent person (such as the local physician or priest) or for a friend or relative. After the commercialization of the Umbrian truffles from approximately 1865 onward, they increasingly tended to use the commercially unsuitable part of the harvest, which consisted of fragmented, gnawed, or otherwise damaged tubers (the capatura), for their informal gift circuit. Apparently, even second-rate truffles were an appreciated gift. This reveals something of the value and, more in particular, of the fascinosum that was generally attributed to the subterranean mushroom. Initially, they may have been used primarily for their inherent prestige and exclusivity, but gradually the preference shifted to the gastronomical qualities of the truffle, clearly seen in the increasing use of truffle-based products in France, such as dinde truffée (truffled turkey).10 “Faire gouter ces sortes de fruits de notre pays”:11 The Use of Food as a Gift by the Savoia In spite of the abundant truffle grounds on their own territory and the historical awareness of the truffle’s potential, it took a while before the dukes of Savoy    Compare P. Meyzie, “Les cadeaux alimentaires dans le Sud-Ouest aquitain au XVIIIe siècle: sociabilité, pouvoirs et gastronomie,” Histoire, Économie & Société, 25 (2006): pp. 33– 51; N. Zemon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (Oxford, 2000), pp. 56–72.    On the Umbrian truffle trade and consumption: C. Papa, “Il tartufo. Dono di natura,” La ricerca folklorica, 41 (2000): pp. 25–36; R.C. Rittersma, “Industrialised Delicacies: The Rise of the Umbrian Truffle Business and the Pioneering Work of Mazzoneschi and Urbani (1860–1918),” in G. Dorel-Ferré (ed.), Nourrir les hommes, de la Champagne-Ardenne au monde: Actes des premières rencontres de la section agroalimentaire de TICCIH (Reims, 2011).    See J.-L. Flandrin, “L’huitre et la truffe,” in J.-L. Flandrin (ed.), Chronique de Platine (Paris, 1992), pp. 143–52, pp. 149–50. 10   For example, see Meyzie, “Les cadeaux alimentaires.” Until the eighteenth century, neither truffled products nor pâté truffé were mentioned: G. de Merlhiac, “Essai historique sur la truffe,” Chroniqueur du Périgord, 3 (1855): pp. 91–120, p. 95. 11   “To let (someone) taste these kinds of fruits of our country”: AST Lettere Ministri (henceforth L.M.) Austria, Mazzo 65, Ormea > Canale, January 13, 1738.

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started to exploit them systematically in diplomatic relations. Until then, other valuable food products were used as gifts. In fact, the diplomatic correspondence of the period 1670–1730 presents a wide variety of local products that were occasionally sent to the most important partners and/or neighboring states, such as France, Milan, Switzerland, Rome, and the United Kingdom. The most frequent bagatelles sent along were Piedmontese wines (unfortunately not specifically named), rosolio (a sweet liqueur whose aroma derives from different products like orange, coffee, vanilla, and so on), jam from Mondovì, the fromage de Noël (recently known as Vacherin d’Abondance), and Piedmontese tobacco.12 All these products were eagerly consumed at foreign courts, especially the Piedmontese wine and liqueur, which seem to have been highly pleasing to Louis XIV and Charles II.13 Strikingly, in the diplomatic correspondence from the period 1670–1725, the subterranean mushroom did not appear, not even when in season (November to January).14 However, before discussing the question of how the Piedmontese truffle “conquered” the diplomatic scene, a few words should be said about the political circumstances that induced the rulers of Savoy to create their well-organized system of distributing regional food products to foreign courts. The political vicissitudes that characterized the history of the dynasty of Savoia since its medieval origins were determined by its geographical position. Its pedemontanus setting was both a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, the actual sphere of influence was relatively small and rather insignificant from an economic point of view. On the other hand, its cisalpine and transalpine territories, proximity to and influence on the Mediterranean, and position at the crossroads of the north–south and east–west axes of the European communication network made Savoy a region that was too strategic to be neglected. Geopolitically, the state of Savoy constituted a kind of buffer zone between the continental superpowers of 12   For rosolio, see http://www.saporidelPiedmonte.it/prodotti/bevande/16.htm (accessed May 2008); for vacherins savoyards, which might have been the so-called Vacherin d’Abondance, see L. Bérard, J. Froc, P. Hyman, M. Hyman and P. Marchenay, Inventaire des produits régionaux de la France. Rhône-Alpes (Paris, 1995), pp. 425–8; C. Abry, R. Devos, H. Raulin and J. Cuisenier (eds), Les sources régionales de la Savoie. Une approche ethnologique: alimentation, habitat, élevage … (Paris, 1979), p. 221. This Vacherin d’Abondance was already famous in the fifteenth century: Pantaleone da Confienza, Summa lacticiniorum (Turin, 1477), Tractatus II, cap. 8. 13   D. Perrero, “I regali di prodotti nazionali invalsi nella diplomazia piemontese dei secoli XVII–XVIII,” Atti della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 31 (1896): pp. 411– 32, pp. 412–17; and, more recently: G. Caligaris, “Viaggiatori illustri e ambasciatori stranieri alla corte sabauda nella prima metà del Seicento: ospitalità e regali,” Studi Piemontesi, 4/1 (1975): pp. 151–71. 14   See Perrero, “I regali di prodotti nazionali.”

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Spain, France, and Austria (Figure 2.1). This already precarious situation was only aggravated by the proximity of Milan and Monferrato, both contested territories repeatedly claimed or invaded by the Savoia but equally desired by the Spanish king and the Austrian emperor. Due to this geopolitical constellation, the state of Savoy became embroiled in virtually every war that took place during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and eventually succeeded in politically exploiting the rivalries of the different contenders. The key to Savoy’s gradual, but persistent accumulation of power was the combination of successful marital policy, the creation of both a consistent and considerable army as well as an able diplomatic corps, and the pronounced political instinct of some of its rulers, who repeatedly managed to gain in influence by an ingenious and well-aimed diplomacy that regularly played the Großmächte off one another. Since the time of Emmanuel Philibert, one of the most important long-term goals ardently pursued by all the dukes of Savoy— despite differing political agendas—was the acquisition of a royal crown.

Figure 2.1 The change in the geopolitical position of Savoy during the eighteenth century (Source: Gianni Oliva, I Savoia, 1998; by kind permission of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A.).

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The quest for a crown and scepter was triggered by an intra-Italian competition between the Medici and the Savoia, who both more than once claimed the title of King of Cyprus and tried to underpin their prerogatives with the publication of their genealogy and with a diplomatic campaign. Simultaneously, the Savoy dynasty also showed its ambitions by creating a court society that was clearly inspired by the French model of “Noblemen-in-Residence.” The court in Turin tried to integrate the local aristocracy by subsuming its radius of action under the immediate sphere of influence of the duke. By the time of Charles Emmanuel II, the court of Savoy had obtained a self-evident prestige which was progressively acknowledged at an international level. From approximately 1660 onward, the dukes of Savoy were considered de facto kings, since an increasing number of states honored them with royal treatment. In 1713, they finally saw their ambitions fulfilled with the bestowal of the Kingdom of Sicily (by the Treaty of Utrecht), which after the conquest of Sicily by Spain in 1720 was exchanged for the crown of Sardinia. During the various wars that took place between 1688 and 1738 (the Nine Years War, War of the Quadruple Alliance, and the wars of Spanish and Polish succession), the princes of Savoy gained in importance as political allies. Because of the strategic position of their territories and the considerable size of their army, the Savoia were often approached by both of the contending sides. This was a situation that led them to frequently change alliances from one war to another, or even during an armed conflict, depending on what was politically advantageous. During the four aforementioned wars, Victor Amadeus II and Charles Emmanuel III chose twice to side against the Austrian Hapsburgs overtly and ambiguously, and once betrayed them in the course of the armed conflict, a decision which resulted in a significant expansion of the Duchy of Savoy. Even if they fought as allies of the Hapsburgs, as they did during the Spanish Succession War, peace negotiations turned out to be another source of friction, as Savoyard territorial ambitions could only be gratified at the expense of Hapsburg Lombardy. For example, the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ascribed substantial territorial expansion to Savoy, prefigured a long period of tension. Another important territorial gain took place after the battle of Guastala (1734) during the War of the Polish Succession, when Austria had to cede important areas in Lombardy and Piedmont and was almost forced to renounce the Duchy of Milan. This underlined, once again, the expansionist aspirations of the Savoia but contributed to undermining an already fragile relationship.15 15   See, amongst others, W. Barberis, “I Savoia. Quattro storie per una dinastia,” in W. Barberis (ed.), I Savoia. I secoli d’oro di una dinastia europea (Turin, 2007), pp. XV–LIV; C. Storrs, “La politica internazionale e gli equilibri continentali,” in W. Barberis (ed.), I Savoia, pp. 3–49; G. Symcox, “L’età di Vittorio Amedeo II,” in P. Merlin, C. Rosso, G. Symcox and

38

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The years between the armistice and the final peace brought about by the Treaty of Vienna (1738) were particularly full of tension and mutual suspicion. In order to stabilize the relationship with the imperial court, Charles Emmanuel III sent one of his most capable diplomats, Count Luigi Girolamo Malabaila di Canale. Besides the defeat at Guastala and the subsequent territorial losses, there were also other factors that complicated the Austrian–Savoyard relationship. Over the course of the eighteenth century, Austria tried to reinforce its position in Italy, but it was repeatedly obstructed by the rising Duchy of Savoy. The main offensive and defensive powers on the Italian peninsula lived in a slumbering but ongoing state of conflict. The fact that Savoy had formally been part of the Holy Roman Empire since the Middle Ages also prejudiced the relationship because both states used ancient privileges and stipulations to lend weight to their territorial claims. However, since both parties no longer believed in the juridical legitimacy of these feudal arrangements and used them only as political instruments, diplomatic relations were very much complicated by infinite juridical disputes. Significantly, the staff of the Piedmontese delegation in Vienna consisted of excellent diplomats who were well versed in both imperial legislation and feudal issues, and were frequently assisted by special juridical experts.16 In January 1737, a young but relatively experienced and very promising Piedmontese nobleman arrived in Vienna, where he had been appointed ambassador by Charles Emmanuel III. Due to the Savoyard–French alliance during the War of the Polish Succession, the diplomatic relations between Turin and Vienna had been broken since September 1733, and Count Luigi Girolamo Malabaila di Canale, who previously served as the king’s representative in The Hague, was expected to reestablish diplomatic contacts. A first step in this direction was the arrangement of the third marriage of the Duke of Savoy to the G. Ricuperati (eds), Il Piemonte sabaudo. Stato e territori in età moderna (Turin, 1994), pp. 271–441; G. Ricuperati, “Il Settecento,” in P. Merlin, C. Rosso, G. Symcox and G. Ricuperati (eds), Il Piemonte sabaudo, pp. 441–515; R. Oresko, “The House of Savoy in Search for a Royal Crown in the Seventeenth Century,” in R. Oresko, G.C. Gibbs and H.M. Scott (eds), Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 272–350; E. Castelnuovo, W. Barberis et al. (eds), La Reggia di Venaria e i Savoia. Arte, magnificenza e storia di una corte europea (Turin, 2007). 16   On the relation between Savoy and the Holy Roman Empire: G. Tabacco, Lo stato sabaudo nel Sacro Romano Impero (Turin, 1939). For the juridical details of the tensions: K. Otmar von Aretin, Das Alte Reich 1648–1806, Band 2: Kaisertradition und österreichische Großmachtpolitik (1648–1745) (Stuttgart, 1997), pp. 202–5. More specifically on the Savoyard legazione in Vienna: E. Piscitelli, La legazione sarda in Vienna (1707–1859) (Rome, 1950), especially pp. 13–32. On Canale’s capability: Ricuperati, “Il Settecento,” p. 483.

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sister of the future Emperor Francis I, Elisabeth Theresa of Lorraine in 1737, which had already been concluded before Canale’s arrival.17 In accordance with the procedures of the Savoy state administration, once in Vienna, Canale received the instructions of his predecessor, Marquis Giuseppe Roberto Solaro di Breglio, and there are indications that Breglio initiated Canale into the practice of gift-giving. Marquis Breglio had experienced that offering bagatelles was a subtle way of gaining favor at the imperial court, and he did not omit to inform his successor about this effective strategy.18 Whereas Breglio suggested the use of rock partridges (bartavelle or bertavelle),19 Canale seems to have discovered that Piedmontese truffles turned out to be an excellent way of gaining favor in the Viennese diplomatic milieux. From the start of Canale’s tenure, mention of truffles begins to appear regularly in diplomatic correspondence.20 Curiously, the rise of the Piedmontese truffle coincided with the entering of the Duchy of Savoy into the arena of European states. It would be, of course, too casuistic to conclude that the Piedmontese truffle brought about this emergence of the Savoia. Nevertheless, some factors made this period a propitious moment   For a biographical account, see A. Ruata, Luigi Malabaila di Canale. Riflessi della cultura illuministica in un diplomatico piemontese (Turin, 1968), especially pp. 11–19. For an account of the political function of gifts in early modern statecraft literature, see J. Falcke, Studien zum diplomatischen Geschenkwesen am brandenburgisch-preußischen Hof im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 2006), pp. 53–66. 18   See the following fragment from a letter of Canale: “Feu le marquis de Breil [i.e. Breglio; R.C.R.] qui le [le bartavelle; R.C.R.] sçavois bien m’en donna 12 pour le chancelier de Sinzendorf tres entendu en bonne chere, lorsque je vins a Vienne pour la premiere fois; le chancellier en fit grand bruit comme d’un regal ainsi ce fut la un [… unreadable; R.C.R.] d’erudition que j’appris dans les premiers instants de mon sejour à Vienne et quoique j’aie vu beaucoup de changements ici, il n’y en a point eu à cet egard.” (“It was Marquis Breglio, being familiar with the bartavelle, who gave me 12 of them for the connoisseur chancellor Sinzendorf, when I came for the first time in Vienna; during the initial period of my sojourn in Vienna I heard that the chancellor made it widely known that such a gift was a [… unreadable] of erudition, and nothing changed in this respect, even though I have seen a lot of changes here.”) Cited from: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, Canale > Raiberti, December 14, 1769. See also Perrero, “I regali di prodotti nazionali,” p. 425. 19   On the rock partridge or “bartavelle d’aosta” (Alectoris graeca), see: http://www. chasses-du-monde.com/europe/especes-chassees/perdrix-bartavelle.htm; http://oncfs.esigetel. fr/Oncfs/Obj/Pdf/Bartavelle.pdf (both websites accessed May 2008); Gruppo “Amis du patois,” Dizionario del dialetto francoprovenzale di Hône, Valle d’Aosta (Comune di Hône, 2007), p. 407 (1). 20   See, for example, AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 65, Ormea > Canale, January 13, 1738; AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 65, Ormea > Canale, December, 18, 1738. See also Table 2.1 in this chapter. 17

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for the introduction of the Piedmontese truffle into court society, and may have set the stage for its subsequent exploitation in view of their own political agenda. Tartufomania: Truffes Blanches de Piémont (AOC) Since nobody, not even the gods, can resist the pull of presents, as Ovid knew perfectly well (“Munera, crede mihi, capiunt hominesque deosque,” Ars amatoria 3, 653), who could abstain from a basketful of these peculiar telluric commodities? Notwithstanding their gastronomical qualities, which only in the course of the eighteenth century became recognized and properly exploited, it was their very mysterious and exclusive nature which made truffles so immensely appealing.21 Today, it would be an offense or a very bad joke to offer someone potatoes in Western societies, but when introduced the potato was considered a prestigious gift and frequently circulated among the elites. This use of the “cheaper tuber” as a rewarding gift shows that “there is much more in the exchange itself than in the things exchanged.”22 It was precisely the symbolical value and the semantic meaning of the truffle that made this unsightly tuber an unequalled gift object. Since offering gifts can be considered an act of self-definition and a means of defining the other, the truffle (and to a lesser extent other Piedmontese delicacies) conveyed different, but overlapping meanings. Like all gifts, this also served as an indicator of social prestige in two ways: it referred to the prestige of the giver and simultaneously also revealed the ascribed prestige of the recipient.23 The message conveyed by the gift of truffles could, of course, provoke a range of different reactions: the recipient could counter immediately with their own gift, delay the counter-gift, or not engage at all in a response gift. Accordingly, this process of accumulated gift-giving frequently becomes a source of competition or even

  The gastronomical use of the truffle presumably started only at the court of Louis XV and Louis XVI. Until then, truffles appeared rarely at the French court, but rather served as an accessoire, like boiled eggs: Merlhiac, “Essai historique,” pp. 115–16. 22   C. Lévi-Strauss, “The Principle of Reciprocity,” in A. Komter (ed.), The Gift: an Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 18–26, p. 21. For the use of the potato as a precious gift, see, for example, Die Korrespondenz Hans Fuggers von 1566 bis 1594. Regesten der Kopierbücher aus dem Fuggerarchiv, ed. Ch. Karnehm (2 vols, Munich, 2003), vol. 1, p. 523; vol. 2.1, p. 772. I would like to thank Professor Wolfgang Behringer and Katharina Reinholdt for this information. 23   Schwartz, “The Social Psychology,” pp. 70, 74. 21

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conflict, as the anthropological phenomenon of the potlach illustrates.24 It would require other archival research to verify whether or not emulative intentions played a role here, however, as for quite a long time the initiative of gift-giving was coming solely from the Piedmontese side, which suggests a distorted gift relationship.25 However, the truffle did not only symbolize prestige, but also served in other respects as a distinctive and noteworthy object. What pushed the court society in general, and this newly arrived royalty of Savoy in particular, was the urge   On contemporary relevance of competitive gift-giving still inspiring: M. Mauss, “Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques,” L’Année Sociologique, seconde série, I (1923–1924): pp. 5–106, especially pp. 8–11. For an online version, see: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1522/cla.mam.ess3 (accessed May 2008). On the importance of timing in the gift exchange: “[…] l’intervalle [temporelle; R.C.R.] […] était là pour permettre à celui qui donne de vivre son don comme un don sans retour, et à celui qui rend de vivre son contre-don comme gratuit et non déterminé par le don initial” (“the interval enables he who gives to experience his gift as a gift without a return gift and it enables he who renders to experience his counter-gift as disinterested and not determined by the initial gift”). Cited from P. Bourdieu, Raisons pratiques. Sur la théorie de l’action (Paris, 1994), p. 177. Also: P. Bourdieu, “The Work of Time,” in A. Komter (ed.), The Gift: an Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 135–48. 25   In November 1769 Raiberti communicated to Canale “V.E. verra par la dépêche que je lui [i.e. Canale; R.C.R.] envoie en reponse à sa relation, combien le Roi a été sensible au present de Vin de Tokai, que l’Empereur a voulu lui [i.e. Charles Emmanuel III; R.C.R.] faire.” (“His Excellence will see through the letter which I am sending him [i.e. Canale; R.C.R.] as reaction to his report, how pleased the king has been by the gift of the Tokaj wine which the Emperor has wanted to give him [i.e. Charles Emmanuel III; R.C.R.].”) Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, November 18, 1769. Five years later, the correspondence for the first time made mention of the standardization of this gift: “Puisque Monsieur le comte de St. Julien vous a déjà parlé du vin de Tokai, je pense qu’on voudra aussi se conformer à l’usage dans la distribution de cet envoi.” (“Since Count St Julien has already spoken with you about Tokaj wine, I think that they want to make a custom of the distribution of this product.”) Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Aigueblanche > Scarnafiggi, October 15, 1774. But this standardization was preceded by some subtle pressure from the Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Turin, Aigueblanche, who gave the following instructions to the interim ambassador in Vienna, Montagnini: “Vous pourres dire comme de vous meme à Mr. de St. Julien que le vin de Tokai dont il vous a parlé sera toujours bien reçu ici par le cas que l’on fait de tout ce qui vient de la part de LL. M.M. Imples. Il sera meme très à propos que lorsqu’on vous le remettra, vous prenes des mesures telles à eviter toute sorte d’inconvenient la dessus.” (“You can tell Mr St Julien yourself that the Tokaj wine, of which he spoke with you, will always be well accepted here in any case, as will be all things that come from the Empress and Emperor. It would also be appropriate that you take the kind of precautions, while they submit the wine to you, that will help you avoid any kind of inconvenience in this respect.”) Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Aigueblanche > Montagnini, January 29, 1774. 24

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42

to distinguish itself. The frequent dispatch of considerable and initially everincreasing quantities of truffles and other regional produce was also a way of displaying prodigality and financial carelessness. It was this costly game of titfor-tat which forced the state administration in Turin to act promptly whenever Vienna requested truffles, even if the budgetary repercussions of these transports affected the functionaries or even the king (as will be dealt with below).26 In terms of distinction, truffles also turned out to be a rewarding gift, since they could be perfectly integrated into an aristocratic lifestyle which was characterized, if not dictated, by the search for prestige. So, as often is the case with presents, the charm of the tartufi essentially derived from their redundancy27 and from the fact that they, as delicacies, largely contributed to the state of bien-être and douceur, which higher nobility, and especially court nobility, actively pursued.28 In much the same way, and perhaps even preeminently, truffles could immensely delight the recipient because of their concomitant unexpectedness and eccentricity. Startling and peculiar presents are likely to be highly effective, especially in a court society overburdened with gift-giving which was very often merely ritual.29 The truffle was at that time an undeniable novelty and curiosity. It is difficult to explain the origins of this sudden, almost feverish, interest in truffles. Was it the gradual progress in the scientific unveiling of the subterranean mushroom which triggered this vivid interest, or were these explorations rather manifestations of a deeper, primary curiosity which preceded and induced the

  With regard to the conspicuous lifestyle of the court society: T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: an Economic Study of Institutions (New York, 1934); N. Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft (4th edn, Frankfurt am Main, 1989). 27   On the typical redundancy of the gift: D. Cheal, “Moral economy,” in A. Komter (ed.), The Gift: an Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 81–95. 28   M. Figeac, La douceur des Lumières: Noblesse et art de vivre en Guyenne au XVIIIe siècle (Bordeaux, 2001). This hedonistic lifestyle was not a goal in itself, but rather served as a display of wealth and social valence (Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft for example, pp. 87– 8). Conversely, this search for prestige did become a Selbstzweck and a plane of projection of aristocratic honor, since the social status of the nobility deteriorated due to the rise of the noblesse de robe and the professionalization of the armed forces. On the changing selfperception of the nobility between the late Middle Ages and the eighteenth century: K. Margreiter, Konzept und Bedeutung des Adels im Absolutismus (Florence, 2005), pp. 8–205. 29   Cheal, “Moral economy.” For an analysis of such a merely ritual gift relation, see C. Windler, “Tribut und Gabe. Mediterrane Diplomatie als interkulturelle Kommunikation,” Saeculum. Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte, 51 (2000): 24–56; P. Burschel, “Der Sultan und das Hündchen. Zur politischen Ökonomie des Schenkens in interkultureller Perspektive,” Historische Anthropologie, 15/3 (2007): 408–21. 26

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scholarly findings?30 Whatever the case, these mycological studies very strongly suggest that the scientific interest in truffles was anything but an isolated academic issue. The best proof of this tartufomania was the requests for truffle hunters that the French, English, and Prussian court sent to the King of Savoy. At least three truffle dog expeditions—each time accompanied by a couple of truffle pickers—left Piedmont in the course of the eighteenth century in order to verify whether these countries produced (white) truffles.31 Very soon the reputation of Piedmont in this particular field of specialization was internationally acknowledged, as the “potato” entry in the Zedler Universallexikon (1749–) demonstrated: “These truffle dogs come from the Turin area to Augsburg and other German regions.”32 30   The major developments were Geoffroy’s theory that truffles had seed-vessels (around 1710); the actual observation of the spores by Micheli (approx. 1710); the first successful reproduction of the black truffle by Bradley (around 1726); and the first illustration of a truffle’s cross-section by Bruckmann (1720). See R.C. Rittersma, “The Quest for the ‘Holy Spores’: Exploring the Truffle in Early Modern European Science,” unpublished paper (2008); R.C. Rittersma, “Subterranean Fieldwork: Marsili’s Survey on the Biogeography and Ecobiology of Truffles in 18th Century North and Central Italy,” in C. Ries, M. Harbsmeier and K. H. Nielsen (eds), Ways of Knowing the Field: Studies in the History and Sociology of Scientific Fieldwork and Expeditions (Aarhus, 2011); G. Lazzari, Storia della Micologia Italiana. Contributo dei botanici italiani allo sviluppo delle scienze micologiche (Trento, 1973), pp. 96–132; and G.C. Ainsworth, Introduction to the History of Mycology (Cambridge, 1976), especially pp. 1–81. Perhaps the supposed aphrodisiac qualities contributed to the popularity and the appeal of the truffles, as for example discussed in the works of courtiers like Brantôme and Giacomo Casanova. However, this aspect is never mentioned even in guarded terms. 31   With regard to the truffle dog expeditions to Paris (1723), London (1751), and Berlin (approx. 1720): “Tempo addietro partirono di qua cercatori di tartufi fra i più esperti con cani addestratissimi, mandati dai grandi Vittorio Amedeo II e Carlo Emanuele III in Germania, in Francia, in Inghilterra, nelle parti più fiorenti d’Europa a sommi principi e re amici.” (“Formerly, some of the most experienced truffle hunters with well-trained dogs were sent by King Victor Amadeus II and Charles Emmanuel III to prominent rulers and friend kings in Germany, France, England, and in the most prosperous regions of Europe.”) Cited from G.B. Vigo, Tubera terrae. Carmen. I tartufi (1st edn, Turin 1776; Borgosesia, 1994), p. 27; and Perrero, “I regali di prodotti nazionali,” pp. 425–32; respectively F.E. Bruckmann, Specimen botanicum exhibens fungos subterraneos vulgo tubera terrae dictos (Helmstedt, 1720). 32   “Dergleichen Hunde kommen aus den Turinisischen Gebiethe nach Augspurg und andre Orte Teutschlandes.” (“These dogs come from the region of Turin to Augsburg and other parts of Germany.”) Cited from: “Erd-Aepffel,” in J.H. Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexikon (vol. 8, 1st edn, 1749; Graz, 1994), p. 1518. Undoubtedly, this supra-academic interest was also very much related to the early modern scientific practice, which was not only socially closely connected with the milieux of the court and aristocracy, but thematically also strongly inspired by a primary, almost childish

44

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There are some indications suggesting that the rulers of Savoy managed to exploit their local specialty in multiple ways, and that they increasingly became aware of its unique promotional possibilities. Besides the “export” of truffle dogs and the casual product promotion through the organization of truffle-hunting sessions in Piedmont for foreign aristocratic visitors33, there was, of course, the exploitation of the culinary qualities of the truffle. The administration of the Duchy of Savoy seems to have noticed its unique utility only at a later stage. Initially, the truffles sent to Vienna were just announced in the accompanying letters as “quelques livres de truffes,” but from the winter of 1768 onward they are repeatedly called “Truffes blanches de Piémont” or “Truffes de Piémont.”34 I cannot yet conclude that the Savoy rulers aspired to a kind of appellation d’origine controllée (AOC) with regard to their local specialties, but the abrupt change in the designation of the truffle in the diplomatic correspondence is, to say the least, striking. Perhaps, the distribution of Hungarian truffles in Viennese high society made the Savoia aware of the uniqueness of the products of their own terroir.35 In kind of curiosity: B.T. Moran, “Courts and Academies,” in K. Park and L. Daston (eds), The Cambridge History of Science, vol. III: Early Modern Science (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 251–72; and specifically with regard to the Piedmontese court: V. Ferrone, La Nuova Atlantide e i Lumi. Scienza e politica nel Piemonte di Vittorio Amedeo III (Turin, 1988). On the role of curiosity: L. Daston, “Die Lust an der Neugier in der frühneuzeitlichen Wissenschaft,” in K. Krüger (ed.), Curiositas: Welterfahrung und ästhetische Neugierde in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit (Göttingen, 2002), pp. 147–75. 33   Perrero, “I regali di prodotti nazionali,” p. 428. 34   See, for example, AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, December 14, 1768; 2 XII 1769; Mazzo 94, December 3, 1774. 35   R.C. Rittersma, ‘« Ces pitoyables truffes d’Italie.» Die französisch-italienische Rivalität auf dem europäischen Trüffelmarkt seit 1700. Zu einer Geschichte des Gastrochauvinismus und des Terroir, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 21/2 (2010): pp. 81–105. A workable definition of terroir would be: “Un système au sein duquel s’établissent des interactions complexes entre un ensemble de facteurs humains (techniques, usages collectifs …), une production agricole et un milieu physique (territoire). Le terroir est valorisé par un produit auquel il confère une originalité (typicité).” (“A system in which complex interactions are established between a set of human factors (as, for example, techniques, collective practices, etc.), an agricultural production, and a physical environment (territoire). The terroir is valorized by a (agricultural) product, whose very specificity and originality derive from this constellation of human and natural factors.”) Cited from L. Bérard and P. Marchenay, Les produits de terroir. Entre cultures et règlements (Paris, 2004), p. 72. With regard to the Hungarian truffles: “Diese nun auf obige Art gesammelte Schwämme, werden von denen Bauern in die Städte gebracht, nach Pfunden verkauffet und hernach auf zweyerley Weise verbraucht. Erstlich frisch, welche man vor etwas delicates hält, und weit und breit davon nach Wien und andern Orten an grosse Herren Geschencke machet.” (“The peasants bring the accordingly collected mushrooms to the cities and sell

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any case, the white truffle of Piedmont became more and more in vogue, as the recurrent rumors about truffles in Viennese court society (see the next section) and the ever-increasing quantities of truffle transports demonstrated. From the diplomatic correspondence at issue it is difficult to date with certainty the first dispatch of truffles to Vienna. The first consignment might have taken place from approximately 1738 onward, since the previous years of correspondence did not contain any mention of truffles.36 However, from this supposedly first occurrence onward, diplomatic communication gives evidence of a steep rise in demand. Significantly, the initiative of the first gift came from the newly instated queen, Elisabeth Theresa of Lorraine, who charged her minister, the Marquis of Ormea, to send “une demie douzaine de vacherins et quelque livres de truffes” to Canale, who should forward them to the queen’s brother, the Duke of Lorraine, in order “de [lui; R.C.R.] faire gouter ces sortes de fruits de notre pays.”37 The Piedmontese delicacies apparently appealed to the Duke of Lorraine: in November 1739 he asked Canale whether he knew if the queen had already expedited the truffles. In the subsequent autumn, the queen sent him first 15 livres and then nine more. Remarkably, 30 years later the quantities were almost doubled, as Table 2.1 illustrates. Table 2.1

Quantities of food gifts sent from Turin to Vienna (1738–1774)

Information source Year* Quantity of offered victuals** (AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo [= M.]) Truffes Vacherins Bertavelle 1738 -quelques tr. -6 M. 65, Jan. 13, 1738 -quelques livres - quelques M. 65, Dec. 18, 1738 de tr. 1739 4 boîtes de tr. M. 66, Nov. 18, 1739 1740 24 livr. = 9.1 kg

M. 67, Dec. 3, 1740 (15 livres de tr.) M. 67, Dec. 10, 1740 (9 livres de tr.)

them by the pound, whereupon they are used in two ways. First, as a fresh product, which is considered to be a delicacy, and in the whole region exploited as a gift to grandseigneurs in Vienna and other places.”) See the entry “Hirsch-Schwämme,” in Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexikon, p. 251. 36   I checked the correspondence from 1721 (Mazzo 48), 1733, 1736–73 (Mazzo 64), and 1737–38 (Mazzo 65). 37   “To let him [i.e. the Duke of Lorraine; R.C.R.] taste these kinds of fruits of our country.” AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 65, Ormea > Canale, January 13, 1738.

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46 1766 42 livr. = 16 kg

6

M. 88, Dec. 20, 1766

1767 84.5 livres = 32.1 -6 kg -6 1768 176 livres = 66.9 kg - 6 -8

18

1769 56 livr. = 21.3 kg

18

1773 28 livr. = 10.6 kg 1774 44 livr. = 16.7 kg

8 -8 -6

12 - 16 - 25

M. 89, Jan. 3, 1767: 38,5 poids d’ici M. 89, Dec. 19, 1767: 46 livres de tr. M. 90, Jan. 2, 1768: 56 livres de tr. M. 90, Dec. 14, 1768: 70 livres de tr. M. 90, Dec. 24, 1768: 50 livres de tr. M. 90, Dec. 2, 1769 M. 94, Dec. 22, 1773 M. 94, Jan. 3, 1774: 44 livres de tr. M. 94, Dec. 3, 1774: no truffle quantity indicated

* Understood as calendar year (and not as the truffle harvest season, which goes from October until January). Decisive are the date and the weight of the transport on the day they were sent. ** 1 livre equals approximately 380 g.38

The table also shows that there was a sudden decrease in 1769, which was predominantly caused by the bad harvest of that year. After having sent a first dispatch of 56 livres (approx. 21.3 kg) on December 2, 1769, Canale’s correspondence partner in Turin, Raiberti, wrote on December 30, 1769 that he counted on sending a second consignment. Unfortunately, he was informed by the Intendant general de la maison du Roi that—in spite of “les recherches plus exactes”—there were, due to warm winds, no good truffles available or expected for the rest of the season.39 The relatively low quantity in the year 1773 was primarily due to the fact that a new ambassador had to be initiated into the “art” of gift-giving, as Count Canale died in July 1773. In several respects, 1768 differed considerably from the previous years. In this year the gift repertoire of the dukes of Savoy was expanded with the reintroduction of the rock partridge, or bertavella d’Aosta. Simultaneously, the Savoia became increasingly aware of the uniqueness of their white truffle, and identified the terroir of the tuber magnatum explicitly with their own power base. Most striking, however, was the enormous increase in food gifts that were   According to Giuseppe Bracco, who can be trusted to know the actual measures adopted by the Savoyard court, since he was involved in the source edition of the accounts of the Savoia between approx. 1500 and 1789, a Piedmontese livre (libbra) was equivalent to approx. 380 grams: G. Bracco, “La tavola dei Savoia nei secoli XVII e XVIII,” in Accademia Italiana della Cucina (ed.), Il terzo convegno dell’Accademia Italiana della Cucina, Piemonte, 15–17 Ottobre 1971 (Milan, 1973), pp. 71–85, p. 82. I would like to thank signora Ginepro (Biblioteca Comunale di Novara) for sending me a copy of this book. 39   Cited from: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, December 30, 1769. 38

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sent around, especially of truffles. Was this the result of a plentiful harvest of that season so abundant, or was there more at stake? 1768 was also the year in which Raiberti for the first time added truffles for private use. The size of these portions for personal aims was unspecified.40 Significantly, the truffles, whether additional or meant for the imperial highness, were in most cases announced in a postscriptum or on a separate leaflet, together with other informal remarks. Only exceptionally did they appear in the main diplomatic letters that discussed important political issues and were, because of their confidentiality, mostly enciphered. These short notes were, of course, never sent separately but always attached to the official diplomatic correspondence. However, this does not automatically mean that they were completely insignificant politically and negligible. On the contrary, these casual remarks very often revealed an economy of emotions, which were, in the highly ceremonial and emotionally repressive regime of the court society, otherwise retrievable only with great difficulty. “Parler ministerielement au sujet des truffes,” or How to Use Truffles in Diplomacy It was Canale who presumably had the primeur of exploiting Piedmontese truffles at the Viennese court, but it was his predecessor, Breglio, who suggested to him the possibility of facilitating things with imperial court society by using Savoyard delicacies. From the instructions given to Canale’s temporary successor, Interim Ambassador Montagnini, we can deduce that Canale systematically pursued this strategy41 and the same applies to his successor, Count Scarnafiggi.   In a postscriptum, Raiberti wrote: “Je joins à cet envoi une petite caisse de Truffes qui vous regarde.” (“I add a little box of truffles to this expedition that is for you.”) Cited from: L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, Raiberti > Canale, January 2, 1768. 41   “Je sai que Monsieur de Canal envoyoit directement une partie des Truffes aux principaux Ministres Imperiaux. On ne veut pas s’écarter de ce systême […].” (“I know that Mr Canale sent a part of the truffles directly to the principal Imperial Ministers. You should not drift away from this system […].”) Cited from: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Aigueblanche > Montagnini, January 29, 1774. See also the letter from Scarnafiggi to Aigueblanche: “Si dans la susdite expedition V.E. trouve à propos d’en faire ajouter une petite quantité pour distribuer à deux ou trois des principales personnes de cette Cour, elle me mettra à meme de continuer une attention pratiquée par le feu Comte de Canale, et pour la quelle on lui en etoit très reconnoissant.” (“If His Excellency considers it appropriate, a small quantity of truffles could be added to the mentioned expedition for distribution among the two or three most important persons at this court. This would enable me to maintain an attention, practiced by the late Count Canale, of which the recipients were [always] very grateful.”) 40

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But unlike Canale, Scarnafiggi frequently requested truffles for his own use: “Il y a quelques tems que je vous ai parle ministerielement au sujet des Truffes, et je vous en reparlerai encore, pour vous dire que si vous pouvez m’en envoyer une ou deux fois une petite quantité pour distribuer, cela me facilitera les moyens d’etre plus familierement dans quelques maisons qu’il me convient de frequenter.” One year later, Scarnafiggi was able to inform his chief in Turin that the truffles had achieved their purpose, because the “[…] principaux Ministres de cette Cour […] m’en sçavent un gré infini.” 42 Other remarks in correspondence suggest, furthermore, that truffles were in high demand at the Viennese court and that the main recipients, the imperial couple, adored them: “Aussi S.M. Imperatrice m’a-t-elle encore fait dire par un de ses Valets de Chambre de confiance, que ces truffes étoient si bonnes, que tout ce qu’elle avoit mangé depuis lui avoit paru fade et insipide.”43 According to courtly rumors, the State Chancellor Kaunitz, who was imperial attaché at the court of Savoy between 1742 and 1744, always received his truffles two weeks prior to Canale, which leads one to believe that Kaunitz had his own supply network, and that Canale may not have told the whole truth in his letters to his home base in Turin. There are, in any case, indications that Canale obscured information about the conditions in which the truffles arrived. Even worse he also suppressed what he did with these failed expeditions, as Scarnafiggi critically suggested when he wrote that during his predecessor’s tenure “[…] malgré qu’on en envoyât une grande quantité à la fois, comme elles

Cited from: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, October 3, 1774. It is not clear whether Canale used the imperial or the private truffle portion for this goal. 42   “It is some time ago that I spoke with you in my capacity of minister about the issue of the truffles, and I will come to speak about it again, in order to tell you to send me once or twice a small quantity of truffles for distribution purposes. That would make it easier to get more familiar with some houses that it would be useful to have contact with”; respectively “the most important ministers were most grateful for this gift.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, October 24, 1774; respectively AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 23, 1775. 43   “The Empress told me also through one of her confidential pages that the truffles were so tasty that everything that she had eaten afterwards seemed bland and insipid.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 19, 1774. Canale also testified repeatedly to the fact that the empress and emperor enjoyed the truffles; see, for example: “Leurs majestés ont été fort sensibles au souvenir du Roi,” cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 89, Canale > Raiberti, December 29, 1768; also AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 89, Canale > Raiberti, January 19, 1767; AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 89, Canale > Raiberti, December 31, 1767; AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, Canale > Raiberti, December 14, 1769.

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murissent en chemin, LL.MM. Imperiales ne pouvoient qu’en manger une ou deux fois.”44 Scarnafiggi’s reflection is rather curious, since Canale confirmed the arrival of every consignment. As we have just seen, he also wrote some words on how the royal gift was actually perceived and tasted by the empress and emperor. The following remark of Raiberti even suggests that Canale had to give an account of the way he presented the truffles: “J’espere que vous les recevrez en bon etat, me raportant pour la maniere dont vous avez pratiqué à l’égard du premier envoi […].”45 But perhaps these reports were from time to time untrue because there is also a letter from Raiberti informing Canale about a rumor which circulated in Turin that “[quelqu’un a supposé ici que] les Truffes qu’on est en coutume d’envoyer à Vienne s’alteroient en route de manière à n’avoir plus après leur arrivée le gout et la saveur qui les fait rechercher.”46 Perhaps Canale sometimes also made illegitimate use of the truffle consignments. As yet, Canale’s negligence can—for lack of evidence—not be substantiated, but it might be, perhaps, more rewarding to focus on the wider context of these calumniations and accusations. The recurrent confrontation with delicate, anonymously supplied information perfectly illustrates what, according to Norbert Elias, characterized the court society, namely its penetrating culture of mistrust and Überwachung.47 Since the creation of a separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1717, which resulted from a drastically administrative reform by the recently crowned Victor Amadeus II, diplomatic policy became more than ever centered on the sovereign. Since the rulers of Savoy, and their first monarch in particular, considered themselves chief foreign ministers, they were ever more intensively involved in diplomatic affairs. In order to remain well informed about all political developments, they disposed of different instruments. 44   “[…] even though a large quantity was sent, the imperial couple could only eat them once or twice, as the truffles decayed on their way.” See for this citation and with regard to Kaunitz’s own truffle connection: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, October 3, 1774: “Je me suis rappellé l’envoi des truffes, […] au sujet du quel j’ai appris que le Prince de Kaunitz en avoit toujours reçu quelques semaines auparavant que le Comte de Canale.” (“[…] I have been informed that the Prince of Kaunitz always used to receive them some weeks earlier than Canale.”) 45   “I hope you will receive them in a good condition and that you will notify me in the same way as you have done after the first dispatch.” Cited from: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, Raiberti > Canale, January 2, 1768. 46   “someone has suggested here [in Turin; R.C.R.] that the truffles that are usually sent to Vienna decay on their way and lose their flavor and aroma which make them so requested.” Cited from: AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 90, Raiberti > Canale, December 2 1769. 47   Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft, pp. 197–200, 296.

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First and foremost, in their own correspondence with the ambassadors in the different legazioni, the dukes of Savoy consistently instructed their representatives in a sometimes almost embarrassingly meticulous manner. Second, they were also informed about the ins and outs of the correspondence of the ambassadors with the Chief Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Third, in view of their own political agenda, the dukes of Savoy also exploited their private communication channels, for example with relatives at foreign courts. Additionally, several aspects of foreign administration, for example archival and budget policy, became increasingly institutionalized in the course of the eighteenth century. Eventually, from an organizational point of view, virtually every step of the ambassadors of Savoy had to be formally approved by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and/or by the king. Nevertheless, even in this regime of permanent supervision, there were still grey areas in which individual initiatives were still possible.48 Someone who obviously felt at ease with this free space was Count Luigi Malabaila di Canale. As the king’s minister he was able to maintain a more independent existence because in Vienna he very quickly married a woman from the upper stratum of the Austrian-Hungarian nobility, namely Maria Anna Palffy-Ordöd from the influential and wealthy Esterhàzy dynasty. This alliance not only relieved his financial dependence on his sovereign, but also eased his access to court society in general and to the imperial couple in particular, since Canale’s wife (and later also one of his daughters) belonged to the bedchambers and intimates of the empress. Several fragments in the correspondence indicate that Canale regularly had private meetings with Archduchess Maria Theresa, which was rather exceptional for representatives of foreign states.49 He was also very close to influential members of the Viennese state apparatus, for example Baron Hagen, the vicepresident of the Imperial Council. With Kaunitz, the most powerful statesman at the Viennese court, he maintained a rather antipathetic relationship. Canale spent more than 35 years at the Viennese court and eventually began to identify with the imperial side from time to time, which was particularly clear in the War of the Polish Succession. During this political conflict, he was engaged as go-between by King Stanislaw II of Poland to secure simultaneously political support from Charles Emmanuel III and Maria Theresa. This diplomatic Alleingang of Canale damaged his reputation, which was otherwise excellent, since he managed to repair the fragile relationship with Vienna and regain the 48   Storrs, “La politica internazionale,” pp. 40–47; D. Frigo, Principe, ambasciatore e jus gentium. L’amministrazione della politica estera nel Piemonte del Settecento (Rome, 1991), pp. 21–99, 180–89. 49   Ruata, Luigi Malabaila di Canale, pp. 152–3.

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confidence of the empress.50 In this process of reconciliation, the mutual gifts of food products were simultaneously an instrument and a symbol of the actual social relation.51 From this point of view, it was only expected that the rulers of Savoy would continue this yearly practice. They actually had no choice, since the obligeantes attentions progressively became obligatory, especially since the introduction and subsequent standardization of Tokaj (Tokay) wine as a counter-gift by the imperial court. But not everything remained as usual. The painstaking initiation of Canale’s successors (Montagnini as interim and Scarnafiggi as the new imperial ambassador) into the yearly ritual of the food gift in a way corresponds with the more general process of centralization and reorganization of the Savoy state apparatus, started by Victor Amadeus III immediately after the death of his father in 1773. The new king replaced the established cadre of ministers and appointed a new staff, headed by the novice Marquis of Aigueblanche. After an initial phase of disorientation and a struggle for power, this new minister of state and foreign minister succeeded in dominating state administration.52 Whether it was this reorganization of the state administration or the changing of the Viennese ambassador that provoked increasing interference from Turin in truffle affairs, it became increasingly evident that the yearly truffle consignments were not a bagatelle for the rulers of Savoy, but rather a ritual to whose fulfillment they progressively attached a certain value—as we will see, not only because the gift exchange weighed considerably on the state budget. There was more at stake than budgetary accuracy, there were other reasons for care. This personal concern became visible in four ways. First, Canale’s successors were meticulously instructed in the entire practice of this yearly ritual. Strikingly, they had to check customs formalities with the revenue officers before they could receive the consignments—as though there had never been a precedent network!53 They also constantly received the same directives: even after a couple of years, they were informed that the small box of truffles was for private use and that the destination of the dispatch, needless to say, was, as usual, the imperial couple. To put it shortly, there was a

  Ibid., pp. 198, 167.   M. Godelier, Lénigme du don (Paris, 1996), p. 145. 52   See, for example, Ricuperati, “Il Settecento,” pp. 581–98, 607–17. 53   See for the customs formalities AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Aigueblanche > 50 51

Montagnini, December 11, 1773; and for the instructions to the staff: Ibid. and Mazzo 94, Aigueblanche > Montagnini, December 22, 1773; Mazzo 94, Aigueblanche > Montagnini, January 29, 1774.

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constantly repressed suspicion between the center (Turin) and the periphery (Vienna).54 This suspicion was to a certain extent understandable, since a considerable number of expeditions in the transitional period after Canale’s death failed due to customs formalities, transport delays, theft, and so on. In order to avoid such complications, the diplomats all tried to find a solution; this was the second illustration of the increasing concern of the Savoy governors. Scarnafiggi suggests, with regard to the recurrent problem of the conservation and theft of truffles, that the truffles be properly packaged in Turin and that the maitres des postes should instruct the coachmen to take care that the truffles not be subjected to strong fluctuations in temperature.55 Third, another clear manifestation of the weight and high utility value that the Viennese diplomats of the house of Savoy ascribed to the Piedmontese food products, is that the ambassadors in Vienna also regularly sent their own precious counter-gift to their superiors in Turin. This gift exchange among officials of Savoy obviously served to remove tension and to express esteem. At least since Canale’s tenure such a gift was usually offered to the first and second ranking officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turin: N’ayant reçu le vin de Tokay que depuis environ un mois, il ne sera en etat d’etre mis en bouteille que vers la Fin de Fevrier, en quel tems je l’expedierai en faisant mettre du Vin de St. George sur la [unreadable; R.C.R.] du Tokay selon que le

  “J’ai fait partir […] sous votre adresse une caisse de Truffes et une de Bartavelle […]. Vous savés leur destination, il me seroit superflu de vous en reparler.” (“I have sent a box of truffles and a box of bartavelle to your address […]. You are informed about their destination; it would be superfluous to say tell you again.”) Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 95, Aigueblanche > Scarnafiggi, December 2, 1775. 55   “Comme cependant il peut arriver dans ces sortes d’envoi quelque contretems en chemin, et qu’un des inconvenients, aux quels ils sont le plus sujets, est celui de geler et de degeler, je pense qu’on pourroit les eviter en partie si V.E. vouloit avoir la bonté de les accompagner d’une lettre à mon adresse, et de faire recommander aux Maitres des Postes de ne pas permettre que les postillons en changeant de chevaux mettent les caisses, dont il sont chargés, dans des chambres echauffées, ou dans les ecuries.” (“With this kind of expedition there is always a risk of some misfortune during the transport, and one of the most frequently occurring complications is the alternately freezing and thawing of the truffles. I think we can avoid this partly, if His Excellency would be so good as to dispatch them accompanied by a letter to my address, and to recommend the Maitres des Postes that they prevent the coachmen, who are responsible for the (truffle) boxes, from putting the boxes into the stables or into heated rooms when they are changing the horses.”) Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 19, 1774. See also AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 11, 1775. 54

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pratiquoit mon Predecesseur. J’aurai soin que le Ministre et son Pr Offr puissent juger de l’envoy et de la reconnoissance de leur correspondent pour les Truffes qui lui ont envoyées.56

This creation of secondary circuits of gift exchange clearly demonstrates the intrinsically inflationary character of gifts. The fourth and final manifestation of the value which the king of Savoy and his state administration attached to the truffle delivery is in their emotional involvement. Most striking is the following remark of Aigueblanche: “Je vous ecris à part, que le Roi [i.e. Victor Amadeus III; R.C.R.] a été faché d’apprendre que le second envoi des Truffes ait aussi essuyé des contretems.”57 In order to understand this emotional reaction, the reader should know that the first truffle consignment of the year had arrived in a very bad state: nearly all of the truffles were rotten, and “only” a selection of approximately two dozen had been sent immediately to the grand maitre d’hotel of the Viennese court, “[…] le quel j’avois prevenu sur la cause de la petite quantité de Truffes, que je lui faisois remettre.”58 Despite these precautions, something went wrong with the second consignment, causing the person giving the truffles to become angry. What happened is made clear in another letter from Scarnafiggi, reporting the arrival of the second dispatch: […] j’ai reçu le second envoi […], dont les caisses s’étant ouvertes en chemin, il s’en est perdu une partie, ce qui a fait, qu’en les envoyant à Monsieur le Comte St. Julien Grand Maitre d’Hotel de LL. dites Majestés je lui ai fait communiquer le certificat ci-joint des officiers de la Poste de Vienne, par lequel il conte du susdit accident.59 56   “Having received the Tokaj wine (only) approximately one month ago, it will not be ready to be bottled until the end of February and in that period I will send the wine, putting the wine of St George on the […] [unreadable; R.C.R.] of the Tokaj, according to the practice of my predecessor. I will take care that the Minister and his Prime Officer will experience the gratitude of their correspondent (by way of the wine dispatch) for the truffles which they sent him.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 19, 1774. 57   “I am writing you solely (to inform you), that the king has been angry to learn that the second consignment of truffles has also experienced a mishap.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 95, Aigueblanche > Scarnafiggi, December 23, 1775. 58   “[…] whom I had notified about the cause of the small quantity that I had sent him.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 23, 1775. 59   “I have received the second consignment, and a part of it was lost, as the boxes were opened up during the transport. For that reason I submitted these boxes together with the

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At this point, the correspondence also beautifully exemplifies Marcel Mauss’s observation of the gift as a “fait social total,” because this certificate of damage, which Scarnafiggi sent to the grand maitre d’hotel of the imperial court and—as a certified copy—to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turin was anything but a formality. Here was loss of distinction, or—even worse for an eighteenth-century nobleman—loss of honor at stake, as Aigueblanche’s response illustrates: “La précaution que vous avez eû d’envoyer à Mr. de St. Julien le certificat que vous avez retiré du Bureau de la Poste, étoit à propos pour faire voir que l’intention du Roi n’étoit pas que la portion en fut si petite.”60 Scarnafiggi might have requested instantly a certificate of damage at the Viennese post office for at least two reasons. First, he had to make it known that it was not the king’s intention to send such a small portion, a fortiori as the first consignment had already arrived in bad order. Second, Scarnafiggi had to avoid even the semblance of having suppressed the truffles, both to Count St Julien and to his own sovereign. In other words, Scarnafiggi was forced to provide full disclosure to all parties involved about the full facts of the matter, in order to maintain his master’s honor and his own reputation. While the bad tidings of the unsuccessful consignments were arriving in Turin, Aigueblanche had already sent a third consignment with a lot of truffles as compensation for the first incomplete one: “Il y a dans cet envoi de quoi suppléer abondamment au premier.”61 A week later in a letter to Scarnafiggi he wrote that he was “impatient d’apprendre”62 whether this third dispatch had arrived in good order. This once again makes it evident that the truffles were, for the Savoia, not to be taken lightly, but rather something to which they ascribed weight and importance.

attached certificate [of damage] of the post office of Vienna to the Grand Maître d’Hotel, in which he is informed about this accident.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 94, Scarnafiggi > Aigueblanche, December 11, 1775. Unfortunately, the certified copy of this certificate of damage, which Scarnafiggi sent to the ministry in Turin (“le certificat cijoint des officiers de la Poste de Vienne”) has not been conserved in the correspondence at issue. 60   “The precaution, which you took by sending Mr St Julien a certificate of damage from the post office, was appropriate to demonstrate that it was not the king’s intention that the portion of truffles was so small.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 95, Aigueblanche > Scarnafiggi, December 23, 1775. 61   “This dispatch abundantly compensates the first one.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 95, Aigueblanche > Scarnafiggi, December 16, 1775. 62   “impatient to hear.” Cited from AST L.M. Austria, Mazzo 95, Aigueblanche > Scarnafiggi, December 23, 1775.

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Conclusion Gifts, as we all know, are conveyors of emotions and meanings, even if they appear to be merely ritual or perfunctory. Food gifts are no exception to this rule. On the contrary, due to its very palpability (and, one can even say, palatability), food has been used as an effective gift since time immemorial. Its use in gift relations is as universal as the resource itself. Nevertheless, some foods are particularly appealing for their exclusive characteristics to be exploited in gift exchange, and the use of the truffle as a promotional gift by the dukes of Savoy clearly shows evidence of this. The truffle enabled the emerging Savoy dynasty to create a distinct and unequaled profile for themselves, as the Truffes blanches de Piémont were, due to their rareness, simultaneously precious and as a gift object exclusively connected with the territory of Savoy. Management of the process of giving the truffles as gifts itself shows that officials from different levels of the state administration were very concerned with the practical organization of this gift exchange, and thereby also offers insight into the texture of personal relations within the state apparatus. From correspondence and other diplomatic contact with the courts of Vienna, London, Paris, and Berlin, it becomes very clear that this culinary resource for the kings of Savoy was not just an object of occasional value, but rather a deliberately exploited instrument and image that sustained their quest for preeminence and prestige. In so doing, the Savoia simultaneously were indicators and factors of the tartufomania that progressively captivated the European elites on the threshold of the French Revolution. Significantly, the revolutionary movement which—as is generally known—profoundly changed European (and some non-European) societies did not even leave these subterranean commodities untouched. But it would be better to discuss the post-revolutionary history of the truffle on another occasion.

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Chapter 3

Drinking for Approval: Wine and the British Court from George III to Victoria and Albert 

Charles C. Ludington

There is a remarkable degree of consensus among cultural historians of early modern Britain that the royal court ceased to be the locus of artistic and aesthetic fashion after the reign of Charles II (1660–1685). As the story goes, Charles’s court launched or supported the careers of such playwrights and poets as George Etherege, William Wycherley, John Dryden, the Earl of Rochester, and Andrew Marvell, the architect Christopher Wren, painters Antonio Verrio, Peter Lely, and Godfrey Kneller, the woodcarver Grinling Gibbons, and the composer Henry Purcell. Moreover, Charles’s court introduced the three-piece men’s suit, tea, ice cream, sparkling champagne, and luxury claret (red wine from Bordeaux) to the English aristocracy, who then helped to make these items popular among London’s merchant princes and literati, as well as provincial aristocrats and wealthy gentry.   I would like to express my gratitude to Daniëlle De Vooght for her encouragement and patience with this chapter. I would also like to express my appreciation to Stephen Mennell for his books and articles on the history of food and drink in England and France, and for introducing me to the “figurational sociology” of Norbert Elias. It is hoped that a historian’s version of Elias’s methodology has been thoughtfully applied in this chapter. In London, Karin Thyselius and Dick Schumacher provided their usual warm hospitality during the final research phase of this chapter. In Old Lyme, Connecticut, where the bulk of this chapter was written, my parents, Jane and Townsend Ludington, happily kept the children occupied, and at Duke University, Philip Stern provided helpful last-minute comments. Lastly, I would like to thank David Cannadine. For his assistance with this chapter, and for his friendship, this chapter is dedicated to him.    For statements in this regard, see: R. Bucholz, The Augustan Court: Queen Anne and the Decline of Court Culture (Stanford, 1993), p. 23; J. Miller, James II: A Study in Kingship (Hove, 1978), pp. 121–2; W.B. Willcox and W.L. Arnstein, The Age of Aristocracy, 1688– 1830 (8th edn, Boston, MA, 2001), p. 56.    For a detailed summary of the cultural contributions of Charles II’s court, see Bucholz, Augustan Court, pp. 12–22. See also, M. Foss, The Age of Patronage: The Arts in 

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But after the death of Charles II in 1685, court culture was of little significance. James II and VII’s court produced very little that was novel or fashionable. Even his mistresses were thought to be plain; youth, it seems, was the king’s only requirement. William and Mary halted the decline of the court, if only briefly. In particular, Mary did her best to keep a lively, if unscandalous court, while she and William together planned and commissioned new buildings at Kensington and Hampton Court Palace, along with formal gardens to accompany them. Mary also commissioned musical works by Purcell, whose performances were all the rage at court; but Mary’s life was cut short by smallpox in 1694, and the court’s cultural influence waned once more. Queen Anne’s child-bearing days were over by the time she arrived on the throne in 1702, but she had been pregnant on 18 separate occasions and was too corpulent, gout-stricken, and tired much of the time to promote a vivacious court. Her one claim to cultural fame was that she helped to lure the German composer Georg Friedrich Händel to Britain. True, Queen Anne’s reign witnessed a tremendous flowering in English philosophy, literature, science, architecture, and painting (although almost all of the painters were foreign born), but these producers of culture and what was now called “taste” lived and made their money outside the court. Thus, by the time Anne died in 1714 the court’s cultural clout was dwarfed by that of the so-called “public sphere,” and the arrival of the dim-witted, Germanspeaking Hanoverians did nothing to reverse the trend. In fact, it expanded the differential. George I wanted mostly to be left alone, a wish that was granted by his British ministers; and while George II loved music and rehired the now naturalized Handel as court composer, he was most interested in defending his England, 1660–1750 (Ithaca, 1972). For the three-piece suit, see D. Kuchta, The Three-Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity, England 1550–1850 (Berkeley, 2002); for tea, see J. Burnett, Liquid Pleasures: A Social History of Drinks in Modern Britain (London, 1999), pp. 49–69; for ice cream, see K. Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking (London, 2007), p. 177; for champagne, see A.L. Simon, The History of Champagne (London, 1962); for luxury claret, see C. Ludington, Politics and the Taste for Wine in England and Scotland, 1660–1860 (Columbia University, PhD, 2003), p. 144.    Bucholz, Augustan Court, pp. 22–6.    C. Carlton, Royal Mistresses (London, 1990), pp. 80–87; A. Hardy, The King’s Mistresses (London, 1980), pp. 41–52.    D. Jacques, The Gardens of William and Mary (London, 1988).    For a detailed analysis of Queen Anne’s court and the myriad reasons she did not revive court culture, see Bucholz, Augustan Court.    The seminal work here is J. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA, 1989).

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native Hanover from Prussian aggression. But fashionable the early-Hanoverian courts were not. Nothing the kings did and, excepting the music of Handel, little that happened at court became popular elsewhere. Politically, the court was still important in the mid-eighteenth century, but culturally, the court was kaput. There is little to quibble with in this historical narrative except that it is not entirely true. Recent historical scholarship on the early-Georgian monarchy has shown that the “early-Georgian court continued to be used as a space to broker patronage and politics” and that the negative reputation of the first two Georges has been exaggerated by biased historians.10 Nevertheless, even the staunchest defenders of the early-Georgian court’s continued political influence cannot rewrite the story of the court’s cultural decline. At best the monarch could serve as a patron of the arts through financial support of artists and institutions outside the court, which was precisely what happened.11 In sum, our understanding of the early-Georgian court needs to be nuanced. However, if we are truly to understand the court’s role in cultural production and dissemination, we should look beyond the early-Georgian court, and into the reigns of George III, George IV, William IV, and lastly, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In so doing, we see that the British court as a creator and exponent of the latest fashions had not died in the early-eighteenth century; it was merely comatose. To be sure, the late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century British court was never as fashionable as it had been under Charles II, and never again would it reach such heights of artistic patronage. But it was alive and well, and fashionably kicking. The fashionable nature of the court is particularly glaring if we turn our attention away from court patronization of the arts, and toward royal taste and behavior. In this regard, one domain in which the English and Scottish courts had been fashion leaders long before they became the amalgamated British court in 1603—and remained so long after—was the taste for wine, by which I mean both the type of wines consumed and the ways in which they were consumed. Indeed, wine in both England and Scotland had long been associated with the court and aristocracy (as well as Christianity) and, consequently, with elite social status and power. Wine symbolized all the major pillars of political legitimacy in ancien régime Britain. Consequently, wine provides a unique lens through   J.M. Beattie, The English Court in the Reign of George I (Cambridge, 1967); L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven, 1992), pp. 196–204. For concise biographies of George I and George II, see J.H. Plumb, The First Four Georges (London, 1956), and for court life during their reigns, see H. Smith, Georgian Monarchy: Politics and Culture, 1714–1760 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 193–243. 10   Smith, Georgian Monarchy, p. 244. 11   Ibid., pp. 236–8. 

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which to examine the changing nature of the British court and of the monarchy it represented as Britain moved from the predominantly aristocratic eighteenth century to the increasingly bourgeois nineteenth century. Indeed, the taste for wine reveals that the court still set the fashion for much of the British aristocracy, but that by the 1760s court fashion was no longer created from within by its leading members or from without by the court in France. Instead, the British court increasingly took its fashion cues from the British middle classes and, in so doing, became more, not less, stable. Thus, this chapter argues that the taste for wine at court tells us not only how the monarchy changed; it also illuminates one of the reasons for the monarchy’s survival. Before proceeding further, however, it is important to acknowledge that my argument rests upon three major, inter-related claims, all of which must be clarified. First, fashion trends are not simply a matter of upward emulation, with every individual, family, or class trying desperately to keep up with the individuals, families, or classes above it in a clearly perceived social hierarchy.12 As much recent historical scholarship has shown, patterns of taste and fashion are more complex and varied than that, especially in a formerly aristocratic society that came to be dominated politically by people whose primary source of wealth was not in land, as was the case in Britain.13 In this circumstance, the monarchy as an institution found itself with the paradoxical need to show that it understood and agreed with the values of the so-called “middle classes,” but also that it remained above the petty concerns and financial limitations with which most members of the middle classes had to deal. In other words, the monarchy had to be recognizable to members of the middle classes, but also magnanimous, magisterial, and slightly magical. Second, in a historically conscious nation in which the monarch’s power had been severely curtailed by law, by custom, and by force, the political legitimacy of the monarchy rested largely upon consent. The royal court in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was, therefore, the domain in which much of the performance of the monarch’s legitimacy and request for approval was played out.14 Of course, much of the consent the monarchy sought needed to come   This idea was first put forward by the American sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), and has remained influential ever since. 13   The literature on this subject is extensive. However, for general discussions of the complexity of consumer trends in Britain, see: L. Weatherill, Consumer Behavior and Material Culture in Britain, 1660–1760 (New York, 1988); B. Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life (Manchester, 2005). 14   The major theoretical work here is C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973) and C. Geertz, ‘Centers, Kings and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power’, in J. Ben-David and T.N. Clark (eds), Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of 12

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from the House of Commons; however, the consent of the middle ranks of men was also necessary, in part because these men were able to influence the outcome of Parliamentary elections and of votes in Parliament.15 In a handful of boroughs the franchise included 80 percent of all adult males, and roughly 25–30 percent of them could be classified as middling, while as many as 50 percent of the electorate in the shires could be classified in the same way.16 In other words, while the Reform Act of 1832 gave middle-class men a majority within the British electorate, and helped give concrete definition to the term “middle class,” these men had not been entirely excluded up to that point. And obviously, after 1832, their consent for the monarchy’s legitimacy was even more crucial. Furthermore, it was middle-ranking men who formed the backbone of urban mobs prior to 1832.17 These mobs could and did create civil unrest and destroy vast amounts of property if angry enough to do so; and while the monarch was rarely the direct target of mob anger (at least not in Britain proper), he did not want to risk becoming so. In short, at the foundation of the monarch’s legitimacy in the late-eighteenth century stood the British middle ranks, and by the nineteenth century the monarchy’s legitimacy was even more dependent upon the consent of the middle classes. As the previous sentence is meant to suggest, the third claim upon which this chapter depends is that the “middle ranks” and “middle classes” can and must be carefully defined. But, if defining the court as the royal family, the courtiers, the royal household, and the venues these people inhabited is relatively straightforward, defining the “middle” strata of British society is notoriously difficult and much disputed by historians.18 For purposes of expediency, this E. Shils (Chicago, 1977), pp. 150–71. For studies of the English and British courts, see S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969); R. Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry (London, 1999); J.E. Archer, E. Goldring and S. Knights (eds), The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2007); D. Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the ‘Invention of Tradition’, c. 1820–1977’, in E.J. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 101–64. 15   N. Rogers, ‘The Middling Sort in Eighteenth-Century Politics’, in J. Barry and D. Brooks (eds), The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550– 1800 (New York, 1994), pp. 159–80. 16   Ibid., p. 167. 17   M. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680– 1780 (Berkeley, 1996), p. 6. 18   The literature here is vast, but for some of the most recent assessments of the middling sorts/ranks/classes, and attempts at definition, see J. Barry, ‘Introduction’, in Barry and Brooks (eds), The Middling Sort of People, pp. 1–27; Hunt, The Middling Sort, pp. 15–18; P. Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and

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chapter uses the terms “middle ranks” and “middling sorts” to discuss those people in the eighteenth century who reinvested capital for the sake of future profit, which implicitly suggests people who were trying to improve their social and economic status. This group included a broad range of (mostly) men, from merchant princes at the top to successful artisans and shopkeepers, and rural leaseholders at the bottom. In between, there were manufacturers, merchants, tradesmen, and bankers, as well as men in the professions of medicine, the law, university teaching, and civil service, and officers in the armed forces. What united all of these people was not only the fact that they had capital to invest, even if only a modest amount, but also their desire to become or remain free from domination by the aristocracy and/or an all-powerful employer whose decisions could deny them a political voice or an economic livelihood.19 In that sense, being “middling” was by definition masculine, in that few women could or did yet aspire to economic and political independence.20 The middle ranks of the eighteenth century evolved into the so-called “middle classes” of the nineteenth century, although increasingly the latter group was both more economically diverse and more dominated by capitalists, professionals, and manufacturers, and less by merchants and successful tradesmen.21 Perhaps more importantly, the middle classes of the nineteenth century were culturally united in their assumption that they were the engine of progress in British society (if not even the world), and that what made them so special was their hard work, prosperity, sobriety, and, in a word, respectability. Thus, when speaking about the period after the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815), this chapter uses the terms “middle classes” or “bourgeoisie.” Notably, I avoid the term “middle class” as a noun to describe a distinct group of people on the grounds that it is overly reductionist and, as Dror Warhman has pointed out, a conspicuous historical construction that masquerades as an Family Life in London, 1660–1730 (Berkeley, 1989), pp. 1–14; A. Kidd and D. Nicholls, ‘Introduction: History, Culture and the Middle Classes’, in A. Kidd and D. Nicholls (eds), Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle Class Identity in Britain, 1800–1940 (Manchester, 1990), pp. 1–11; A. Kidd and D. Nicholls, ‘Introduction: The Making of the British Middle Class?’, in A. Kidd and D. Nicholls (eds), The Making of the British Middle Class? Studies of Regional and Cultural Diversity since the Eighteenth Century (Stroud, 1998), pp. xv–xi. 19   Rogers, ‘Middling Sort,’ p. 162. 20   This point is made in both L. Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London, 1987), and A. Clarke, ‘Manhood, Womanhood, and the Politics of Class in Britain, 1790–1845’, in L.L. Frader and S.O. Rose (eds), Gender and Class in Modern Europe (Ithaca, 1996), pp. 264–7. 21   Kidd and Nicholls, ‘Introduction: The Making of the British Middle Class?’, pp. xxiii–xxviii.

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ineluctable historical force.22 Therefore, I use the term “middle class” as either an adjective to describe the tastes and habits of the middling sorts, or as a noun to express the historically constructed idea that the middle classes are supposed to represent. However, this is not to agree entirely with Wahrman, for all attempts to deny historical agency to a broadly defined middle class have been as unsuccessful as all attempts to portray the middle class as united and acting solely in its class interests. My semantic distinctions are, therefore, an attempt to acknowledge the social complexity of those who stood between the aristocracy and gentry on the one hand, and the laboring poor on the other, but not to deny the broad, collective existence of the middle strata as an economic, political, and cultural force that pushed Britain in a more commercial, democratic, and “respectable” direction. This chapter begins by attempting to settle any argument over whether the court remained fashionable and culturally influential in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It then proceeds to examine the wine consumption habits and preferences of the monarchs, beginning with George III and continuing up to Victoria at the time of Prince Albert’s death in 1861. After Albert died, Queen Victoria went into a two-decade-long seclusion that rendered her court not only unfashionable, but essentially non-existent. By the time she returned to the public spotlight the British monarchy was a symbolic institution, with almost no political power. Albert’s goal of a monarch who acted like an important government minister had continued only so long as Albert was alive, but when he died, so did his idea of the monarch’s role within the British Constitution.23 What remained of the monarchy is what exists today, a figurehead who, in Walter Bagehot’s famous words, has “the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.”24 It is therefore appropriate that this chapter ends with the demise of Albert, because without political power, the court was no longer a magnet for power-hungry ministers and unctuous sycophants, the very people who once helped to keep the court fashionable and spread court fashion outward.

  D. Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780–1840 (Cambridge, 1995). 23   D. Cannadine, ‘The Last Hanoverian Sovereign?: The Victorian Monarchy In Historical Perspective, 1688–1988’, in A.L. Beier, D. Cannadine and J. Rosenheim (eds), The First Modern Society: Essays in Honour of Lawrence Stone (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 127–65. 24   W. Bagehot, The English Constitution (Eastbourne, 1997; originally published 1867), p. 43. 22

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A Fashionable Court Just a quick glance at the period 1760 to 1861 indicates that the standard narrative of the court’s cultural influence ends too abruptly. Indeed, the British court both created and reflected popular fashions well into the nineteenth century. For instance, George III popularized seaside holidays and ocean bathing (in a bathing machine). He also helped bring model farming and experimental livestock breeding into vogue among the aristocracy and gentry.25 By the 1790s, George III’s court was no longer fashionable, but this had everything to do with the king’s precarious mental health. Moreover, a new fashionable, if unofficial court had been created by the Prince of Wales at Carlton House. As Prince of Wales, the future King George IV befriended Beau Brummell, who in turn introduced “dandy” fashions to the prince’s circle. For men who could afford it, and even many who could not, understated, close-cut, and finely tailored men’s clothing soon became all the rage, and not only in Britain, but also throughout much of the Western world. So too did wearing a cravat, which, in the form of a tie, remains de rigeur men’s fashion to this day.26 As Prince Regent (1811–1820), George also gave the architect John Nash a number of commissions and thus introduced the Regency style, with its neo-classical designs and heavy use of colonnades, much copied in Britain in entire towns such as Cheltenham, and abroad in buildings like the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. George’s younger brother, William IV (1830–1837), was a very different character, who reigned for only seven years. Nonetheless, much of the vogue for frugality and domesticity that are thought to be Victorian virtues actually began to be widely practiced during the reign of William and his wife Queen Adelaide.27 And then there were Victoria and Albert. Besides promoting and idealizing such activities and attitudes as domesticity and thrift, child-raising, and marriages based on love (although their marriage was essentially arranged, and they arranged their own children’s marriages),28 Victoria gave prestige to the idea that brides should wear white on their wedding day, an idea and fashion which has, like the men’s tie, subsequently conquered much of the world.29 A   R. Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth, 1982), pp. 246–7; J.S. Watson, The Reign of George III, 1760–1815 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 10–11. 26   For Brummell and Dandyism, see: E. Moers, The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm (New York, 1960); I. Kelly, Beau Brummell the Ultimate Dandy (London, 2005). 27   A. Somerset, The Life and Times of William IV (London, 1980), pp. 110–217; P. Ziegler, King William IV (London, 1971), pp. 123–294. 28   Cannadine, ‘The Last Hanoverian Sovereign?’, pp. 148–51. 29   S. Tobin, Marriage à la Mode: Three Centuries of Wedding Dress (London, 2003), pp. 32–3. 25

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white wedding dress represented virginal purity and, more subtly, the wealth of the bride; after all, one needs a clean environment and some assistance to keep a white dress white. Another clothing fashion made popular by Victoria and Albert was Scottish tartan. Newly invented “official” clan tartans had already received a major commercial boost from George IV when he visited Scotland in 1822. In fact, for much of the visit the king was bedecked in a “traditional” Highland outfit costing over £1,354 and featuring the never-before-seen, bright red “Royal Stewart” tartan.30 Consequently, tartan salesmen were already doing a booming business when Victoria and Albert moved tartan beyond the kilt and plaid and onto the walls and furniture of their vacation homes at Balmoral and on the Isle of Wight. Very quickly, the fashion for tartan everything spread throughout Britain and abroad. Indeed, tartan is still the presiding decorative motif in many nouveaux riche golf-course-side homes in the American South and Midwest, where tartan furniture, like the course-side home and playing golf itself, is meant to signal a family’s arrival in the world of quasi-bucolic gentility. However, the most significant and iconic fashion legacy of Victoria and Albert’s reign was introduced by Albert from his native Germany, and that was the Weinachtsbaum, or Christmas tree.31 As a pagan-inspired reminder that Christ’s love abides through even the darkest days, the evergreen fir tree—a perfect showcase for Victorian kitsch—quickly replaced the Yule log (an earlier German import) as the Christmas “tradition” of choice in the English-speaking world. So, while the British court was no longer the locus of fashion it had been for much of the seventeenth century, it remained fashionable and in some cases even fashion-setting. But how was the court’s stylishness manifested in terms of wine, long a symbol of the court, the aristocracy, and political power? Let us begin with King George III, the first Hanoverian monarch to feel more British than Hanoverian, and the man who inherited a court that was, in matters of fashion, supposedly dead. George III For a king who has a popular historical reputation among some British people and almost all Americans for being a tyrant, George III was a very moderate man; he never drank wine before dinner, and rarely if ever got drunk. Ironically, 30   H. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland’, in Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition; J. Prebble, The King’s Jaunt: George IV in Scotland, August 1822, ‘one and twenty daft days’ (London, 1988). 31   A.N. Wilson, Eminent Victorians, ‘Prince Albert’ (New York, 1990), p. 30.

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he ruled during one of the most alcoholically intemperate eras of British history. As the Edinburgh memoirist Robert Chambers reflected in 1824: In the early part of the [eighteenth] century, rigour was in the ascendant; but not to the prevention of a respectable minority of the free and easy, who kept alive the flame of conviviality with no small degree of success. In the latter half of the century—a dissolute era all over civilized Europe—the minority became the majority, and the characteristic sobriety of the nation’s manners was only traceable in certain portions of society […] In Edinburgh […] intemperance was the rule to such an [sic] degree that exception could hardly be said to exist.32

The same was true for London and other British cities, where between roughly 1780 and 1820 inebriety reigned supreme.33 Not that many historians have noticed the extreme drunkenness of the lateGeorgian era.34 This oversight has occurred because the high and mighty at the time were not themselves troubled by drunkenness. Instead, excepting the king but very much including the Prince of Wales, the ruling elite led the way in fashionable intoxication. “Drunk as a Lord” was a socially charged phrase that emerged in lateseventeenth-century England and by the late-eighteenth century the hard-drinking British aristocracy and ruling elite surpassed even their own formidable standards.35   R. Chambers, Traditions of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1980, reprint of 1868 edn; first published in 1824), p. 146. 33   For other contemporary comments about the drunkenness of the age, see for example, N. Wraxall, The Historical and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, ed. H.B. Wheatley (5 vols, London, 1884), vol. 5, p. 364; R. Howell Gronow, The Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow, Being Anecdotes of the Camp, Court, Clubs and Society, 1810–1860 (2 vols, London, 1892; originally published in 1862–65); J. Boswell, Boswell’s ‘Book of Company’ at Auchinleck, 1782–1795, eds Viscountess Eccles and G. Turnbull (Roxburghe Club, 1995); F. Place, The Autobiography of Francis Place, (1771–1854), ed. M. Thale (Cambridge, 1972). 34   Exceptions to this oversight are few and mostly recent. They include: Porter, English Society, pp. 33–34; Porter, ‘The Drinking Man’s Disease: The Pre-History of Alcoholism in Georgian Britain’, British Journal of Addiction, 80 (1985): pp. 385–96; Porter, ‘Introduction’, in T. Trotter, An Essay, Medical, Philosophical and Chemical on Drunkenness and its Effects on the Human Body, ed. R. Porter (London, 1988); A. Taylor, Bacchus in Romantic England: Writers and Drink, 1780–1830 (Basingstoke, 1999); V. Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (New York, 2006); B. Wilson, The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789–1837 (New York, 2007); F. Linnane, Drinking for England: The Great English Drinkers of their Times (London, 2008). 35   R. Hendrickson (ed.), Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins (New York, 1997), p. 219; Porter, English Society, p. 34. 32

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Looking back from the relatively sober perspective of the 1860s, Captain Reese Howell Gronow recalled that: The Prince [of Wales], Mr Pitt, Dundas, the Lord Chancellor Eldon, and many others, who gave the tone to society, would, if they now appeared at an evening party, “as was their custom of an afternoon”, be pronounced fit for nothing but bed. A three-bottle man [as in per diem consumption of wine] was not an unusual guest at a fashionable table; and the night was invariably spent in drinking bad port-wine to an enormous extent.36

George III, therefore, did not partake in the elite penchant for drunkenness, but nor was he mimicking the fashion of the middling sorts. Drunkenness was as much the practice and fashion of the eighteenth-century middle ranks as it was of the aristocracy and poor.37 The only difference was that while the middling sorts and aristocrats’ preferred route to inebriety was wine and rum punch, the poor preferred beer, ale, and, when possible, gin.38 Statements about the drunkenness of the middle ranks deserve some elaboration and evidence, as they too go against a commonly held belief that one of the touchstones of middle-ranking identity was alcoholic moderation and sobriety. It is certainly true that during the early eighteenth century and then again during the long reign of George III the British middle ranks produced a handful of canting moralists who decried the drunkenness of their fellow subjects, but it is also true that until the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars with France, the frequent drunkenness of Britons of all classes, the men in particular, was the very behavior that annoyed the moralists.39 It was only in the 1820s and 30s, when the middle class was being defined as the group around whom British society should be structured,40 that sobriety became synonymous with the new definition of the middle class. One need only examine the history of British clubs, havens of bourgeois bonhomie in the late-Georgian era, to see that drunken revelry was an approved form of behavior. As the leading historian of eighteenth  Gronow, Reminiscences and Recollections, vol. 2, p. 75.   Ludington, Politics and the Taste for Wine, pp. 404–83. 38   The Gin Act of 1751 ended the “Gin Mania” of the English urban poor during the 36 37

early-eighteenth century, although it did not eradicate the occasional consumption of gin. See J. Warner, Craze: Gin and Debauchery in the Age of Reason (New York, 2002). 39   For the early-eighteenth century and the failed Reformation of Manners movement, see Hunt, The Middling Sort, pp. 101–24; For the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century, see Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 415–595; Wilson, Victorian Values, pp. 117–39. 40   Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class, pp. 1–18.

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century clubs has written, the “essence of club fellowship was in most cases uncomplicated and conventional, marked by convivial rites of heavy drinking and drunkenness, swearing and obscene songs, activities which men felt increasingly uncomfortable about in the presence of women.”41 The tailor, shopkeeper, and political activist Francis Place, a habitué of late-Georgian clubs in London, candidly acknowledged that clubs were full of men “without understanding” who “substituted brutality and drunkenness for exhilaration and pleasant enjoyment.”42 Indeed, the middle-ranking clergy, professionals, gentry, shopkeepers and artisans who would lead the march toward temperance and even teetotalism in the early-Victorian era had first to reject the habits of their youth and their parents.43 In short, George III’s sobriety was altogether unfashionable. Where he was more up to date was in the wines he served. Royal cellar records from the 1760s, the first decade of George’s long reign, show the king had an atavistic liking for German “hock,” the British name for Rhenish wine.44 Four bottles of hock were disgorged from the royal cellar each day for the king’s table, as were one or two bottles of claret. Along with these wines, the king and his immediate guests drank sherry, Madeira, port, and a variety of other wines.45 Thus, in his choice of wines, the king and his court reflected British aristocratic fashion, which stressed diversity.46 What was novel about George III’s wine cellar was that beginning in May 1762 it contained a great deal of port, a wine that was not found in the cellars of the first two Georges. Certainly, George III did not commence the English taste for port. In fact, by the mid-eighteenth century port was already the most commonly consumed wine in England, and an established symbol of the English middle ranks.47 And true to form, during the 1760s most of the port in the royal cellars was for the lower-ranking members of the household: the various royal chaplains, the yeoman of the guard, the king’s and queen’s footmen, the hunting   P. Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000), p. 202. 42   British Library (hereafter BL), Add. MS 27828, Place Papers. 43   For a lengthy disquisition on the changes in societal attitude and behavior in the 1820s, see Wilson, Victorian Values. 44   “Hock” was generally a generic term, but sometimes it was used specifically for wine from the village of Hochheim-am-Main, from which the term hock derives. 45   The National Archives, Kew (hereafter NA), LS 13/271, Wine Accounts for the Royal Household, 1761–1766; NA LS 13/272, Wine Accounts for the Royal Household, 1767–1770. 46   C. Ludington, ‘“Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men”: How Port Became the Englishman’s Wine, 1750–1800’, Journal of British Studies, 48/2(April 2009): pp. 364–90. 47   Ludington, Politics and the Taste for Wine, pp. 196–280. 41

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grooms, and the master horse servants. Claret was reserved for the master of the household, the first and second clerk, and the dean of the chapel royal.48 Just as they did in English society at large, port and claret helped to demarcate social rank within the court. However, during George’s long reign, this oenological demarcation system broke down as the taste for port gradually moved up the social scale and surpassed claret as the preferred wine of the elite, while also maintaining its role as the wine of the middle ranks. For example, in 1798 the entire royal household, which in the 1760s consumed slightly more claret than port, consumed roughly five times as much port as claret.49 And by the end of the century port was no longer predominantly for the lower-ranking members of the royal household. It was for everyone. For instance, cellar records show that two of George’s sons, the Dukes of Cambridge and Clarence, preferred port for their personal consumption, and so too did many courtiers.50 While it might be imagined that this preference was forced upon the British aristocracy because of the ongoing war against France, that was not the case. Claret could still be found in the royal cellars, and trade with France, while burdened by tax and diplomatically complicated, was never cut off. The dukes, therefore, drank port out of choice. So once again, the court of George III reflected and perhaps even helped to create elite taste in that it followed the aristocratic switch from claret to port. After all, the Dukes of Clarence and Cambridge were hardly alone among the elite in their preference for port. As Gronow recalled, the Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister (Pitt), the Secretary of the Navy and Home Secretary (Dundas), and the Lord Chancellor (Eldon) all drank a great deal of port. In fact, for the Prime Minister we even have some specific figures. In the year beginning July 1784, Pitt purchased approximately 5,200 bottles of wine, of which port constituted nearly half (46 percent) and claret a mere 11 percent.51 Likewise, a surviving wine bill from the London vintners Christie and Barrow in 1790 for Spencer Perceval reveals that the future Tory Prime Minister also had a predilection for port: it comprised 61 percent of his purchases.52 A similar taste for port prevailed among the aristocracy. For instance, in the period 1792 to 1804, Henry Gage (third Viscount Gage)—a prominent Sussex landowner and son of General Thomas Gage, the last royal governor of Massachusetts—purchased the equivalent of nearly 19,000 bottles of wine, of     50   51   52   48

NA, LS 13/271; LS 13/272. NA, LS 13/273, Wine Cellar, St James’s Palace, 1797–1813. NA, LS 13/275, Pitcher List, 1801–1807. NA, PRO 30/8/219, William Pitt’s wine expenses, July 1784–June 1785. BL, Add. MS 49186, ff. 1–2. Bill and receipt for wine order from Christie and Barrow to the Hon. Spencer Perceval, 3 September 1790. 49

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which port constituted 48 percent. Sherry and Madeira ranked next in volume, while claret accounted for only 3 percent of the total.53 Equally telling is that in the years 1796 to 1806, port was the most prominent wine in the cellars of perhaps the most aristocratic of Oxford University colleges, Christ Church. At that time, the only other wine to be found in Christ Church cellars was sherry.54 If any more proof is needed that port had become the wine of the ruling elite— while remaining the wine of the middle ranks—a quote from an article in The Times in February 1798 should dispel any doubt: “To which University,” said a lady, some time since, to the late sagacious Dr Warren, “shall I send my son?” “Madam,” replied he, “they drink, I believe, near the same quantity of port in each of them.”55 Port’s social climb in the late-eighteenth century was a complex phenomenon, but was based primarily on the improved quality of the wine and the perceived need of the ruling elite to embrace the middle-ranking manliness that port had come to represent.56 It is for these reasons that George III’s cellar records are so revealing. Wine remained a symbol of traditional authority and political legitimacy during George III’s reign; but the group he had to appeal to in order to remain legitimate was not to be found among rival aristocrats—who did not question his legitimacy—but among reform-minded members of the middle ranks who argued that the aristocracy, beginning with the king at the top, was effeminate, foppish, and completely undeserving of its privileges.57 While George III himself never moved far beyond hock and claret, his court moved decisively in the direction of port. In other words, their taste for wine moved decisively in the direction of the middle ranks. As with the concomitant shift in elite men’s clothing styles—from brighter to darker colors and to increasingly     55   56   57   53

East Sussex Record Office, Lewes, Gage Account Book, A 741, S.A.S, 1792–1804. Christ Church College, Oxford, Common Room Accounts, MS C.R.2. ‘Theatre’, The Times (February 19, 1798): p. 1. Ludington, ‘Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men’. G. Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism (New York, 1987), pp. 68–84; P. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, Britain 1660–1800 (Harlow, 2001), pp. 124–38; K. Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 185–205; K. Wilson, ‘Empire of Virtue: The Imperial Project and Hanoverian Culture, c. 1720–1785’, in L. Stone (ed.), An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London, 1994), pp. 143–50; K. Wilson, ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Impotent: Imperialism and the Politics of Identity in Georgian England’, in A. Bermingham and J. Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London, 1995), pp. 237–62; M. Cohen, ‘“Manners” Make the Man: Politeness, Chivalry, and the Construction of Masculinity’, Journal of British Studies, 44 (April 2005): pp. 314–17; M. Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1996), pp. 99–101. 54

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simple cuts58—the change in taste for wine was meant to quell middle-ranking criticism and assert the essential “Englishness” of the aristocracy. Whether these changes were consciously undertaken by members of George III’s court is unclear and demands more study, but appreciation of middle-ranking taste reflected an awareness that the political legitimacy of the aristocracy rested upon approval by those lower down the social scale. In other words, the performance of the king’s authority was directed towards a middle-ranking audience who rarely visited the court, but who certainly read about the court in newspapers, and who stood ready to criticize it when it did not conform to their own middle-ranking tastes or to middle-ranking conceptions of what constituted a “real” man. George IV In the tradition of his Hanoverian predecessors, George IV rejected almost everything he perceived his father to represent.59 Consequently, George IV was not a moderate man. To say that he drank heavily—as Prince of Wales, Prince Regent, and king—is to understate his predilection for alcohol. In his youthful manhood George was known to his admiring contemporaries as the “First Gentleman of Europe”, and he was first in perhaps more ways than one. There were few men anywhere—in Britain, Ireland, or on the Continent—who could challenge the future King George IV in the realm of intoxication. Indeed, his sober parents’ concern was entirely understandable. “Intoxication in the most extensive sense,” reported a bottle companion, “commonly followed the banquets of Carlton House, the effects of which have more than once nearly proved fatal. His Royal Highness has been, I know, critically rescued from suffocation, when the delay of half an hour or even a shorter time would have rendered unavailing all assistance.”60 At his wedding to Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, George was so drunk he had to be held up by two of his brothers; and the rest of his life was full of similarly intoxicated antics.61 Given wine’s associations with the aristocracy and martial masculinity, the prince’s heavy drinking may have resulted, at least in part, from his desire to be   D. Kuchta, ‘The Making of the Self-Made Man: Class, Clothing, and English Masculinity, 1688–1832’, in V. de Grazia and E. Furlough (eds), The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley, 1996), pp. 67–70; Kuchta, The ThreePiece Suit, pp. 133–72. 59   Plumb, First Four Georges, pp. 137–42. 60   Wraxall, Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, vol. 5, p. 364. 61   S. David, Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency (New York, 1998), pp. 167–8. 58

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seen as a manly man during a time of war, especially since he had little political power as Prince of Wales. Furthermore, the traditional form of aristocratic masculinity of leading men into battle had been forbidden him by his father. Instead, the prince was only allowed to be a ceremonial officer. What is certain is that George’s drunkenness reflected contemporary British cultural practice in a way his father’s sobriety did not. “Drinking was the fashion of the day,” recalled Captain Gronow about London Society during the Regency Era (1811–1820).62 And again, this was not only true of the elite. The engraver George Cruikshanks wrote that his own father, Isaac, who was also an engraver, shortened his life by partaking in what the younger Cruikshanks called “the fashion of the day.” To wit, in 1811 Isaac partook in a drinking contest which sent him into an irreversible coma.63 Thus, in terms of his conviviality the prince was a very fashionable man. Indeed, George’s frequent drunkenness reflected fashion, but it also may have helped to create it. Of course, it is impossible to know how much the prince’s heavy drinking was emulated by others, especially in an era when frequent intoxication was already the norm. But as Gronow said, the prince was among the men “who gave the tone to society.”64 It is therefore likely that he aided and abetted the already established vogue for conviviality that could, and often did, proceed to alcohol-induced catatonia. This seems to have been the case with one of the prince’s early drinking companions, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the Irish playwright and later Whig politician. Sheridan was already a heavy drinker when he met the young Prince of Wales in 1784,65 and according to Sheridan’s most recent biographer, “time spent in the Prince’s company was bound to enhance Sheridan’s own reputation for dissolution and profligacy.”66 It did. And although the prince cannot be blamed for Sheridan’s alcoholic immoderation, as a politician looking for high placement Sheridan had every incentive to keep up with the prince drink for drink. So too and so did the prince’s and Sheridan’s friend, Charles James Fox. As leader of the Whig opposition in the middle of the wars against revolutionary France, Fox drank, gambled, and womanized incessantly. He died in 1806 at age 56 from liver failure. An autopsy revealed that his liver was “prenaturally hard” and “almost entirely schirrous.”67     64   65   66   62 63

p. 179.

Gronow, Reminiscences and Recollections, vol. 2, p. 75. Gatrell, City of Laughter, p. 103. Gronow, Reminiscences and Recollections, vol. 2, p. 75. BL, Add. MS 44401, ff. 30–32. R.B. Sheridan’s tavern bills from L. Reilly, 1777. F. O’Toole, A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (London, 1997),

  L.G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (Oxford, 1992), p. 97.

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If, therefore, George IV both reflected and enhanced the vogue for extreme conviviality at the turn of the nineteenth century, his preference among wines was also fashionable. To be sure, there were few wines, spirits and liqueurs that George did not like. On his visit to Ireland in 1821, the king and his entourage patronized four different Dublin wine merchants and revealed a catholic taste which included Château Lafite, Château Margaux, champagne, burgundy, vin de paille, frontignac, red and white hermitage, sauterne, vin de Graves, brandy, and a liqueur called “Ratafia de Grenoble” from France; port and Madeira from Portugal; sherry and Malaga from Spain; hock and moselle from the Rhineland; maraschino (cherry liqueur) from Dalmatia; rum from the West Indies; gin from England; and whiskey, cider, and porter from Ireland.68 On his trip to Scotland one year later, in which he wore his “Highland kit,” a similar array of wines was ordered from two Edinburgh wine merchants.69 On both royal visits, just as at home in England, the variety and abundance of wine served was meant to appeal to the broadest possible range of guests and to emphasize the splendor and generosity of the monarch. However, of all the different wines that were served by the royal court, whether at home or on its travels, port, claret, and sherry were overwhelmingly the most popular. And among these three wines, the king himself preferred sherry. For instance, among the wines sent to the royal yacht, the Royal George, for the king’s personal use while docked at Leith, there were 120 bottles of claret, 216 bottles of port, and 288 bottles of sherry.70 The wine was to be shared, of course. George’s preference for sherry—although hardly exclusive—over other wines seems to have begun during his regency and may have helped to set a new fashion in motion among the British aristocracy, especially the generation that came of age during his regency and reign.71 For example, an 1824 cellar inventory of Ashburnham Place, the country residence in Sussex of George Ashburnham, third Earl of Ashburnham and fifth Baron Asaph (1760–1830), showed that the ageing earl, like most of his contemporaries, still preferred port. His cellar contained 904 bottles of port, 501 bottles of Madeira, 299 bottles of German wines, and 283 bottles of sherry, along with lesser numbers of other wines. The cellar was little changed in substance when the third earl died in 1830.72 However, an inventory of the cellar taken one year later shows that Bertrand Ashburnham     70   71   72   68

NA, LS 8/319, Expenses of His Majesty’s Visit to Ireland, 1821. NA, LS 8/320, Expenses of His Majesty’s Visit to Scotland, 1822. Ibid. A.D. Francis, The Wine Trade (London, 1972), p. 303. East Sussex Record Office, Lewes, MS 2721, List of the Wine Cellar, Ashburnham Place, 15 February 1824; MS 2723, List of the Wine Cellar, Ashburnham Place, 10 November 1830. 69

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(1797–1878), the fourth earl, had dramatically different taste from his father. There were now 1,213 bottles of sherry, 805 bottles of Madeira, 510 bottles of Marsala, and 335 bottles of port among the leading wines in the Ashburnham Place cellar.73 Other aristocratic cellars show a similar move toward sherry by the 1830s.74 But while George’s gradual move from port to sherry may have been trendsetting among the British elite, it ran parallel with British middle-class fashion. In the three decades 1817–1826, 1827–1836, and 1837–1846, Spanish wines consumed in the United Kingdom (which meant mostly sherry) increased from 22 percent, to 33 percent, to 38 percent of the overall total. Meanwhile Portuguese wines, excepting Madeira (which meant mostly port), dropped from 51 percent, to 44 percent, to 40 percent of the overall total in the same decades.75 In other words, by the 1840s, port and sherry imports into Britain were essentially the same (Figure 3.1). Because the majority of British wine consumers came from the middle classes, only they had the numbers to create such a shift in percentages. Already in 1824 the London-based Scottish physician Alexander Henderson wrote in his comprehensive study, The History of Ancient and Modern Wines, that sherry and port together were the wines of the British “middling classes.”76 In other words, in his preference for wine George IV may have come gradually to reject his father’s generation’s taste for port; but just like his father’s generation of aristocrats, George IV and his peers were following, not creating, middleclass taste. Ironically, for all his desire to turn the clock backward and create a magisterial monarchy along the lines of the former Bourbon kings in France, even George IV understood that in early-nineteenth-century Britain it was the middle classes, not the aristocracy, who needed to be convinced of the king’s majesty.77

  East Sussex Record Office, Lewes, MS 2724, List of the Wine Cellar, Ashburnham Place, 18 April 1831. 74   See, for example: BL, Add. MS 77189, Althorp Papers, f. 862; BL, Add. MS 76782, Althorp Papers, Ledger for Althorp, 1847–1852; National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, GD 10/925, Catalogue of the Magnificent Household Furniture, etc. the property of the late Alexander Murray […] 13 January 1846. 75   Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Parliamentary Report C. 8706, Customs Tariffs of the United Kingdom from 1800–1897, with some notes upon the history of more important branches of the receipt from 1600 (London, 1897), pp. 150–51. 76   A. Henderson, The History of Ancient and Modern Wines (London, 1824), p. 316. 77   Colley, Britons, p. 215. 73

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Figure 3.1 Sherry’s rise to parity with port, 1817–1846 (Source: Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Parliamentary Report C.8706, Custom tariffs of the United Kingdom from 1800–1897, with some notes upon the history of more important branches of the receipt from 1600 (London, 1897), pp. 150–51).

It is, of course, impossible to prove that George IV grew to prefer sherry because he was following a trend among the British middle classes, and not as an expression of generational anger, or some other reason besides. But it is clear that the rise of sherry in the early-nineteenth century mirrored the rise of middle-class moralists who decried the martial behavior of the era and wanted to see a more “civilized” and moral Britain. This civilizing message was articulated throughout the Napoleonic Wars and helped both to end the slave trade and achieve prison reform. However, it had little effect on drunkenness until the 1820s, when, according to Byron (and the most recent historical scholarship), the age of cant set in.78 And it was in the 1820s that sherry, already creeping up in total British imports, began its dramatic climb to parity with port—which it achieved by 1840. Sherry, therefore, was a symbol of British middle-class identity, at the time that reformers were defining the middle class as hard-working, thrifty, sober, and civilized. Thus defined, the middle class was the linchpin of British society, positioned between the supposedly profligate aristocracy and the ignorant poor. As a symbol, sherry was part of the winning, middle-class argument. Like a wife to a husband, sherry was a necessary complement to port. Because, if port was a masculine wine, sherry

  Gatrell, City of Laughter, pp. 530–92; Wilson, Victorian Values, pp. 284–335.

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was its feminine counterpart, and therefore, like women themselves, a civilizing influence upon men.79 As Prince Regent and king, George grasped, and grasped for, the civilizing symbolism of sherry; it was a way of rejecting his father’s generation of portdrinking boors and defining aristocratic masculinity as more concerned with aesthetics than fighting. After all, having led Britain to victory over Napoleonic France, elite British men no longer needed to prove their masculinity. Instead, they needed to show themselves, as well as their middle-class critics, that they were both manly and civilized.80 And yet what George IV did not comprehend was that sobriety was integral to the new definition of civilized masculinity. Sherry drinkers that they were (although they drank much else besides), George IV and his drunken friends and mistresses at court did not associate sherry with sobriety. As a result of their profligate, amoral, and drunken behavior, they were loathed by the middle classes who had come to believe that sobriety and moderation, in a word, temperance, was a godly virtue.81 In other words, having followed the middle classes to sherry, George forgot that it was not only what wine you drank, but how you drank wine that was important for the king’s reputation as a credible authority figure. Not surprisingly, when George died in 1830, grossly obese and suffering from the various diseases of a lifelong dipsomaniac, it was the members of the middle classes who were most content to see him go. As The Times, the voice of the bourgeois establishment wrote in its obituary for the king: “There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this deceased king. What eye has wept for him? What heart has throbbed one beat of unmercenary sorrow?”82 William IV William IV—the very same Duke of Clarence who as a young man preferred port to claret and who helped to prop up his brother at the latter’s wedding— came to the throne in 1830 at the age of 64. Like his brother George IV, William had enjoyed his youth, although more with sex than drink; in any case, William 79   C. Ludington, The Politics of Wine: Power and Taste in England and Scotland, 1649–1860 (forthcoming, Basingstoke, 2011), chap. 11. 80   Ludington, Politics and the Taste for Wine, pp. 484–506. 81   J. Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven, 1999), p. 139. 82   As quoted in C. Hibbert, George IV, Regent and King, 1811–1830 (London, 1973), pp. 782–3.

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seems to have had a head for drink, imbibing large amounts with little effect.83 Unlike his brother, William had an actual military career in the navy rather than an imagined one in the army, rising to the rank of admiral (although he was never given the wartime command he desired). More importantly still, William evolved as he got older. In 1791 he settled down to a 20-year relationship with the famous Irish stage actress Dorothea Bland (aka Mrs Jordan). Never actually married, they were never divorced, but the relationship ended in 1811, leaving ten “FitzClarence” children in its wake. Seven years later, after a succession of lovers, William married the German Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. As with Mrs Jordan, William’s life with Adelaide was quiet and domestic. The couple preferred their home and garden at Bushy Park to the more grandiose ducal accommodations they were offered in St James’s Palace. They had two daughters, both of whom died in infancy, but they seemed actually to enjoy each other’s company, and William desisted from his earlier philandering. This, then, was the couple who presided over the royal court from 1830 to 1837. Given this brief biography of William, it is perhaps no surprise that as he grew older he became a very moderate drinker—especially when measured against the Herculean standards established by his own and the previous generation. Dr William Beattie, a physician who attended William and Adelaide both in England and on their trips to the Continent in 1822, 1825, and 1826, commented of the duke: “Sherry is his favourite, and I may say only wine. I never saw him taste port, and seldom French or Rhenish wines.” Beattie added that the only drink William consumed in quantity was barley water with lemon. The historian Philip Ziegler summarized William’s regime as frugal, simple, and rigidly adhering to “bourgeois standards.”84 William’s drinking habits were certainly bourgeois in that they adhered to the new middle-class standard of sobriety. But to be moderate is not to be miserly, and William did not stint in his hospitality. William understood that to maintain the prestige and legitimacy of the monarchy in the eyes of the public he must be a frequent and generous host, and wine must be a central part of his entertainment. According to the Duke of Buckingham, William “entertained on an average two thousand persons per week.”85 In 1834, 36,000 bottles of wine were consumed at St James’s Palace alone.86 No one could deny that William was shunning his royal obligation to be a generous host, even if the wine consumption   Ziegler, William IV, pp. 73–4.   Ibid, p. 130. 85   Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of William 83

84

IV and Victoria, from Original Documents (London, 1861), p. 75. 86   Royal Archives, Melbourne MS, 4 June 1835, as quoted in Ziegler, William IV, p. 153.

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figures fell short of what his brother’s court often achieved. But just as important as his generosity, William remained within his parliamentary income. In other words, in serving wine to his guests William exhibited the munificence of a monarch and the budgeting of the bourgeoisie. However, William’s careful balancing act came at a price with the aristocracy. He saved £14,000 per annum by dismissing his brother’s German orchestra and replacing it with a less expensive and less talented group of British musicians; he cut the number of royal yachts from five to two; and he fired the platoon of French chefs who had followed George IV from palace to palace, replacing them with native Britons. These moves played well with the middle classes, for whom patriotism and living within one’s means were next to Godliness, but not all aristocrats were impressed. Lord Ravensworth was “horrified” at the news of the diminished cuisine, while Lord Dudley muttered audibly on one occasion: “What a change to be sure, cold patées and hot champagne.”87 So while aristocrats were slow to appreciate the changed tenor of the royal court, William was a popular king among the middle classes, despite the fact that he prevaricated on the Reform Act of 1832 and opposed the abolition of slavery within the British Empire, both of which were “middle-class” causes. Wisely, William accepted the changes, and continued to consider himself a man of the people, sometimes walking the streets of London by himself. Just as critically for his popularity, William continued to be a generous host; while staying in his late brother’s pleasure palace at Brighton he would call upon local hotels for their guest list so that he could invite anyone he knew for dinner.88 And as always, serving wine was integral to William’s public dinners, as it emphasized his legitimacy and social rank, while also allowing him to show that he was not an aristocratic drunkard. If William’s consumption style as king was fundamentally bourgeois, so too were the wines he drank and served. As we have seen, William’s preferred wine was sherry, although to his many guests he offered the required royal panoply of wines. Of these wines, the most commonly served, in descending order of volume, were “old” port, “old” sherry, and Madeira. More expensive French wines such as claret, burgundy, and champagne were available at court, but served less often. What was popular with most guests was also popular among the royal household staff. As under previous Hanoverian monarchs, the staff remained oenologically divided according to the importance and difficulty of their tasks,

  As quoted in Somerset, William IV, p. 119.   Ibid.

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but the overwhelming majority of royal household staff was given aptly named “household” port or “household” sherry.89 In the last year of his reign, when his faculties began to fail him, William purchased 432 bottles of Sillery (non-sparkling champagne) for his personal consumption, perhaps on the advice of his physician.90 However, according to his son Adolphus FitzClarence, sherry remained the king’s preferred wine. Describing William’s daily regimen toward the end of his life, Adolphus found his father to have maintained his daily moderation and regimentation: “After breakfast he devotes himself with Sir H. Taylor to business till two, when he lunches (two cutlets and two glasses of sherry); then he goes out and drives till dinner; at dinner he drinks a bottle of sherry—no other wine—and eats moderately, and goes to bed soon after eleven.”91 In the twenty-first century one might regard William’s bottle-and-a-quarter of sherry per day as immoderate, but even in the increasingly sober decade of the 1830s this was not an extravagant amount. In fact, it was a fairly average amount for a British middleclass gentleman, which in practice William was. Victoria and Albert When William died in 1837, the crown passed to his 18-year-old niece Victoria. Four years later, Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and it is this royal couple who are often cited as the progenitors of the middle-class monarchy in Britain. However, it should be clear that aspects of what became known as “middle-class” behavior and taste began to infiltrate the monarchy and court culture almost 80 years prior to the beginning of Victoria’s reign.92 That said, Victoria and Albert (especially the latter) did bring a greater degree of budget management, cost cutting, and advanced planning skills to combat the bourgeois nightmares of indebtedness and spontaneity with which   NA, LS 13/297, Board of the Green Cloth, Account of Creditors not paid by salary, 1837. 90   Ibid, ff. 5–6. 91   As quoted in Ziegler, William IV, p. 271. 92   There is a longstanding historiographical debate about which British monarch(s) was the first truly bourgeois monarch, the candidates usually being Victoria and Albert or George III. For the former, see R. Fulford, The Prince Consort (New York, 1966), pp. 276–8, and Wilson, Eminent Victorians, pp. 14–48. For the latter see Colley, Britons, pp. 195–236. For an explanation of why George III has not been seen as the first “bourgeois” monarch, see Cannadine, ‘The Last Hanoverian Sovereign?’, pp. 161–2. Cannadine argues for both continuity and change, suggesting that while George III was the first bourgeois monarch, we might also see Victoria as the last Hanoverian monarch. 89

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the Hanoverian monarchs had to struggle. More obviously, Victoria and Albert’s marriage also brought a bevy of children, and along with them the idealization of domesticity—if more for Albert than Victoria, who was not enamored of the “terrible froglike action” of infants.93 As for their wine consumption habits, ever an important aspect of royal authority and munificence, Victoria began her reign drinking one bottle of wine at dinner, just as her uncle William IV had done. However, Baron Stockmar, Victoria and Albert’s Continental consiglieri who had been dispatched by King Leopold of Belgium to advise the young couple, disapproved of Victoria’s daily intake, writing a private note to Albert which insisted, “A queen does not drink a bottle of wine at a meal.”94 More diplomatically, Stockmar suggested that Victoria’s former governess, Louisa, Baroness Lehzen, was responsible for this behavior, since Lehzen herself loved wine.95 The result of Stockmar’s discreet admonition is not known, but certainly Victoria did not have a public reputation for being a heavy drinker, something which would have been remarked upon had insobriety been her frequent practice. Indeed, as a monarch and a woman, Victoria was in a difficult position. As a woman who was doing what was thought to be a man’s job, Victoria needed to drink wine to symbolize her status as the monarch and to show that she was not too frail for the task of leadership. Similarly, Victoria wore a military uniform on certain state occasions and she insisted that she be given a full military funeral.96 However, as a woman, Victoria was not expected to lead men into battle. Nor was she expected to drink as much wine as a man would, which is why Stockmar was appalled by her consumption level (as unremarkable as it would have been for a king). What was more openly remarked upon by observers—and the queen had thousands of guests each month—was Victoria’s ravenous appetite. She ate what was thought to be a copious amount for a very small woman, and got right to business when the food arrived. As one biographer tactfully explained, Victoria “never toyed with her food.”97 Most dinners were filled with courtiers and guests, and Albert arrived at the scheduled hour to make sure the table was set and   Queen Victoria to the Princess Royal, 27 October 1872, in R. Fulford (ed.), ‘Darling Child’: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess, 1871–1878 (London, 1976), p. 59, as quoted in Cannadine, ‘The Last Hanoverian Sovereign?’, p. 147. 94   D. Bennett, King Without a Crown: Albert, Prince Consort of England, 1819–1861 (London, 1977), pp. 88–9. 95   Ibid. 96   C. Campbell Orr, ‘The Feminization of the Monarchy 1780–1910: Royal Masculinity and Female Empowerment’, in A. Olechnowicz, The Monarchy and the British Nation, 1780 to the Present (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 93–4. 97   S. Weintraub, Albert: Uncrowned King (London, 1997), p. 143. 93

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guests seated comme il faut. Victoria entered grandly up to 15 minutes later, took her seat, and was served first. Because all were expected to stop eating when she did, dinner at the court of Victoria and Albert was a hasty affair, with little time to indulge in wine. If Victoria was moderate in her wine consumption Albert was even more so, especially given the continued customs of many British aristocratic men. Indeed, while the wine-drinking middle classes began to shun heavy consumption in the 1820s, the fashion for sobriety was slower to catch on among the aristocracy. For many aristocratic men, it was possible to be excessively moderate; and it was thought that too much time drinking cordial glasses of sherry with women was unmanly, just as their grandfathers had feared that too much time being “polite” and drinking claret could lead to effeminacy.98 Thus, at the outset of Victoria’s reign, aristocratic and even upper-middle-class men were still expected to dismiss the women after dessert and remain at the table for port and indelicate conversation. Albert, who was openly disdainful of the English aristocracy, found this habit to be particularly obnoxious and further evidence that English aristocrats were uncivilized. Moreover, he reasoned that men had no right to dismiss their sovereign from her own table. Albert therefore abbreviated the post-prandial ceremony to roughly five minutes, and then went to join his wife and the ladies for singing.99 Reluctantly, and with a few more glasses of port in their bellies, the other men would arrive soon thereafter. However, by 1860 Albert’s custom had become the norm among aristocratic families, so we can say unequivocally that in this regard the Prince Consort was a fashion leader among the elite. And while Albert may not have imagined himself to be following British middle-class fashion, he was doing precisely what British middle-class families did, and for the very same reasons. Heavy drinking among men was too manly. It was, therefore, uncivilized. But just as William IV gained the ire of many aristocrats for his cut-rate cuisine and English entertainers, so too was Albert resented for imposing his annoying bourgeois habits at court. British aristocratic men “missed the gaming tables and surfeit of wine when they were invited to the Palace,”100 and they missed the chance to be manly by drinking port and telling each other stories about sex, hunting, and politics, even if they had no intention of getting completely intoxicated as their forbears had done. As one royal biographer remarked, Albert’s custom and Victoria’s insistence that it be followed had the effect of “estranging the monarchy from the aloof aristocracy, and creating an image of the Queen more real to the middle classes   Ludington, Politics and the Taste for Wine, pp. 404–83.   D. Duff, Albert and Victoria (London, 1972), p. 238; J. Richardson, Victoria and

98 99

Albert: A Study of a Marriage (London, 1977), p. 100; Weintraub, Albert, pp. 143–4. 100   H. Bolitho, Albert: Prince Consort (rev. edn, London, 1970), p. 56.

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than to the proud, ancient families to whom England had belonged; to whom the rise of the masses, and the rule of a “respectable” monarchy, were slightly repulsive.”101 However, for Albert, eradicating what from his point of view was aristocratic barbarism was more important than soothing inflated egos. Thus, the court conformed more than ever to British “middle-class” habits, even if Albert believed he was propagating Teutonic Kultur rather than following the behavior of the British bourgeoisie. Ultimately then, it was Albert who disconnected wine from its age-old affiliation with martial masculinity, although he was careful not to touch wine’s symbolic link to political legitimacy. Significantly, the court still offered many types of wine, and served a great deal of it. But by de-emphasizing the martial and masculine aspects of monarchy which were reinforced by heavy wine consumption, Albert helped to feminize, or at least neuter the institution, and ultimately make it easier for a queen to rule.102 Not surprisingly, Victoria’s and Albert’s preference for wine also mirrored middle-class taste. Sherry was their wine of choice, although “gentlemanly” claret and “aristocratic” champagne followed close behind. Indeed, in the early years of her reign, Victoria seemed to enjoy claret just as much as sherry; in the first quarter of 1838 her cellar master ordered eight hogsheads and four butts of sherry, and 16 hogsheads of 1834 Château Lafite claret.103 Put another way, she ordered approximately 4,032 bottles of each wine. Luxury claret (specifically Lafite, Latour, La Rose, and Margaux) remained prominent in the royal cellars throughout Victoria’s reign, but as with her predecessors, her cellars contained a startling range of wines. Nevertheless, of the myriad different types of wine to be found in the royal cellars, sherry was the most common and the most commonly consumed throughout the 20-year period in which Victoria and Albert presided together over the British court.104 For instance, a cellar inventory taken at Windsor Castle, St James’s Palace, and Buckingham Palace at the end of 1841 found a total of 111,960 bottles,   Ibid., p. 62.   For a lengthy discussion of the feminization and/or domestication of the monarchy,

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see D. Cannadine, ‘From biography to history: writing the modern British monarchy’, Historical Research, 22 (2004): pp. 289–312; Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual’, pp. 101–64; Cannadine, ‘The Last Hanoverian Sovereign?’, pp. 127–65; Orr, ‘The feminization of the monarchy, 1780–1910’, pp. 76–107. 103   NA, LS 13/298, Board of the Green Cloth, Account of creditors not paid by salary, 1838, ff. 1–3. 104   BL, Add. MS 38372, f. 42, Stock of Wine (Royal Household), 31 Dec. 1841; BL, Add. MS 76683, Summary of Monthly Returns made by the Gentleman of Her Majesty’s Wine Cellar, 1 April–31 Dec. 1856.

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of which sherry and port were dominant. A quarter of the total was so-called “household” sherry and “household” port, but “first-class” sherry, “first-class” port, and top-growth claret were the three most numerous wines available for the queen and her guests. In other words, Victoria, Albert, and their guests drank more expensive and presumably better-quality wines than did members of the royal household; but the prevalence of both “first-class” and “household” sherry and port provided a common denominator between the elite and middle-class members of the court.105 Another inventory tabulated on December 31, 1841 confirms that what was in the cellar corresponded to what was actually consumed at court. During the year 1841, out of a total of 25,910 bottles consumed, the royal household drank 7,450 bottles of “household” sherry and 6,814 bottles of “household” port. Meanwhile, the royal family and their guests consumed 2,565 bottles of sherry, 2,211 bottles of claret, 1,265 bottles of sweet champagne, 812 bottles of port, 546 bottles of dry champagne, and lesser amounts of numerous other wines, spirits, and liqueurs.106 In sum, the most popular wine at the court of the newly wedded queen and prince was, as it had been since the late-eighteenth century, also the most popular wine of the British middle classes. To be sure, middle-class taste in 1841 was almost evenly split between sherry and port, and Spanish and Portuguese wine imports to Britain were essentially even throughout the early years of Victoria’s reign.107 So much were sherry and port considered a pair that specially labeled decanters were often sold together, suggesting that “masculine” port and “feminine” sherry—like man and woman, husband and wife, and Victoria and Albert—were made for each other by a beneficent God.108 That said, it should be stressed that court taste under Victoria and Albert was not completely middle class. Top-growth claret and sparkling champagne were both expensive wines in Britain, and not to be found in most middle-class homes. But Victoria and Albert seemed to have understood that for the sake of their legitimacy, even in an increasingly bourgeois age the court must be socially amphibious, comfortable walking on land with the middle classes, but able to swim where only aristocrats could. Of course, a single snapshot of the royal cellars in 1841 does not show continuity or change over time; however, a comprehensive cellar and consumption inventory for Victoria and Albert’s various residences in 1856 reveals that the queen and prince remained remarkably consistent in their   BL, Add. MS 38372, f. 42, Stock of Wine (Royal Household), 31 Dec. 1841.   BL, Add. MS 38372, ff. 45–6, Amount, in bottles, of wine consumed in 1841. 107   Parliament of the United Kingdom, Parliamentary Report C. 8706, Customs 105 106

Tariffs of the United Kingdom from 1800–1897, pp. 131–57. 108   Francis, Wine Trade, p. 310.

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preferences. During the eight-month period from April 1 to December 31, 1856, the royal cellars disgorged over 18,000 bottles of wine, spirits, and liqueur, approximately 12,000 of which were consumed by the royal household, and 6,000 by the queen and her nearly 11,000 guests. These latter figures indicate that, on average, most people at the queen’s table consumed slightly more than one half-bottle per sitting, or roughly one bottle a day when counting both lunch and dinner. Among the wines for the queen and her guests, “first-class” sherry ranked first in terms of the wines consumed; claret was a close second and sweet champagne came third, the same rankings as in 1841. After these, “first-class” port, Madeira, Malaga, and brandy came next in the overall amount consumed. Among the “household” wines, sherry remained the overwhelming favorite, followed by port and, if “royal” and “household” consumption are combined, we arrive at the following figures in descending order of volume: “household” sherry (5,083 bottles), “first-class” sherry (2,026 bottles), claret (1,968 bottles), sweet champagne (1,627 bottles), and “household” port (1,289 bottles). All other wines and spirits were consumed in lesser amounts.109 Clearly, therefore, port was still popular among the royal household staff; but equally clearly, neither Victoria nor Albert nor their guests drank a great deal of it. “First-class” port ranked seventh in terms of overall popularity in the royal cellars. Albert died in 1861, having exhausted himself in his attempts to civilize the British. His idea for the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 was his greatest success, and his plan for a museum district in Kensington lives on as a testament to his determination to educate a people whom he did not love and who did not love him. In response to Albert’s death, Victoria exempted herself from court duties for nearly 20 years, and spent as much time as possible outside London at Windsor, the Isle of Wight, and Balmoral. Without Albert, Victoria’s court was moribund, and it remained relatively quiet even upon her return to public life in the early 1880s. Nevertheless, by an oversight of accounting, wine continued to be ordered as if Albert were alive, and the court still entertained guests on a regular basis. One result was that when Victoria and Albert’s oldest son, “Bertie,” came to power in 1901 as Edward VII, one of his first acts of house-cleaning was to sell off the excess bottles of wine in the royal cellars. This excess included some 60,000 bottles of sherry.110 Ironically, by the time of the sale, British taste had moved on to (re)embrace claret and other French wines, as well as whiskey, gin, brandy, and newly fashionable American cocktails. The London Daily Mail scoffed at the sale of so much sherry, saying that “Sherry is a neglected drink quite fallen from the fashionable estate from which our forebears held it,” and   BL, Add. MS 76683, Summary of Monthly Returns made by the Gentleman of Her Majesty’s Wine Cellar, 1 April–31 Dec. 1856. 110   H.W. Allen, Sherry and Port (London, 1952), p. 29. 109

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predicted that the auction would generate only £8,000–9,000. In fact, the wine fetched £18,500.111 Sherry may have been out of fashion, but wine that once belonged to Victoria seems to have retained the prestige of a monarch who was revered by millions for the fact that she symbolically represented and held together the vast and mighty British Empire. In death, as it had not been in life without Albert, Victoria’s court was once again fashionable. Conclusion In the period 1760–1861, wine represented the legitimacy and power of the British monarchy, just as it had for centuries prior. But also during this period, the legitimacy of the monarchy was increasingly questioned, especially by members of the vocal middle ranks. One result was that British monarchs had to adapt by defining themselves in ways that were recognizable to their middle-ranking critics. The middle ranks—who developed into the middle classes—were not, as doctrinaire Marxists once insisted, a unified or even coherent group who were united by their relationship to production. However, they did share broadly common values and interests, and they were often united by their consumption habits. It was these middle-class consumption habits that allowed British monarchs to present themselves as representing the “true” political nation—a political nation that by 1832 was largely defined by and for the middle class. And among consumption habits, the taste for wine remained of paramount importance, precisely because competing parties could agree that consuming wine was necessary for claiming and projecting political legitimacy. The evidence available does not permit us to do more than speculate about the precise motives of late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century British monarchs and courtiers as they switched taste from claret to port to sherry, but a simple knowledge of the oenological divisions within the court would have told them that different wines had different social meanings. I have argued that it was this knowledge that pushed monarchs (and no doubt their advisors) in the direction of middle-class taste. As other scholars have shown, George III’s court, and the aristocracy more broadly, were already moving in the direction of middleranking tastes prior to the French Revolution.112 The conservative reaction that occurred in Britain and on the Continent in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat did not halt the fundamental shift in political power from the aristocracy to the middle classes. There was no going back to the Old Order. Even George IV, who   As quoted in Allen, Sherry and Port, p. 29.   See footnote 62.

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admired Louis XIV and dreamed of Bourbon glory in Britain, had to accept aspects of middle-class taste if he was to preserve his legitimacy.113 Consequently, he embraced sherry; but his failure to embrace moderation in drink, food, and other earthly pleasures was in large measure the reason for his unpopularity as a king. William IV and Victoria learned from George IV, adopting both middleclass taste and behavior. What this study of royal taste confirms is that the period 1760–1861 witnessed not only dramatic changes at court, but also a fundamental shift in the institution of the British monarchy; the monarchy became more bourgeois and “effeminate” and less aristocratic and “masculine” as defined by its tastes. That certainly upset some British aristocrats who did not relish the idea of a merely “respectable” monarchy; but existentially, the embourgeoisement and effeminizing of the monarchy was brilliant, if not also lucky for those who wore crowns or tiaras. By using taste to position itself among the broadly defined middle classes and de-emphasizing its role in war at the very time the monarch was being stripped of the last vestiges of political power, the British monarchy as an institution helped to save itself. This is particularly apparent if one compares the British monarchy to its Continental cousins. These monarchies, most notably the Austrian, German, French, and Russian, continued to resist the bourgeois tide and identifying themselves with martial prowess, and did not survive the wars and social upheaval of the period 1870 to 1918. Historically speaking then, wine at the British court was not just for slaking royal thirst and asserting political legitimacy; it was also, consciously or not, for keeping the monarchy intact.

  Orr, ‘The Feminization of the Monarchy 1780–1910’, pp. 79–81.

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Chapter 4

Food at the Russian Court and the Homes of the Imperial Russian Elite, Sixteenth to mid-Nineteenth Centuries David I. Burrow

The production, consumption, and presentation of food have always had cultural and political meanings. In contemporary urban Russia, food choices seem designed to reflect Russia’s entry into European society since the collapse of the Soviet Union and recovery from the economic collapse of the late 1990s. St Petersburg’s Nevskii Prospekt in spring 2008 is lined with trendy sushi bars, a sign of Russia’s renewed openness and the conspicuous consumption of its oil-fueled capitalism. Moscow’s restaurants run the gamut from international chains, Russian imitations of such chains (the rather literally named Moscow “Koffe-Haus”cafes), high-end restaurants striving to outdo each other for Moscow’s billionaires, as well as hundreds of kiosks selling chips, hot dogs, beer, ice cream, and fruit. The mojito is the latest ubiquitously advertised cocktail. And yet, at the conference of movers and shakers at the 12th St Petersburg International Forum, presided over by recently elected Russian Federation President Dmitri Medvedev, the dinner hosted by St Petersburg’s mayor went for Russian traditional: “The menu included three kinds of shashlik, about 10 kinds of cheese, a variety of salads, fruits and vegetables, and seven kinds of    The Soviet Union had a distinct food culture, shaped by shortages, rationing, and the efforts of the Soviet regime to provide institutions for communal dining. See: M. Borrero, ‘Communal Dining and State Cafeterias in Moscow and Petrograd, 1917–1921, in M. Glants and J. Toomre (eds), Food in Russian History and Culture (Bloomington, 1997), pp. 162–76; S. Boym, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia (Cambridge, MA, 1994), chapter 2; S. Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (Oxford, 1999), chapters 2 and 4; E. Osokina, K.S. Transchel and G. Bucher, Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distributions and the Art of Survival in Stalin’s Russia, 1927–1941 (Armonk, 2001); H. Rothstein and R.A. Rothstein, ‘The Beginnings of Soviet Culinary Arts’, in M. Glants and J. Toomre (eds), Food in Russian History and Culture, pp. 177–94.

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ice cream.” No doubt by design, the menu reflected the resurgent nationalism encouraged by the Putin/Medvedev administration. Richard Wortman has suggested that Russian rulers of the Romanov dynasty from Peter the Great (r. 1684–1725) to Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917) presented “scenarios of power,” scenarios intended to demonstrate a ruler-myth, an image of the type of ruler the emperor or empress wished to project and cultivate about him- or herself. Wortman examines architecture, paintings, sculpture, military uniforms, formal court ceremonies, and public presentations of the monarchs (appearances in front of audiences) in order to illustrate the “individual modes of performance of the imperial myth,” the imperial myth being the ruler and the court celebrating its own elevation, sacredness, and the legitimacy of its powerholding. Food and its presentation at court could also be part of these imperial scenarios of power. For example, if the mayoral dinner described above served to Medvedev is considered a scenario, in adhering to what is seen in 2008 as Russian culinary tradition, the scenario suggests that in the midst of international influx and negotiations, the Medvedev regime maintained a core “Russianness.” In addition, the dinner suggested that Russia, and Russian cuisine, belongs on an international level, that it has a “cultural worth” equal to that of Russia’s international economic partners. Rulers and the artists, architects, military leaders, and court organizers under their direct command did not exclusively enact scenarios of power. The imperial court and the Russian nobility—the primary but not exclusive audience for the displays of the scenarios of power—were integral parts of the scenario apparatus. The Russian nobility maintained a close association with state power. In the medieval period, the court coalesced around the Riurikid dynasty in Moscow that built the Russian state (Muscovy) out of the city of Moscow, beginning in the fourteenth century. Ranks of the nobles consisted of landowning nobility (some descended from princely families from once-independent Slavic cities   M. Delany and N. Popova, ‘A Forum of Drinks, Magic and a Flying Pig’, The Moscow Times ( June 9, 2008): p. 2. Shashlik is grilled or spit-roasted meat, brought to Russia during the nineteenth-century conquest of Georgia and the Caucasus, and now considered as Russian as curry is British. Catriona Kelly notes that Russian cookbooks of the nineteenth century “often took a rather elastic view, in practice, as to what might be considered ‘Russian’ food.” Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin (Oxford, 2001), p. 143.    R. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, from Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I (2 vols, Princeton, 1995), vol. 1. I hope to enhance the utility of Wortman’s concept in applying it to focus on food at court.    Ibid., p. 6.    The concept of cultural worth here comes from A.K. Smith, Recipes for Russia: Food and Nationhood under the Tsars (DeKalb, 2008), p. 73. 

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conquered or incorporated by Muscovy) as well as military servitors, many of whom were given un-hereditable landed estates in exchange for service. Russian Orthodoxy constituted a binding identity for the Russian court and service nobility, organized into competitive clan groups. After the collapse of Muscovy during the Time of Troubles (1598–1613), the Romanov dynasty was placed on the throne, and rebuilt the empire. The Romanov autocracy was structured in such a way that the autocrat ruled both over and with members of the nobility, who received titles and rank from state service and were landowners, deriving income from the serfs bound to the land of the estates; the emperor also ruled through an expanding imperial bureaucracy. Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (r. 1645–1676), the state legally enforced serfdom, binding peasants to the land and placing them under the legal control of the state or their noble landlords. Serfdom remained the basis of the state’s economy until 1861.10 Peter the Great legally harnessed the nobility for service, creating the Table of Ranks for civil and military service, establishing a new basis for court ranks and noble hierarchy. Peter also, both through legislation and practice, reshaped the urban nobility (explored more extensively in the Peter section below). After Emperor Peter III’s release of the nobility from mandatory state service in 1762, members of the nobility were free to vegetate in the glush (the “back of beyond,” the provinces), although many often visited relatives in Moscow and St Petersburg during the social season, with urban-dwelling nobles visiting the countryside in summer.11   N. Shields Kollmann, Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1347–1547 (Stanford, 1987). For kin and clan groups, see V. Kivelson, Autocracy in the Provinces: The Muscovite Gentry and Political Culture in the Seventeenth Century (Stanford, 1996).    C.S.L. Dunning, Russia’s First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty, (University Park, PA, 2001).    Autocracy is the distinctive form of Russian imperial government, a type of political absolutism, of absolute monarchy, in which the autocrat (also known by the titles emperor and tsar) rules with no constraints on his or her authority. All of the texts in the footnotes for this section discuss and define autocracy and its development.    R. Crummey, Aristocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Elite in Russia, 1613–1689 (Princeton, 1983); J.P. Le Donne, Absolutism and Ruling Class: The Formation of the Russian Political Order, 1700–1825 (Oxford, 1991); B. Meehan-Waters, Autocracy and Aristocracy: The Russian Service Elite of 1730 (Newark, 1983); E. Kimerling Wirtschafter, Social Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1997). 10   J. Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 1961); D. Moon, The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930: The World the Peasants Made (New York, 1999). 11   R.E. Jones, The Emancipation of the Russian Nobility, 1762–1785 (Princeton, 1973). 

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Catherine the Great’s reign (1762–1795), often called the “Golden Age of the Nobility,” saw Catherine, despite her Enlightenment aspirations, rewarding noble service with land and extending serfdom, while codifying the privileges of the nobility in 1785 (in the Charter to the Nobility).12 Service to the empire was a metric for those who wished to buy into state power and serve at court; estates that had once been given for service were now heritable, making noble landowners intermediaries between the enserfed population and the state.13 A hallmark of the “Golden Age” was the divergence of the social conditions of the high urban nobility from the majority of the rest of the empire’s population; nobles spoke French, aspired to follow European fashions, and became visibly separate from the majority population.14 The nobility itself divided into different strata, layers that were sometimes brought into being only by the perception of the nobility itself; formal, legal divisions by service rank were complicated by metrics of “supposed distinction or antiquity,” engendered by geographic origin, documented or believed time of entry into service, and of course wealth.15 Court life remained the focus of aspiring nobles; patterns of social life and sociability practices were not dictated by the autocracy, but represented a compromise between the social practices desired by the nobility and the social control desired by the autocracy. The Francophile orientation of Russian court culture changed under Alexander I (r. 1801–1825) as a consequence of the wars against Napoleon and the growth of a Russian reading public (largely confined through the eighteenth century to the upper Russian social groups) that allowed for the new expressions of Russian nationalism and a new consciousness of Russian identity.16 The Decembrist rebellion of 1825, led by noble members of the military, deeply affected the new Emperor Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855); as a consequence, he established a surveillance state and crafted a formal culture of official patriotism.17 Nicholas’s rigid adherence to duty and effort to subordinate the elite functioned, contrary to his intent, to separate elite from autocrat. The overall pattern, however, is one where changes in elite social and court life,   I. de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven, 1981), pp. 79–89 and 292–307. 13   Blum, Lord and Peasant, pp. 345–66; Le Donne, Absolutism and Ruling Class, pp. 3–21. 14   H. Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge, MA, 1960). 15   Kelly, Refining Russia, pp. 91–2. 16   A. Martin, Reformers, Romantics, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I (DeKalb, 1997). 17   N. Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969). 12

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the patterns of food service and consumption of the court and the noble elite, travel together; the social practices of the elite, the high nobility, supported, surrounded, and constituted the audience for imperial culinary scenarios of power. The term “elite” describes those who served directly at court and depended on imperial service, as well as the members of the nobility who were related to court nobles, attended court functions, and participated in the social practices of court and noble culture. In addition, “elite” describes well the access to foods and means of food service available to this segment of the imperial population. The diet of the vast majority of Russia’s population was less varied, less copious, and much simpler.18 Elite status conferred access to court and to the scenarios. My use of the term elite follows other scholars in categorizing the notoriously complex patterns of the imperial nobility.19 In her analysis of the second half of the nineteenth century, Recipes for Russia, Allison K. Smith employs the term “elite Russians,” meaning for her analytical purposes, “those literate Russians who contributed to and read Russia’s growing print media: not simply the richest of nobles, but the broader group of middling nobles, bureaucrats, even some unusually modern merchants.”20 Richard Wortman also employs the term elite: “A multinational imperial elite comprised noblemen [from all over the empire] […] They shared a common bond of service with the emperor and a common domination of a subject population.”21 Members of the court, and those members of the high nobility at court or with access to the court and the means to join in court culture, constitute the elite in my analysis. Surveying patterns of food service at court and among the elite of the Russian nobility to the middle of the nineteenth century, ending with the reign of Nicholas I, will serve to acquaint those unfamiliar with the situation in Russia 18   On peasant diet, see R.E.F. Smith and D. Christian, Bread and salt: A social and economic history of food and drink in Russia (Cambridge, 1984); Smith, Recipes, pp. 13–98; Moon, Russian Peasantry, pp. 282–324. 19   A main purpose of Wirtschafter, Social Identity, is to elucidate these complexities. Catriona Kelly argues the Russian nobility “was amorphous, including not only aristocrats in the strict sense, those distinguished by wealth (both in terms of capital and in terms of serf ownership), rank, and closeness to the Russian court through service, shared tastes, and occupation, but also a wide range of humbler figures whose modes of existence were not always easily distinguishable from those of educated members of the merchant classes.” Kelly, Refining Russia, p. 153. 20   Smith, Recipes, p. 9. 21   R. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy from Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II (abridged one-volume edn, Princeton, 2006), p. 2. Wortman’s use of the term draws from Max Weber and Ernst Gellner.

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during these centuries.22 In terms of food service at court, these centuries are periodized into four eras. In the medieval and early modern periods, court food service followed a host-controlled feast model, in which the ruler served as the central figure of the meal. Elite culture followed a similar pattern. In the early eighteenth century, Peter the Great altered court service, creating assemblies deliberately void of the formality and rules for dining proscribed by Russian Orthodoxy and Muscovite tradition; elite culture followed suit. By the reign of Catherine the Great in the second half of the eighteenth century, elites followed Western European patterns, and had also created the sociable practice of the “open table”. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a Russian style of service developed, one subsequently exported to Western Europe. Russian rulers had to find new ways to reassert their primacy, which Nicholas I strove to do (although not with the outcome he would have desired). Food service at court and among the elite illustrates for us the nature of Russian autocracy and its permeation into all areas of elite life, and also the construction of autocracy in collaboration with the elite. Medieval and Early Modern Russia Patterns of food service and consumption among the elite prior to the “Petrine Revolution” at the beginning of the eighteenth century are less well known to us than we would like.23 Extant sources emphasize the exceptional rather than the everyday. Two conceptions dominate: the distributive role of the ruler and norms established by Russian Orthodoxy. Orthodox rules and proscriptions deemed certain animals as unclean, and forbade their consumption; these included horses, serpents, and animals considered to be vermin, including squirrel and beaver.24 The Orthodox Church mandated periods of fasting during which believers were to abjure meat. “On these fast days it was forbidden to eat any   After the death of Nicholas I, his son, Alexander II (r. 1855–1881), had the imperial bureaucracy launch the “Great Reforms” that included the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. The social, administrative, and economic changes brought by the Great Reforms altered relations between court and noble elite to such an extent that the second half of the nineteenth century presents a different context. W. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1990); F.W. Wcislo, Reforming Rural Russia: State, Local Society, and National Politics, 1855–1914 (Princeton, 1990). 23   H.G. Lunt, ‘Food in the Rus’ Primary Chronicle’, in Food in Russian History and Culture, p. 15. 24   Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, pp. 12–13. 22

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meat or meat products, including eggs, milk, and cheese.”25 Major fast periods included the seven weeks prior to Easter, 50 days after Easter, a mid-August fast prior to the Assumption of the Virgin, and the period prior to Christmas. Festival days provided for special diets. Major holidays included Easter, Butter Week (better known in the West as Carnival or Mardi Gras), and Christmas. Holidays on the Orthodox calendar became associated with particular foods: paskha and kulich for Easter, and blini for Butter Week.26 The Church waged a constant battle with the population in attempting to get them to give up alcohol during these periods, as well as during feasts themselves.27 Many of the occasions described in medieval texts center on feasts. “The feast was ‘the knot bringing together all the threads of the emergent sociality of ancient times’.”28 A role of the ruler in medieval Rus’, as in European states, was to provide food and drink for his retainers: “Volodimer [Svyatoslavich “the Great,” r. 978–1015; he earned his epithet by accepting Christianity], as a benevolent Christian prince, makes pit’e i iaden’e, drink and food, available for everyone at his court [in the year] (996).”29 Volodomir enhances his authority through both the granting and withdrawal of food, and, in at least one case reported by the Primary Chronicle, by permitting silver spoons at service instead of the wooden spoons initially given out.30 Everyday medieval elite life and tsarist court ceremonial interacted with each other; the extent to which one could be said to have generated the other is unclear.31 Regardless of the question of origin, patterns of food service consistently adhered to a feast/banquet model in which the host was supposed to serve guests according to their rank and to play an active role in the service of food; food was brought out and served sequentially. Sequential service would remain the dominant practice among the elite until the eighteenth century, when it was supplanted, only to be reintroduced in the nineteenth century as service à la russe, in which diners were served individually. In the medieval era, the main meal of the day was obed, or dinner, served mid-afternoon, and the last meal of the day was supper. This model persisted among the elites until the nineteenth century.32 The major meals in wealthy 25   J. Toomre, ‘Introduction’, in Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets’: A Gift to Young Housewives, trans., introd., and ann. J. Toomre (Bloomington, 1992), p. 13. 26   Paskha is a flavored cheese, kulich bread with raisins and almonds, and blini are pancakes similar to crepes. 27   Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, p. 84. 28   Ibid., p. 81. 29   Lunt, ‘Food in the Rus’, p. 23. 30   Ibid., pp. 24–5. 31   Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, p. 81. 32   Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, p. 23.

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noble households featured food set out all at once, with tables spread around an otherwise largely empty main room; servants brought portions of food to particular tables, from a sideboard or sideboards installed along the wall. This pattern for food service is set out in the manual for householders known as the Domostroi (which literally means “house order”). The Domostroi was written in the middle of the sixteenth century, during the early part of the reign of Ivan “the Terrible” (r. 1533–84) and is attributed to the monk Sylvester, although its exact authorship is unclear.33 The Domostroi provides a wealth of information on the varieties and types of food available to and consumed by wealthy householders in the 1550s. It also gives specific instructions to the host over how to preside at a dinner; these instructions make it clear the host supervises the entire affair. It is didactic and proscriptive, and assumes that its readers understand the normal codes of behavior. The host directs food to be sent to other tables and, through his servants, controls the pace of the meal: “it is up to the master of the house or his representatives to offer someone food or drink or to send something to another’s table according to the recipient’s worth or rank or the quality of his counsel.”34 Guests were admonished not to take food from the sideboard for themselves.35 Hierarchy was always to be respected: “Whenever there are guests to feed—merchants or foreigners, invited guests or those sent by God, rich or poor, priests or monks—the master and mistress of the house should be thoughtful and should give each person the honor due to one of that rank and dignity.”36 The Domostroi depicts a patriarchal world, where the head of household/husband/host was “absolute ruler in the kingdom of the household.”37 Injunctions to behave well at table, to eat calmly and decorously, are less specific in the Domostroi than rules for polite eating from thirteenth- through eighteenth-century France and Germany presented by Norbert Elias in The Civilizing Process; the Domostroi’s exhortations do not seem to have served the distinguishing and civilizing function as the European rules.38 Elias, for example,   For a concise discussion of this subject, see The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible, ed. and trans. C. Johnston Pouncy (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 37–45. V.V. Kolesov describes the Domostroi as a “medieval domestic-conduct book [that] served as a guide for the ideal life.” V.V. Kolesov, ‘The Domostroi as a Work of Medieval Culture’, Russian Studies in History, 40 (2001): pp. 6–74, quote on p. 19. 34   The Domostroi, pp. 76 and 83. Representative in this context means servant. 35   Ibid., p. 83. 36   Ibid., p. 84. 37   Kelly, Refining Russia, p. 56. 38   N. Elias, The Civilizing Process (Oxford, 2000), pp. 72–85. Catriona Kelly notes the general “paucity of detailed advice on etiquette and gesture—how to hold one’s fork, how 33

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quotes a thirteenth-century text: “157 It is not decent to poke your fingers into your ears or eyes, as some people do, or to pick your nose while eating. These three habits are bad.”39 In The Book of Nurture and School of Good Manners: “69 Do not be noisy at table, as some people are. Remember, my friends, that nothing is so ill-mannered.”40 A parallel injunction from the Domostroi reads, “If those present eat gratefully, in silence or while engaged in devout conversation, the angels will stand by invisibly and write down the diners’ good deeds.”41 This brief comparison suggests the dominance of Orthodox religious conceptions in dining behavior, and the brevity of the advice illustrates that in medieval Russian “culture […] bodily restraint was primarily a marker of social prestige, required above all in the protagonists of ritual [such as the] Grand Prince of Muscovy [who] directed the apportionment of food, rather than sating himself at the feast”;42 it suggests as well the comparative underdevelopment of literacy among the Russian elite in the mid-sixteenth century. The proscriptive rules of the Domostroi acknowledge two areas requiring some negotiation. The first of these was the institution of terem (female seclusion) among the elite, which meant that the women of a noble household ate separately from the male members.43 The second was balancing provisions for guests invited in advance while maintaining places for the arrival of unexpected guests (“those sent by God” in the quotation above, unexpected guests being supported by biblical injunction). Hosts were enjoined to be polite in turning away unwanted guests who overwhelmed the amount of food prepared, but uninvited guests who did not overtax the host’s resources were presumably to be accommodated.44 Conversations during meals were supposed to be decorous and calm (as the quote in the preceding paragraph indicated). The social hierarchy and ideals of correct Orthodox behavior were all to be reproduced during the sociable occasion represented by a meal.45 In sum, proscriptive literature illustrates to greet others, how to make conversation, and so on” in conduct books until later in the eighteenth century. Kelly, Refining Russia, p. 23. 39   Ibid., p. 71. 40   Ibid., p. 69. 41   The Domostroi, p. 77. 42   Kelly, Refining Russia, p. xxvi. Richard Chancellor’s account of Tsar and Grand Prince Ivan the Terrible is noted below. 43   Ibid., p. 85, states “the mistress of the house should entertain her women friends of good standing, and any female guests who happen to visit her, in the [same] manner described.” On terem, see N. Shields Kollmann, ‘The Seclusion of Elite Muscovite Women’, Russian History, 10/2 (1983): pp. 170–87. 44   The Domostroi, p. 85. 45   For example, The Domostroi quotes Romans 12: 20 on shaming your enemies by sheltering and feeding them. The Domostroi, p. 137.

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how Russian Orthodoxy provided the model for norms of behavior and reflects status hierarchy in meal service among the elite during the sixteenth century. Alison Smith, following S.A. Kozlov, defines these practices as constituting the “tradition” increasingly challenged and problematized by increased contact with other European states and their practices in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.46 The practices described in the Domostroi accord with accounts of meals served at court during the 1550s. Richard Chancellor, sent to Muscovy on a commercial mission, described a dinner given by Ivan the Terrible in 1553. The tsar sat at “a mightie Cupboorde” covered with boards “in the middes of the roome.” Those who were in favor with the tsar sat on the same bench as the emperor, although not too near him (proximity to the tsar was and would remain a sign of favor). The meal commenced when “the Emperour himselfe, according to an ancient custome of the kings of Muscovy, doth first bestow a peece of bread upon every one of his ghests with a loud pronunciation of his title, and honour.” The individual meat items (beginning with “a young Swanne in a golden platter”) were brought to the tsar, then to a carver, and then to the guests.47 Similar standards and practices were maintained during the tumultuous years of the Time of Troubles that followed the death of Ivan and lasted through the installation of the Romanov dynasty in 1613. French captain Jacques Margeret, in Russian service as a mercenary from 1600 to 1606, described an ambassador’s reception and the tsar’s meals circa 1600, during the reign of Boris Godunov, as host-directed meals similar to those of a half-century earlier. Margeret observed that the number of servants reflected the prestige of the guests. “These two or three hundred gentlemen [serving the meals], who are increased in number according to the number of invited guests, are ordered to bring the meat dishes before the emperor and to hold them until he asks for such and such.”48 On the table prior to the meat dishes being served are “only bread, salt, vinegar, and pepper; no plates or napkins.” The emperor sends a “morsel of bread” to favored guests, and each stands and hails the tsar. “Then the meat comes. The emperor sends to each one of the principal guests a plate full of meat. After that, all the tables are furnished with meat in great abundance.”49 It is unclear from   Smith, Recipes, pp. 8–9. Kelly discusses this theme as well.   Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, pp. 113–15, quotations are from p. 113. For

46 47

an additional description see R. Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations (12 vols, Glasgow, 1903), vol. 1, pp. 286–7. 48   The Russian Empire and Grand Duchy of Muscovy: A 17th-Century French Account by Jacques Margeret, ed. and trans. C.S.L. Dunning (Pittsburgh, 1983), p. 55. 49   Ibid., p. 56.

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Margeret’s account whether the tsar subsequently sends food thereafter only to the principal guests, or to everyone present at the banquet. Regardless, Margeret goes on to describe four rounds of drinks sent from tsar to guests (wine, mead, claret, honey mead) followed by a second gift of meat: “After [the honey mead] the emperor sends to everyone individually a plate of meat, which each sends to his home. This presentation is made repeating [a hail to the tsar]. The emperor tastes a little of these meats before sending them to those whom he favors most.” Margeret mentions that the emperor sends a daily gift of meat, a podacha, to “invited guest [and] each noble and to all those that he favors.”50 Ceremonial dinners could also be sent to ambassadors “if the emperor is not disposed to feast an ambassador after he has had his audience.”51 The feast, carried to the ambassador’s residence by a long train of servants, included servitors to keep the ambassador company as he dined, tableware, the servants themselves, multiple courses, wines, and silver plate—gold plate if the ambassador is specially favored (Volodimir had made a similar gesture centuries earlier). One of the rulers who took the throne during the Time of Troubles is known as Tsar Dmitrii (his exact identity is unknown and disputed).52 Dmitrii violated Orthodox norms: among his peculiarities were that he “‘kept a joyful table’ and dispensed with some of the seemingly endless religious rituals associated with dining at court,” a violation of the ethos of “bodily restraint” mentioned earlier. “He did not fast zealously and occasionally ate food deemed ‘unclean’ by the Russian Orthodox Church. He also did not rest after dinner, as was customary. Instead, he often wandered around the Kremlin or Moscow alone” or with a few guards.53 The Orthodox churchmen who wrote these descriptions exaggerated Dmitrii’s practices as a means of denigrating him,54 but it is significant they used food service and the expected behavior at mealtimes as a way to criticize a figure of whom they disapproved.

  Ibid. For more on the podacha, see below.   Ibid., p. 57. 52   C.S.L. Dunning, ‘Who Was Tsar Dmitrii?’, Slavic Review, 60/4 (2001): pp. 705–29. 53   Ibid., pp. 728–9; Dunning, Russia’s First Civil War, pp. 204 and 206. Post-dinner 50 51

walks became normal for the nobility in later centuries, an indication of how social practices change. Dunning does not specify the type of “unclean” food; presumably it means foods proscribed during Orthodox fasts. 54   Here the authors followed in the footsteps of the monks who wrote the Primary Chronicle. For examples from the Primary Chronicle, see Lunt, ‘Food in the Rus’, p. 25. On the campaign of denigration of Dmitrii by Orthodox Church figures, see Dunning, Russia’s First Civil War, pp. 201–2.

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A host-directed dinner noted for its abundance rather than the quality of the food55 continued during the seventeenth century under the reigns of the first Romanovs. Adam Olearius, who accompanied the ambassador of the court of Holstein and was in Russia during the 1630s, and again in 1643, noted both self-interest and sumptuousness in the suppers served by members of the noble elite: they “sometimes arrange banquets, at which they demonstrate their grandeur by the variety of food and drink served.” Olearius saw self-interest in such feasts: “However, when the magnates have feasts and invite people beneath them in rank, it is certain that they are seeking something other than their good company. Their largess serves as a baited hook, with which they gain more than they expend. For, according to their custom, guests are supposed to bring the host valuable gifts.”56 Contrary to Olearius’s perception, the giving of gifts by the host, a podacha, reflective of patron–client relationships, was more common. Gifting as part of a banquet in the mid-seventeenth century was practiced by the highest in social status as a reflection of their status. These were the same persons who practiced female seclusion, and Olearius describes as well the existence of terem in his visits to elite Russian households. When he dined with Count Lev Shliakhovskii in 1643, Olearius was invited out of the main room, where the count informed him that, “the greatest honor and favor anyone can be given in Russia is for the mistress of the house to come out and render homage to the guest as to the master.”57 The reluctant Olearius had to kiss Shliakhovskii’s wife as a sign of respect, although Olearius and other observers noted that the more common practice was for the wife to appear and serve vodka to the guests after dining. In sum, the medieval model of a host-directed banquet, governed by norms established by Russian Orthodoxy and centered on a redistributive patron–client relationship, remained a major food service practice at court, one replicated by the seventeenth century in the homes of the elite. The Reign of Peter the Great Peter the Great (r. 1684–1725) brought about a revolution at court and among the Russian imperial elite in both sociability and food service. Peter reorganized the life of Russia’s court out of his desire to “Europeanize” the Russian nobility, 55   Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, p. 28. Numerous sources mention that Russian court banquets emphasized “abundance” rather than quality. 56   The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia, ed. and trans. S.H. Baron (Stanford, 1967), p. 158. 57   Ibid.

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harness them for service, and increase consumption of luxury goods as a stimulus to the economy.58 Peter’s introduction of Assemblies to reshape noble sociability revolutionized the behavior of elites at court, and their habits at table. Peter’s changes also in effect began the oft-discussed split between a “Westernized” court elite/nobility and the masses of Russia, a diversion that remained in patterns of food consumption as well as the types of foods consumed.59 Peter’s personal social and dining practices at court varied from Orthodox norms in the decades prior to the formal creation of Assemblies in November 1718 (although they were never wholly abandoned, as the Easter podacha example below notes). Peter disliked intensely what he perceived as the regulated formality of early modern Russian elite culture, and he was notorious for mocking these conventions60 as well as following (for the time) informal habits. For example, General Patrick Gordon, a Scottish soldier in Russian service since 1661, notes in his diary that on January 2, 1691, without prompting or warning, Peter ordered Gordon to host the court the next day. Gordon recounted the day after that, “The czar came about [10 am], and immediately sat down to table. He was accompanied by 85 persons of distinction, with about a hundred servants. They were all very merry, both at dinner and at supper, and spent the night as if in camp.”61 Peter, however, could not entirely force his likes upon his population, and Petrine court culture remained an amalgam of old and new habits. One of Peter’s major efforts to reshape elite social life was his creation by legislation of Assemblies on November 26, 1718. Peter’s Assembly legislation took the term “assembly” from the French language, and the Assemblies were intended for entertainment and conversation, both social and serious. The host was enjoined to provide food and a place to eat for the guests, but not to manage food service formally. Frederick von Bergholz, kammerjunker (chamberlain) to Duke Karl Frederick of Holstein-Guttorp during the last years of Peter’s reign, wrote that one of the rules for an Assembly was that “the host is not obligated, nor would he dare, to compel the guests to eat and drink, but he is only able to say, that he was provided refreshments, and after that he is left to   L. Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven, 1998), pp. 267–9.   For examples, see Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, p. 20; Smith, Recipes, pp. 72–5;

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A. von Haxthausen, Studies on the Interior of Russia, ed. and introd. S.F. Starr, trans. E.L.M. Schmidt (Chicago, 1972), pp. 123 and 228. 60   Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great, pp. 249–56 and pp. 375–8. The most notorious example of Peter’s mockery was the All-Mad, All-Jesting, All-Drunken Assembly; this collection of Peter’s cronies and court lackeys parodied both court and religious ritual to satisfy Peter’s sense of humor. 61   P. Gordon, Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries A.D. 1635–A.D. 1699 (Aberdeen 1859), p. 173.

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complete freedom.”62 Bergholz mentions alcohol, coffee, tea, sweets, pastry, and a separate table set out buffet-style with cold dishes.63 An Assembly could encompass a formal banquet, but was not supposed to; in fact, the Assemblies were supposed to begin at five and end at 10, between the then-traditional hours for dinner and supper.64 The layout of the food, on sideboards, remained similar to the geography of presentation of the pre-Petrine period, but the ethos was conspicuously different. Protocols for inviting guests were set out, although guests could be invited spontaneously as well. Peter’s “hostless” Assemblies were a distinct contrast to the prior norm, and helped establish new customs; practices had been changing among the elite and at court into less formal and strict occasions prior to the legal mandate set out by Peter. The Assemblies also functioned to end the separation of the sexes reflected in terem, given that mixed-gender sociable mingling was one of Peter’s intentions. Peter did not, however, entirely dispense with traditional feasts and customs. For example, at a traditional Easter dinner, elaborate candies were created. “At the end of these feasts, guests were given additional confectionary to bring home, the amount determined by each person’s rank and the degree of his favor before the Tsar. This podacha or presentation marked one’s status at court and was a ritualized aspect of Russian hospitality.”65 Darra Goldstein quotes the Austrian diplomat Johann-Georg Korb with an example of how food service was employed as a sign of favor by the ruler: “A Czar’s entertainment was given to the representatives of Poland and Denmark. The Pole got twenty-five dishes, the Dane only twenty-two, and both had six gallons of drinkables of various kinds. It seems the ministry wanted to cut short the controversy about prerogative which the Dane had moved against the Pole.” Korb noted as well how, as a sign of favor, a representative of Brandenburg was given a greater quantity than both the Polish and Danish representatives.66

  F.W. von Bergholz, Dnevnik Kamer-iunkera F.V. Berkhgoltsa 1721–1725, trans. I.F. Ammona (4 vols, Moscow, 1902–1903), vol. 2, p. 38 (entry for January 25, 1722). 63   Bergholz, Dnevnik, vol. 3, p. 10 (entry for January 17, 1723). On at least one occasion the hosts placed the buffet in the same room as the dancers. Bergholz, Dnevnik, vol. 2, p. 95 (entry for March 6, 1722). 64   Bergholz mentions going to one of his first Assemblies after dinner. Bergholz, Dnevnik, vol. 2, p. 69. 65   Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, p. 117. D. Goldstein, ‘Gastronomic Reforms under Peter the Great’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 48/4 (2000): p. 484. 66   Goldstein, ‘Gastronomic Reforms under Peter the Great’, p. 484. Her source is J.-G. Korb, Diary of an Austrian Secretary of Legation at the Court of Peter the Great, trans. and ed. Count MacDonnell (London, 1863; reprint London, 1968), vol. 1, pp. 171–2 and p. 240. 62

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Court and Elite from 1725 to 1825 Practices of the Petrine and post-Petrine Russian nobility diversified. The “open table” was an important new dining custom that was adopted. The “open table” combined the centrality of a meal from pre-Petrine practice with an even less formal sociability than that seen in Peter’s Assemblies. The “openness” of the table implied an extension beyond family, and also—to a degree—beyond social rank. Alexander Menshikov, Peter’s favorite, may have initiated the open table, referring to a meal where any guest who arrived would be fed.67 Belying its egalitarian and informal nature, the “open table” could also be in effect a new feast: a means of highlighting hierarchy and wealth by providing a means of ostentatious display, and highlighting the ability of the host to dispense with rank by inviting guests of many ranks, thus reinforcing the host’s own status. Whatever its precise meaning, by the late eighteenth century and the reign of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1795), the “open table” was a constituent practice among the elite; the later eighteenth century also saw a shift to a new model of food service and display. By the late eighteenth century, dinner among the elite in Russia had shifted its service practice to a series of courses in the French service style. Joyce Toomre describes such service as a “static display of dishes arranged on the table in an artful pattern. This new mode of serving became known as service à la française.”68 The French form of service dated in European history from the seventeenth century, focused on three courses, and required a highly organized staff and kitchen. Service was no longer strictly sequential. Whole roasts and other dishes were placed on the table, and then cleared in their entirety, giving way to a new course and a new arrangement. The first two courses consisted of a variety of meat, fish, poultry, and vegetable dishes, and the third dessert and fruits. Diners ate what was near enough to reach; the dishes were not designed or intended for passing. The playwright Denis Fonvizin, in Paris in the late 1770s, thought French service reflected “an absence of spontaneity in hospitality: meals were served without anyone’s bothering to circulate the plates, so the short-sighted Fonvizin, who could not see what was on offer at the far side of the table, was deprived of delicacies.”69 Although both service à la française and the “open table” became widespread during her reign, Catherine herself did little to spur either trend; indeed,   Goldstein, ‘Gastronomic Reforms under Peter the Great’, p. 500. Her evidence that Menshikov initiated the practice of the “open table” is indirect. 68   Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, p. 28. 69   Kelly, Refining Russia, p. 144. 67

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Catherine was largely indifferent to the quality of food served her.70 Catherine rarely ate supper.71 Her inclinations tended toward avoiding excess. Among the “Social rules of the Hermitage” that Catherine posted was rule number nine: “Eat slowly and with appetite: drink with moderation, that each may walk steadily as he goes out.”72 Catherine, as Peter the Great had been, was happy to avoid protocol when possible, but recognized the necessity of keeping up appearances. Catherine wrote to her lover Grigory Potemkin in 1774, “My dear, if you desire to have some meat, then know that everything is now ready in the baths. But by no means take food to your quarters from there, or then everyone will know that food is being prepared in the baths.”73 Catherine’s disinclination to set standards for elite dining probably encouraged the elite to branch out on their own. One such branching was the sociable practice of the “open table.” N.N. Mordvinova, the daughter of Admiral N.S. Mordvinov, describes the open table at her family’s residence in Nikolaev, in south-western Ukraine, in 1794: “At my father’s there was always an open table (otkrytye stol); in addition to all our family, many officers, and soldiers under their chiefs, often came to dine without a specific invitation, so that sometimes at table we had nearly 30 or 40 persons. The evenings were full of pleasant and animated socializing […].”74 Mordvinov’s open table combined moral, practical, and professional motivations. Some officers were present for career-related socializing, and because of the necessity of billeting and feeding troops (the “soldiers under their chiefs”). Mordvinov’s sensibilities inclined him to improve his officers’ morals. Soldiers, officers, and women of the town and Mordvinov family mixed in an effort “to further the ‘softening and amelioration of their manners.’”75 Mordvinova implies her father maintained the open table because of its sociable and moral value; she describes her father as solid and generous, neither a spendthrift nor a “lover of foppishness (shchegolyat)”—a term implying the mindless following of current

  G. Munro, ‘Food in Catherinian St. Petersburg’, in M. Glants and J. Toomre (eds), Food in Russian History and Culture, p. 33. 71   De Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great, p. 370. 72   The Marquis de Custine, Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia (New York, 1843; reprint New York, 1990), p. 316. 73   Letter, Catherine to Potemkin, February 27, 1774, in: Love and Conquest: Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Prince Gregory Potemkin, ed. and trans. D. Smith (DeKalb, 2005), p. 19. 74   N.N. Mordvinova, ‘Zapiski grafini N.N. Mordvinovoi’, Russki arkhiv, 1 (1883): p. 157. 75   D. Smith, Working the Rough Stone: Freemasonry and Society in Eighteenth-Century Russia (DeKalb, 1999), p. 82. 70

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trends. Such a defense of her father and his motivations was important, because by the reign of Catherine the “open table” was already the subject of criticism. Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov in his tract On the Corruption of Morals in Russia, written in 1786–1787, vociferously criticized the institution and ubiquity of the “open table.” Shcherbatov used the “open table” as a metric for the opulence and “magnificence” of the lives of the Russian nobility, which Shcherbatov saw as sliding further into degeneracy as luxury increased.76 The “open table” itself was not inherently corrupting—indeed, Shcherbatov connected its inception with what he saw as positive national character traits—but the unrestrained rule by a (female) monarch had overwhelmed the inherently weak checks on restrained behavior present in human nature. For Shcherbatov, criticism of what might be called in modern terms “conspicuous consumption” fit into a framework from European discourse on luxury and corruption. Shcherbatov placed the consumption habits of the Russian elite into a dialogue with European habits, a dialogue that would only increase in the nineteenth century, as the effort to define “Russianness” in terms of food (as well as many other categories) increased.77 Some European observers agreed with Shcherbatov’s equation of the “open table” with opulence and excess rather than a prerogative of rank, or as a way to get around it. Robert Lyall, visiting the estate of General Nashchokin in the 1820s, commented that: “So strong is the passion for entertaining company among the Russian nobles, that were it possible to find the means of supporting it, and to obtain a succession of guests, every day would be spent as they spend Sunday; and indeed some of the richer individuals keep open table throughout the year.”78 Nashchokin’s Sundays involved invitations sent to nobles within a reasonable drive from his estate; after church services, the succession of meals included lunch, dinner at 3:00, tea at 6:00, and supper at midnight. By the period Lyall describes, the early part of the nineteenth century, elite dining was undergoing another period of transition. By the reign of Alexander I (1801–1825) service à la russe became fashionable, supplanting French service. In “Russian service,” servants carved meats and prepared individual servings for each diner, and cleared plates in between courses, providing appropriate tableware and cutlery for each course.79 Service was once again sequential. Service à la russe was thereafter introduced to Western Europe: “In 1810 the Russian 76   M.M. Shcherbatov, On the Corruption of Morals in Russia, ed. and trans. A. Lentin (London, 1969). This version contains the Russian text and Lentin’s translation. “Magnificence” is Lentin’s translation of the term “velikolepie.” 77   See Smith, Recipes, particularly chapter 6. 78   P. Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History (New Haven, 1995), p. 144. 79   Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, pp. 27–31.

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ambassador to France turned the cultural tables, as it were, by introducing Parisians to dinners served in the Russian style.”80 By the 1870s and the 1880s “Russian-style service” had become the norm in Europe.81 The transition away from French service occurred in part as a result of practicality (leaving courses on the table during long Russian winters in ill-heated houses diminished the quality of the food) coupled with the expansion of Russian nationalism and patriotism during the wars against Napoleon (fought intermittently and in varying intensity from 1798 to 1807, and culminating in Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia).82 Joyce Toomre’s study of late nineteenth-century menus indicates that meals in the early nineteenth century became more formal than they had been during the Catherinian “open table” period, at least as menus are reflected in the proscriptive literature.83 Elena Molokhovets, author of A Gift to Young Housewives, the bestselling and most often reprinted Russian cookbook after its first edition in 1861,84 provided a series of menus, ranging from large formal occasions and specific Orthodox religious holidays (when, as we have seen, certain foods were proscribed) to daily menus: June 15: Fish pie, Bouillon with crayfish dumplings; Stewed pike; Green peas garnished with crayfish tails; Roast veal or chicken; and Cold berry soup December 1: Bouillon with root vegetables, cabbage, and potatoes; A whole stuffed boiled fish chilled in aspic; Hazel grouse soufflé; Roast or fried hare with marinated beets; various fruits and berries in gelatin85

The journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot provide a wealth of commentary on the dining habits of the Russian elite soon after the turn of the nineteenth century. The two Irish sisters lived with Catherine Dashkova, once an intimate of Empress Catherine (and a participant in the coup bringing her to power), head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but by the turn of the century a vigorous but somewhat embittered and old-fashioned member of Moscow society, residing mainly at her estate of Troitskoe on the Oka river   Ibid., p. 29.   Ibid., p. 30. 82   On Russian patriotic thought during the Napoleonic Wars, see Martin, Reformers, 80 81

Romantics, Reactionaries. 83   Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, p. 30. Toomre does not discuss the open table as a dining practice or sociable habit. 84   Ibid., p. 9. On cookbooks and the image of the Russian housewife, see Smith, Recipes, chapter 6. 85   Toomre, Classic Russian Cooking, p. 26.

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70 miles south of Moscow. Dashkova had visited Ireland some years earlier and made connections to the sisters’ relatives, earning the Wilmot sisters an invitation to Russia. Prior to her departure for Russia, Martha dined with Count Simon Vorontsov in London on May 31, 1803. She describes a typical dinner of multiple courses with many food items, in which “the Countess told me to help myself to wine if I liked it, as nobody was asked to hobnob.”86 This comment indicates that the Vorontsovs in London adhered to service à la russe, and that they maintained as well an informal table, characteristic of the ethos of the “open table,” with less formal sociable practices. Once with Dashkova, the Wilmots found that dinner at Troitskoe was commonly at two; the usual schedule was coffee at nine o’clock, dinner at two or three, tea at six and supper at half past nine or ten.87 Men and women rose from the table at the same time,88 a custom Martha came to dislike: “I do not like the practice they have here of dining at three o’clock and separating before tea, so that by half after five or six, unless you are engag’d to some party, you return home gaping for your amusement your Scandal and your tea—but the practice is universal […].”89 During her time in Russia, Martha came to find the series of courses served à la russe at dinner and supper exhausting;90 she described the height of the winter season social whirl as “Balls without end; Dinners that end after four hours uninterrupted Cramming of every delicacy that Nature and Art can procure.”91 The jaundiced, if amusing, observations of the Wilmot sisters conformed with what many other European visitors to Russia perceived—that the food consumed and provided by the elite met Western European standards, even if the elite themselves did not. As Alison Smith has demonstrated, the elite, as well as many less elevated Russian citizens, were in the early nineteenth century “investigating their everyday lives with new interest and with new perspectives […] they sought to create their own interpretation of everyday life, an interpretation that proved Russia’s cultural worth.”92   M. Wilmot and C. Wilmot, The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot, 1803–1808, ed. the Marchioness of Londonderry and H. Montgomery Hyde (London, 1934; reprint New York, 1971), p. 13. 87   Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country Estate, p. 116; Wilmot and Wilmot, The Russian Journals, pp. 48 and 60. 88   See Wilmot and Wilmot, The Russian Journals, pp. 13–14, 37 and 65 for examples. 89   Ibid., p. 29 (letter of July 31, 1803); grammar and ellipsis in original. 90   See Ibid., pp. 31, 81 and 210 for examples. 91   Ibid., p. 75. 92   Smith, Recipes, p. 73. 86

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The Era of Emperor Nicholas I The Emperor himself participated in these interpretive moves. Emperor Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) asserted his vision of his own power and authority through dining and sociable practices. Tsar Nicholas maintained a scenario of power encompassing both domesticity and the exercise of imperial office as a perennial performance; the emperor was always and ever on display. Wortman describes how on “Easter Sunday [and] personal and family celebrations, birthdays, name days, weddings [and] coming of age ceremonies […] the bringing of felicitations to the emperor and empress […] dramatized the family relationship that was supposed to govern official relationships throughout the Russian state.”93 The polite and decorous comportment of officials at these functions was to mirror the values Nicholas wished to instill in the peoples he ruled, and in the behavior that Nicholas enacted for his population. This behavior stretched into banquets and family dinners. The Marquis de Custine, generally a bilious and negative observer of things Russian, summarized the ubiquity of Nicholas’s conception rather well: The present emperor never lays aside the air of supreme majesty except in his family intercourse. It is there only that he recollects that the natural man has pleasures independent of the duties of state; at least, I hope that it is this disinterested sentiment which attaches him to his domestic circle. His private virtues no doubt aid him in his public capacity, by securing for him the esteem of the world; but I believe he would practice them independently of this calculation.94

Custine describes a fête in mid-July 1839 following the marriage of Grand Duchess Marie [ July 2, 1839] with Maximilian Beauharnais, Duke de Leuchtenberg, that can serve as a model of Nicholas’s own behavior and the integration of dining into his scenario. Following the wedding, guests attended a ball until called for supper. Custine describes the geography of the dinner at the Winter Palace thus: “There was but one table, laid with one thousand covers, for the corps diplomatique, the foreigners, and all the attendants at court; but at the entrance of the hall, on the right hand side, was a little round table laid for eight.”95 A Swiss guardsman proceeds to sit at the little table; Custine cannot say if this faux pas proceeds from “natural assurance, republican ease, or pure simplicity of heart.” Custine is then impressed when the emperor simply adds   Wortman, Scenarios of Power, vol. 1, p. 326.   The Marquis de Custine, Empire of the Czar, p. 157. 95   Ibid., p. 166. 93 94

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this unexpected ninth guest to his table without any apparent sign of distress or annoyance. Rather than assert hierarchy or the sanctity of those set aside by the will of the emperor, Nicholas chooses to incorporate the unexpected guest and thus indicate his own polish and self-possession. Custine continues to describe how the emperor and his son rise and greet other guests while they sat and ate;96 presumably, Nicholas and his sons eat rapidly or in less quantity than the other guests. This scene then fits neatly with Nicholas’s scenario. Nicholas is separate and set apart from the other guests, and yet intimate at his own table; always under observation, he fulfills his role as host by greeting the guests. Nicholas’s potential pleasure at the meal is subordinate to his sense of duty. Nicholas provided directives along these lines to his son Alexander Nicholaevich (the future Alexander II, r. 1855–1881) in regard to the heir’s 1837 tour of Russia: “Nicholas prescribed the sequence of events: religious services; dinners, mentioning which officials were to be invited; receptions of the nobility, officials, and troops. He was to dance the polonaise with a few of the distinguished ladies of the province […] and was to leave no later than one or two in the morning, without waiting for a customary supper.”97 Nicholas told Alexander that his behavior must always be correct, for he was “perhaps for the first time, placed before the court of your future subjects, in a test of your intellectual capacities.” Nicholas’s description of his son’s meetings as “the court of your future subjects” indicates to us the extent to which Nicholas conflated his activities at court with his presentation of himself to his nation, an “appeal to the roar of popular approval in support of the stately silence of the Petersburg court.”98 All of Russia was a “court” in front of which the tsar must perform appropriately. In turn, the Russian nation was to be fed at the banquet of imperial greatness, but to remain passive guests, ever conscious of the tsar set apart from them, and grateful for his largesse. The passive, observational role of the public comes through even more clearly in accounts of the family teas the Romanovs carried out in public view, notwithstanding the description by A.I. Iakovleva, a noble lady-in-waiting, that the “imperial family made the public the participant in its joys and pleasures.”99   Ibid., p. 168.   Wortman, Scenarios of Power, vol. 1, p. 363, and see also p. 328. Custine comments

96 97

on the mechanical appearance of the polonaise danced in St. Petersburg, pp. 162–3. This is a typical example of the way foreign observers criticized Russians: that Russian elites behaved superficially like their Western European counterparts, but without the proper depth of feeling, as a form of mimicry rather than genuine cultivation. 98   Wortman, Scenarios of Power, vol. 1, p. 366. 99   A.I. Iakovleva, ‘Vospominaniia byvshei kamer-iungfery imperatritsy Marii Aleksandrovnya’, Istoricheskii Vestnik, 31 (1888): p. 173.

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The “participation” of the public consisted, in this instance, of standing and watching: “Shortly after the July 1 celebration [of the birthday of the Empress], the imperial family customarily presented an open-air spectacle of family life in front of the Cottage [at the imperial estate of Peterhof on an island northwest of St Petersburg], they took tea in full view of the public, including peasants chosen by their landlords […].”100 The tea service carried Nicholas’s scenario to its logical extent. His people, the public of Russia, were to be a passive audience, one that was to observe the rituals and issue acclaim, but not to be active, and no longer to sit with the tsar at his imperial meal. Nicholas intended his court to be the “epitome of the nation,”101 but he expected that epitome to simply reflect his ideals. (Prince Joseph Lubomirski observed, “A kind of automatic submission to these demands of etiquette was the best way to please the tsar.”102) Anna Tyutcheva, lady-in-waiting and then governess at the courts of Nicholas I and his successor Alexander II, approved of the rigid etiquette Nicholas maintained at court: etiquette “is not only a barrier dividing the sovereign from his subjects but also a defense of those subjects from the caprice of the sovereign. Etiquette creates an atmosphere of general respect, in which each person purchases dignity at the cost of freedom and comfort.”103 Formal separation of sovereign from people embodied Nicholas’s scenario, of which Tyutcheva approved. Hers was a minority opinion. Nicholas’s promotion of a familial scenario, combined with his strict devotion to duty and punctilious but mechanistic observance of court duties and etiquette, did not engage the imperial elite. Elite culture by the middle of the nineteenth century encouraged diverse trends within the rubric of loyalty to and promotion of state interests, ranging from promoting agriculture on their estates, a trend coexisting with the promotion of the “gastronome, the gourmet man,” as a model for elite consumption.104 The family estate became the emotional locus of noble life and culture for many of the elite.105 Members of the elite felt, as Nicholas Karamzin did in the late eighteenth century, that “When the head and heart are occupied at home in a pleasant manner; when there is a book in hand, a sweet wife nearby, beautiful 100   Wortman, Scenarios of Power, vol. 1, p. 331; see also the description of a similar display on p. 342. 101   Wortman, Scenarios of Power (2006 edn), chapter 8. 102   Ibid., p. 153. 103   Diary entry of January 10, 1854, quoted in Kelly, Refining Russia, p. 148. 104   Smith, Recipes, pp. 122–3. 105   For estate life and its development, see Roosevelt. For an excellent example of one noble family’s emotional life and its connection to their estate, see J. Randolph, The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism (Ithaca, 2007).

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children around, would one wish to go to a ball, or to a large dinner?”106 While Nicholas did not sunder the bonds between elite and autocrat, the over-assertion of his authority contributed to dissatisfaction among the elite, and thereby helped prepare the elite to support the changes brought by the great reforms of the 1850s and 1860s, reforms that would ultimately undermine the position of the elite.107 Conclusion Patterns of food service at court and among the imperial Russian elite diversified along with the social practices of the empire and elite culture. Until the reign of Nicholas I, changing practices in food service reflected collaborative conceptions of the imperial Russian elite in its relations with the autocrat. In the medieval and early modern periods, food service at court followed a host-controlled feast model, in which the ruler/host served as the central figure of the meal, and the rules and mores for dining were those set out by the Russian Orthodox Church. In the social hierarchy organized around the principles of medieval Orthodoxy, the ruler was the conceptual center of the power structure, as well as the focal point of food service. Elite culture as reflected in the Domostroi followed the same pattern. Court and elite dining culture were in synch. In the early eighteenth century, Peter the Great altered court service, creating assemblies deliberately void of the formality and rules for dining proscribed by Russian Orthodoxy and Muscovite tradition. Elite culture followed suit, and by the reign of Catherine the Great in the second half of the eighteenth century, elite dining followed Western European patterns, and had also crafted the sociable practice of the “open table.” Tsar Peter’s actions were decisive in breaking the old mold; his social reforms achieved success because the elite supported the changes. Elite dining practices continued to develop, and, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, a distinct Russian style of table service had arisen, one subsequently exported to Western Europe. Food service at court and among the elite reflects the essence of the relationship between the autocrat and the imperial elite: mutual dependence structured by the emperor’s need to assert his or her dominance, a dominance that nonetheless could not bypass or disinvite the elite. Each was eager to assert their worthiness to the other across the banquet hall or dining table. Nonetheless, by the middle  

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p. 429.

N. Karamzin, Letters of a Russian Traveller, trans. A. Kahn (Oxford, 2003),

  S. Becker, Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1985), traces the impact of the Great Reforms on the nobility. 107

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of the nineteenth century, emperor and elite had arrived at a scenario they could no longer agree upon as comfortably as they once had; imperial meals observed were a poor substitute for meals shared.

Chapter 5

Pilaf and Bouchées: The Modernization of Official Banquets at the Ottoman Palace in the Nineteenth Century Özge Samancı […] the order was to feed, wash and clothe the infidels, and then admit them to his presence [Sultan Selim III]. In a short time some little stools were arranged in different parts of the divan, on the top of which were placed large trays of gold and silver, about four feet diameter, and of a circular form, from which we were to be fed at the expense of the Turks. A most sumptuous entertainment was served up; first, a kind of blancmanger, next, different kinds of roasted and baked meats; sweetmeats followed, and to conclude, a delicious cooling sherbet was handed round in gold and silver basons. We experienced one grievous want at this feast, for we were not furnished either with knife or fork, and were obliged to tear in pieces whatever was set before us; for the articles of a liquid kind, spoons of tortoise-shell, studded with gold, were handed to us.

Macgill’s narration depicting the feast given to the British envoy, Lord Elgin, at Topkapı Palace during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Selim III (1789–1807), represents one example among numerous travelers’ accounts that relate to the same subject. Feasting was a key element of Ottoman palace ceremonies for receiving foreign envoys. Travelers’ accounts from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries depicting the reception of foreign envoys in the Ottoman palace demonstrate that offering food to those who visited the sultan at his palace was a constant and permanent part of the court ceremonies.   T. Macgill, ‘Travels in Turkey, Italy, and Russia’, in R. Schiffer (ed.), Turkey Romanticized: Images of the Turks in Early 19th Century English Travel Literature with an Anthology of Texts (Bochum, 1982), p. 146.    Travelers’ accounts are sources of information that should be interpreted with caution; however, they still constitute a valuable source for gathering historical data. Feasting during the reception of the envoys and foreign high dignitaries in the Ottoman palace is a theme frequently mentioned in the detailed descriptions within these accounts. For example 

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Food continued to be an important part of ceremonies at the Ottoman palace with regard to receiving foreign guests from the nineteenth century until the last days of the empire in the 1920s. Interestingly, from the end of the reign of the Sultan Mahmut II (1808–1839), a number of changes inspired by European culture can be seen during official banquets prepared for foreign guests. According to travelers’ accounts and information gathered from the kitchen account registers of the palace of the nineteenth century, banquets for European high dignitaries were prepared in a European style, with tables, chairs, knives, and forks being used. Moreover, from the 1850s, a new kind of cuisine, termed alafranga (European style), was prepared for foreign guests during official banquets. The banquet menus show the use of French gastronomical language and preparation. These menus were written in both French and Turkish. Most of the dishes listed were French cuisine. How were these changes realized? What were the reasons for this transformation? Why did the Ottoman court prefer to use a different, “modern” ceremonial language for food when receiving foreign guests from the mid-nineteenth century? This chapter attempts to reveal these changes and answer these questions. Hosting an Ottoman Style Banquet Engravings depicting the reception of envoys in the Ottoman court show the meals given in the Council Hall of Topkapı Palace. According to Hakan Karateke, who studied Ottoman palace ceremonies during the last century of the empire prior to the nineteenth century, when a foreign ambassador visited the imperial palace to pay his regards to the sultan, a ceremonial reception and a special feast were organized in his honor in the second courtyard of Topkapı Palace. Foreign guests were generally invited to the palace on the day that salaries were paid to the janissaries. During these receptions banquets were always arranged for the ambassadors; they were served with coffee, a water pipe for smoking tobacco, and rosewater. According to Gülru Necipoğlu, see Bertrandon de la Brocquière, (1432), as cited in G. Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York, 1991) p. 17. Guillaume Postel (1552), as cited in M. And, Istanbul in the 16th Century: The City, the Palace, Daily Life (Istanbul, 1994), p. 143.    For example the engraving of a banquet in honor of a European ambassador at the public Council Hall in the eighteenth century. M.D’Ohsson, Tableau Général de l’Empire Ottoman (Paris, 1761), vol. 2.    H. Karateke, Padişahım Çok Yaşa Osmanlı Devletinin Son Yüzyılında Merasimler (İstanbul, 2000), p. 123.

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who studied in detail the language of ceremonies in the Topkapı Palace in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, during the reception of ambassadors the presence of every courtier, wearing his best uniform and lining up in order of rank at his assigned place, was required. The ambassador, passing from the second gate with his retinue, would come to the justice court and be faced with a theatrical scene. He would, for example, pass by lions and leopards tied on chains and horses saddled with golden ornaments. When the visiting dignitary reached the first salutation stone, the janissaries under the galleries would eat their soup. After witnessing this ceremonial scene displaying the wealth and the power of the Ottoman palace, the ambassador would then enter the imperial Council Hall: There he was granted an audience with the grand vizier, after which food was served from the imperial kitchens as a gesture of the Sultan’s hospitality. The degree of lavishness of the banquet that followed was a reflection of the relative status of the persons being honored. Lesser ambassadors were not deemed worthy of eating at the same table with viziers and received their food outside. Finally the ambassador was taken to the Sultan inside the third court.

As mentioned by Necipoğlu, the act of giving food to the ambassador showed the hospitality, the generosity, and the power of the sultan. The Ottoman court treated these ceremonies as a tool to underline the sovereign’s superiority. Food, thus, has a symbolic value in the Ottoman court ceremonies, as was the case in other courts. During the receptions for envoys, food was served on common plates on silver or copper trays at low tables (Figure 5.1). Guests would sit on stools or on   Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, p. 61   Ibid., pp. 60–61.    Ibid., p. 72. The banquets organized for foreign visitors at the Ottoman palace, as well 



as other banquets given for palace officials, the clergy, and commoners on the occasions of weddings and circumcision celebrations of the royal elite, reflect the generosity of the sultan and the same time embody symbolic meanings. For further references see A. Ünsal, ‘The Symbolism of Food: Tokens of Political Power and Status, Legitimization and Obedience and Challenging Authority,’ in A. Bilgin and Ö. Samancı (eds), Turkish Cuisine (Ankara, 2008), pp. 179–95.    As Dietler mentions, “these banquets symbolically reiterate and legitimize institutionalized relations of unequal social power.” M. Dietler, ‘Feasts and Commensal Politics in the Political Economy: Food, Power and Status in Prehistoric Europe,’ in P. Wiessner and W. Schiefenhövel (eds), Food and the Status Quest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Providence and Oxford, 1998), p. 97.

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Figure 5.1 A banquet given for a European envoy at the Topkapı Palace in the eighteenth century (Source: M. d’Ohsson, Tableau Général de l’Empire Ottoman; author’s collection).

sofas. Individual knives and forks were absent during these feasts. This service style was common throughout Ottoman culture, both in the palace and among common people. Three fingers of the right hand, bread, and spoons were the   Z. Orgun, ‘Osmanlı Sarayında Yemek Yeme Adabı’, in Türk Mutfağı Sempozyumu Bildirileri 31 Ekim-1 Kasım 1981 (Ankara, 1982), pp. 144–5. 

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only instruments used during the meals. Only soup, pilaf, and fruit compotes (hoşaf) were eaten with a spoon.10 According to some foreign visitors, the meat was prepared in small pieces and was stewed until it was very tender so there was no need to use a knife. People broke it and ate it with their fingers.11 Due to the vagueness of description in travelers’ accounts, it is difficult to distinguish the types of dishes served during the reception of the envoys; however, it is certain that the cuisine prepared for the guests was in the local Ottoman style. Travelers’ accounts frequently mention an unfamiliarity with the food served to them. According to an English official who visited Istanbul in 1610, a banquet was prepared for them in the imperial council room. The menu was the same as that during the Ottoman council’s meeting days, but the dishes were prepared with great care and in large quantities. The dishes were served on silver trays at the ambassador’s table.12 According to Guillaume Postel, another foreign official who visited the Ottoman palace in the sixteenth century, a banquet was given to the ambassadors on the eve of their departure. Once they had all taken their places in a circle on a splendid carpet, a long linen towel was placed over their knees and water was brought to wash their hands. Next, a great silver tray bearing six porcelain dishes filled with different sorts of food—such as rice with mutton, capons, plovers, and other kinds of fowl—was brought. The whole meal was served as a single course. They drank sweetened, flavored water containing fine gold dust with their meal. A different banquet was served to the members of the ambassador’s retinue. This took place in an arcade around one of the courtyards of the place. A long carpet was unrolled, long enough to seat all those invited, and on this was placed a great number of porcelain plates containing rice with morsels of meat or chicken, and meat rissoles. A large crowd of soldiers and other palace attendants assembled to watch them, standing motionless for three or four hours.13 A seventeenth-century depiction comes from the banquets served to an English official before the sultan received him. The meal was served on small wooden trays covered with leather; the one that was reserved for the grand vizier and the English ambassador, however, was covered with tissue. Bread and wooden spoons were placed on the tables. For the starters some olives, parsley, dill, and pickles in small bowls were served. The menu consisted of roast chicken with mushrooms, roast meat (lamb) flavored with pepper, vine leaves stuffed 10   Ö. Samancı, Continuity and Change in the Culinary Culture of the Ottoman Palace in the Nineteenth Century (Istanbul, MA thesis in History, Boğaziçi University, 1998), pp. 26–37. 11   And, Istanbul in the 16th Century, p. 180. 12   R. Withers, Büyük Efendinin Sarayı, trans. C. Kayra (Istanbul, 1996), p. 27. 13   And, Istanbul in the 16th Century, p. 143.

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with meat, rice soup, pilaf with chicken, pilaf with pine nuts, grape juice, a savory pastry dish, and sweetmeat made with milk and honey. For drinks, sherbet and sweet lemon juice were served.14 The type and the variety of the food served to the foreign guests in the Ottoman palace can be understood more clearly through the analysis of the expenditure records of the imperial kitchens (matbah-ı amire defterleri). These accounts list in general terms the kind and the amount of ingredients supplied to the imperial kitchens for a definite period of time or for a special occasion. The expenses for the preparation of the banquets served to the ambassadors are also in these records. These records rarely provide information about the types of dishes prepared with the purchased ingredients, but lists of dishes served during some official banquets arranged in the Ottoman palace are available from a detailed examination of the imperial kitchen registers from the mid-seventeenth century. Two of the banquets mentioned in these records were prepared for Transylvanian envoys in the Council Hall of the palace in 1649. The list of the dishes that were served during these banquets demonstrates that the food was in the local style. The two banquets comprised 19 and 18 courses. According to these lists pilaf (dane), chicken soup (şurba-ı makiyan), savoury pastry (börek), baklava, stewed mutton, poultry or fowl (yahni), different kinds of roasted meat (kebab), a kind of ravioli (mantı), rice pudding with safran (zerde), and milk pudding (muhallebi) were typical dishes.15 The same documents indicate that these kinds of dishes were also ordinarily served in the Ottoman palace during the council’s meetings.16 The Acquaintance of the Ottoman Palace with European Table Manners The nineteenth century makes up a reforming and transforming period in the history of the Ottoman Empire. Reforms that were supported by the Ottoman sultans from the end of the eighteenth century started with the military domain, and during the nineteenth century also included economic,   John Covel (1680), as cited in Ö. Nutku, Tarihimizden Kültür Manzaralari (Istanbul, 1995), p. 24. 15   H. Reindl-Kiel, ‘The Chickens of Paradise: Official Meals in the Mid-Seventeenth Century Ottoman Palace’, in S. Faroqhi and C. Neumann (eds), The Illuminated Table: The Prosperous House Food and Shelter in Ottoman Material Culture (Würzburg, 2003), pp. 60–88. 16   Ibid. These dishes also exist in Ottoman cookbooks from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See for example N. Sefercioğlu, Türk Yemekleri (XVIII. Yüzyıla Ait bir Yemek Risalesi) (Ankara, 1985); M. Kamil, Melceü’t Tabbahin (Istanbul, 1844); T. Efendi, Mecmua-i Et’ime-i Osmaniye: A Manual of Turkish Cookery (London, 1864). 14

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political, institutional, as well as educational domains.17 This process included the recentralization and westernization of government structures. European economic and political interests also supported the strengthening of the Ottoman central state. The reform program of centralization and westernization included the secularization of Ottoman life and touched upon every area of political, social, cultural, and economic life. The reform program also promoted the adaptation of other aspects of European culture by the Ottoman sultan and bureaucrats. The changes ranged from the adoption of Western theatre plays and music, to full equality of Muslims and non-Muslims.18 These attempts at modernization by the Ottoman state were the main motivators for the changes realized in the food culture of the Ottoman elite during the nineteenth century, and are reflected in the banquets prepared for foreign high dignitaries. The reformation activities in the Ottoman state realized under the reign of Sultan Mahmut II concerned mainly military and administrative areas. However, during his reign, some innovations inspired by Europe were also introduced into Ottoman elite culture. From 1815, the sultan lived in a new palace (Beşiktaş), which reflected European tastes, instead of the palace that had accommodated Ottoman sultans since the fifteenth century (Topkapı). Mahmut II’s palace not only looked European from the outside, it was also furnished with Sevres china, French tables, chairs, and clocks along with divans and cushions. The first official Ottoman march was also composed during this time, by a European composer, Giuseppe Donizetti, in 1828.19 The sultan also introduced novelties in dress regulations for state officials (except for the clerics) in 1829, according to which it was obligatory to wear a kind of old-fashioned frock-coat and a fez instead of the turban. By decree, he made it obligatory to display his portrait in every government agency. Like European monarchs, he started to celebrate his birthday. Unlike his predecessors, he enjoyed making long journeys across the country. He gave permission to the clerics and his ministers to sit in his presence, and he even participated in the feasts and banquets given by foreign embassies. Mahmut II also welcomed new culinary habits inspired by European culture into his private life. He chose to eat his meals in European style, sitting at a dining   The modernization attempts of the Ottoman state realized during the nineteenth century are some of the most frequently researched topics in Ottoman historiography. Some of the works we can cite are: N. Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal, 1964); R.F. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton, 1976); E.Z. Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi. Nizam-ı Cedit ve Tanzimat Devirleri, 1789–1856 (Ankara, 1970). 18   D. Quataert, ‘The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914,’ in H. Inalcık (ed.), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1914 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 759–934. 19   P. Mansel, Constantinople City of the World’s Desire, 1453–1924 (London, 1997). pp. 246–7. 17

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table on a chair. He was the first Ottoman sultan to adopt the habit of using a knife and fork during the meal. The golden cutlery and tableware that were used during his reign are on exhibition today at the depository museum of the Dolmabahçe Palace. According to an Irish observer, Robert Walsh, who resided in Istanbul as an official of the British embassy for 12 years, Mahmut II even preferred to drink wine and champagne during his meals. Walsh mentioned the following in his account of the eating habits of the sultan: He takes two meals a day; one at eleven, in the morning, and the other at sunset. He has exchanged the Turkish stool and tray for a chair and table, which is laid out exactly in European fashion. The table is furnished with a cloth, and knives and forks, which are English; to these are added golden spoons, and a decanter of wine. The wine is usually champagne, which he is fond of, and is greatly amused when the cork explodes and the wine flies up to the ceiling. He always sits alone at his meals. The dishes are brought in one at a time, in succession, to the number of fifty or sixty, all covered and sealed. He breaks the seal himself, and tastes the dish; if he does not like it, he sends it away.20

Th European way of eating with knives and forks at the table instead of using a low tray and common plates, introduced by Mahmut II, was not easily adopted by his ministers, as observed and noted in a memoir of an English official, Sir Adolphus Slade, who visited Istanbul in 1835. On January 25, 1835 a grand ball in the Palace of England was organized in order to celebrate the newly found peace, and the Ottoman pashas were asked to meet the European officials. Slade’s humorous account of the evening dinner included: Supper was announced. Each noble Osmanley then took a lady under his arm, and led her down on the main deck, where it was served in perfect style, with a liberality which did honor to the representative of a great nation. The coup d’oeil was good: knives and cutlasses, forks and tomahawks, spoons and sponges, glasses and rammers, bottles and guns, napkins and aprons, flags and flounces, sparkling eyes and sparkling liquors, were all together in a narrow space, relieving, not perplexing. Champagne flowed like fountain, other liquids like rivers. The Osmanleys laid aside their gravity, and dispensed for that night with the orthodox use of their fingers, though we feared that sundry manslaughter would have taken place in consequence of their awkwardness with those “accursed contrivances”, knives and forks. There was never a more jovial or a more noisy banquet. They 20   R. Walsh (1836), as cited in Ö. Samancı, ‘Culinary Consumption Patterns of the Ottoman Elite During the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, in Faroqhi and Neumann (eds), The Illuminated Table, pp. 161–84.

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pledged the sovereigns of Europe, they pledged the ambassadresses, and they pledged each other in repeated bumpers, and talked much nonsense.21

Some of the elites of the sultan’s entourage, however, did adopt the new table manners introduced by the sultan. An English official’s daughter, Miss Julia Pardoe, who resided in Istanbul for nine months in 1835, depicted a very detailed picture of the Ottoman way of life and customs in her account. She mentions Ottoman and European table etiquette at the same time as she describes dinners and banquets she participated in. She recorded that during a dinner given by an Ottoman pasha, the service style was European in manner and the European tableware very elegant: On the present occasion, I rather regretted that the profuse and even sumptuous dinner that was served up to us was, from an excess of courtesy on the part of our entertainers, perfectly European in its arrangement, being accompanied by silver forks, knives and chairs. Wine was handed to us on a beautifully chosen golden salvor [sic] and the glasses from which we drank it were of finely cut crystal.22

Miss Pardoe depicts another dinner she attended at the harem of an Ottoman house. This dinner, offered during the month of Ramadan, was traditionally prepared: The room was a perfect square, totally unfurnished, save that in the centre of the floor was spread a carpet, on which stood a wooden frame, about two feet in height, supporting an immense round plated tray, with the edge slightly raised. In the centre of the tray placed a capacious white basin filled with a kind of cold bread soup, and around it were ranged a circle of small porcelain saucers, filled with sliced cheese, anchovies, caviar, and sweetmeats of every description; among these were scattered spoons of box-wood, and goblets of pink and white sherbets, whose rose scented contents perfumed the apartment […] As soon as the serious business of the repast really commenced […] The meat and poultry were eaten with fingers. Nineteen dishes, of fish, flesh, fowl, pastry and creams, succeeding each other in the most heterogeneous manner—the salt following the sweet, and the stew preceding the custard—were terminated by a pyramid of pilaf.23

  A. Slade, Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece (London, 1854), pp. 248–9.   J. Pardoe, The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks (London, 1838),

21 22

vol.1, pp. 222–3. 23   Ibid., pp. 20–22.

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By the end of the reign of Sultan Mahmut II it had become more common for European service style and table manners to be used during banquets arranged by the Ottoman court for foreign envoys. For example, during the imperial festival organized for Princess Saliha’s wedding in 1834, the banquet organized for foreign envoys was different from the other banquets offered to court officials and commoners. Instead of low trays, tables and chairs were supplied for this banquet. The dishes were offered on a long table that was prepared in the European style with knives, forks, and glasses. Small notes with the names of the guests were put on the table. The guests were seated according to European etiquette and their rank. During the meal, wine was offered and music was played.24 At another imperial festival, also arranged during Mahmut II’s reign, the feasts prepared for the foreign guests were also organized in the European manner. Miss Julia Pardoe depicted the continuous banquets given at Princess Mihrimah’s wedding. She reported that each day was dedicated to a banquet offered for a special group such as the clergy and palace officials, the pashas. On the sixth day a banquet was offered to foreign ambassadors: this banquet, unlike the others, was arranged in the European style.25 The same banquet is depicted in another traveler’s account in more detail. The banquet offered to the foreigners during the wedding celebration of the princess, was excellent and majestic. A table was prepared with silver cutlery and porcelain tableware for 100 people. Chandeliers decorated the dining table.26 The idea of presenting banquets in the European style was to show hospitality and to impress the foreigners through the medium of Western customs and practices. It was a marked change when compared to earlier feasts organized in the Ottoman court for foreign envoys, which were in the Ottoman manner, on low tables without knives and forks. The Emergence of a Cuisine in the European Style: Alafranga The modernization process concerning the administrative, military, and educational sectors in the Ottoman Empire promoted by the Ottoman sultan and his entourage accelerated from 1839 and became known as the Reorganization (Tanzimat) Era. During the reign of Sultan Abdülmecit (1839 and 1861), Western-style banquets continued during receptions organized for foreign guests in the Ottoman court. During the reign of Abdülmecit, members of 24   H. Aynur, ‘Saliha Sultan’in Düğün Töreni ve Şenlikler’, Tarih ve Toplum. no. 1 (Istanbul, 1989), pp. 30–39. 25   Pardoe, The City of the Sultan, pp. 137–44. 26   H. von Moltke, Moltke’nin Türkiye Mektupları, trans. H. Örs (Istanbul, 1995), p. 65.

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European royal families visited the Ottoman palace more frequently. According to Karateke, the Ottoman state, which was not highly experienced in the preparation of ceremonial procedures for welcoming the royal elite, decided to adopt the ceremonial customs practiced in Europe for these occasions.27 Giving banquets in the honor of foreign dignitaries was a part of European protocol, just as giving feasts during the reception of envoys was a tradition in the Ottoman state. Since the late 1830s, the Ottoman state had adopted the European style for banquets. This practice started at the end of the reign of Sultan Mahmut and continued during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecit. A more important change concerning the feasts given to foreign dignitaries was also discernable in this period. During Sultan Abdülmecit’s reign these banquets also started to reflect a European taste, in contrast to the typical meals served to the residents of the Ottoman palace. Dishes served during these official banquets included French cuisine. For example, during the visit of a Russian prince to Istanbul in 1845, a banquet was organized at Beylerbeyi Palace. Ambassadors who resided in the capital were invited to the banquet with invitations written in two languages, French and Turkish. Ottoman pashas were also present at the reception. The banquet was prepared in the European style. The table was laid with gold and silver tableware. The style of food served to the guests was predominantly French, although some local dishes such as pilaf were also served. Wine was served.28 On July 22, 1856, a banquet for 130 guests at Dolmabahçe Palace was arranged by the Ottomans with the purpose of celebrating both the victory over Russia and the completion of the new palace, which had been constructed on the orders of the sultan. It was a very sumptuous dinner, in the Western style. After being received by the Grand Vizier, Ali Pasha, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Pasha, guests were presented to the sultan, who then retired. The banquet room was arranged with tables decorated with vases of flowers and gold candlesticks. The menu of the banquet displayed a mixture of Ottoman and French cuisine: local dishes such as savory pastry called börek, pilaf, shredded pastry soaked in syrup (kadayıf) and baklava were interspersed with some French dishes such as potage Sévigné, paupiette à la reine, and croustade de foie gras à la Lucullus. Some other dishes were new creations, such as croustade d’ananas en Sultane, suprême de faisan à la circasienne, and bar à la valide.29 Apart from travelers’ accounts from the nineteenth century, Ottoman palace kitchen account registers also show that the style of banquets prepared for foreign high dignitaries changed from the 1850s onwards. The kitchen account   Karateke, Padişahim Çok Yaşa, pp. 158–9.   Ibid., pp. 158–62. 29   Mansel, Constantinople, p. 274. 27 28

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registers kept for the preparation of such banquets, support the argument that, starting in the 1850s, banquets arranged for foreign guests in the Ottoman palace were prepared in the Western style and the dishes served were a mixture of two cuisines. These account registers exist today in the Ottoman archives (Başbakanlık Arşivi) in Istanbul. As mentioned previously, these documents list the ingredients purchased by and/or delivered to the kitchens for the preparation of the banquets, but they do not list the dishes (except for those from the 1910s). The phrases used in these documents clearly imply that both European and Ottoman dishes were served during these banquets. For example, the register that listed the ingredients used in a banquet arranged at Beylerbeyi Palace on May 8, 1854 during Prince Napoléon’s sojourn in Istanbul during the Crimean War, includes the different types of food items supplied to the imperial kitchen in order to prepare dishes in both Ottoman and European styles (Figure 5.2). It mentions that the ingredients were used in cooking some alaturka and alafranga dishes offered during the banquet. The words alaturka and alafranga were mentioned in order to express the two different styles: alaturka, meaning “in the Turkish manner,” and alafranga meaning “in the French manner,” which means in the European style.30 We understand that the banquet was organized in the European manner and the menu was made up of examples from both Ottoman and European cuisine. The documents display different sorts of food items that were supplied to the imperial kitchen, and show that the ingredients delivered to the kitchens for use in the preparation of these dishes included some new and exotic foodstuffs for Ottoman cuisine at that time: lobster, potatoes, Dutch cheese, partridge, quails, ducks, and geese are examples of these ingredients.31 Again, according to another nineteenth-century document of unspecified date, some alaturka and alafranga dishes were offered during the banquet organized for the Duke of Cambridge, a relative of the British queen. The banquet was given at the Beylerbeyi Palace, where Ottoman dignitaries were also invited. The guests were accommodated 30   The words alafranga and alaturka were introduced into the Ottoman language from European languages, most likely Italian. These expressions were first used by foreigners to emphasize their cultural differences from the Ottomans. In Ottoman literature, the term alafranga was used to describe someone who imitated European manners. According to Cahit Kavcar, the term alafranga appeared for the first time in Ottoman literature in 1872, in an Ottoman novel. C. Kavcar, Batılılaşma Açısından Servet-i Fünun Romanı (Ankara, 1988). But archival sources as the one cited above indicate that these terms were used in Ottoman society in the 1850s. The use of these expressions in documents recorded by the Ottoman palace indicates that the Ottomans were aware of the differences that existed between their culture and Europe. 31   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Catalog Cevdet Saray, no. 3335.

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Figure 5.2

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Banquet given in honor of Prince Napoléon at Beylerbeyi Palace on May 8, 1854

(Source: L’Illustration: Journal Universel, Paris, 1854; author’s collection).

at Feriye Palace for eight days. From the archival documents, we learn that apart from Ottoman cooks and servants, French cooks were employed for the preparation of dishes that were served during the banquet and for other meals during their stay. The document implies that food ingredients were supplied to the kitchen to be used in the preparation of dishes in the Turkish and European style. Apart from food items commonly used in palace cuisine of the nineteenth century—such as rice, clarified butter, sugar, onion, salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, okra, chickpeas, rosewater, eggs, almonds, dates, dried fruits, cheese, and vermicelli—the expenditure records also list rare and unusual ingredients such as lobster, potatoes, and Dutch cheese. Fish (including dried fish), caviar, poultry, and olive oil (only consumed in limited quantities in the daily cuisine of the Ottoman palace) were supplied in large quantities for the preparation of the meals offered to the guests.32 During the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz (1861–1876) the preparation of Western-style banquets for foreign dignitaries continued in the Ottoman palace. Examples include the banquets prepared for the French Queen Eugénie,   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Catalog Cevdet Saray, no. 3374. 32

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the Austrian king, and Prussian and Dutch princes who visited the capital of the Ottoman Empire in 1869. The Ottoman palace organized a sumptuous banquet in order to receive its honorable guests. According to another kitchen register that lists the expenditure for this banquet, many preparations were undertaken.33 Three cooks, one pastry chef, and one confectioner were brought from France. Equipment within the palace was not adequate for such sumptuous banquets, so the chief butler went to Paris to buy tableware and manage other preparations. Due to the lack of European tableware and glassware within the palace some tableware such as flatware, knives, and forks were borrowed from the city’s local markets. From the same documents we understand that modern-style kitchen uniforms for the kitchen staff were bought, and 40 servants’ uniforms were ordered for the occasion. During these banquets, both European and Ottoman dishes were served because alaturka and alafranga dishes are mentioned. Wine and beer accompanied the meals. Wine was ordered from Bordeaux, Cyprus, Berlin, and Bursa. The necessary ingredients and utensils were bought for the icecream maker. Expenses incurred for the food ingredients used in the banquets included the payment made for different kinds of fowl, fish, mutton, wine and beer, candies, butter, caviar, cheese, milk and clotted cream, white bread, snow and ice, fruits, and vegetables. Beef and veal, which were not used in the daily cuisine in the Ottoman palace, were also listed.34 We do not have the name of the dishes served for lack of a menu; however, since French cooks were employed in the kitchens for the banquet preparation, these ingredients were most likely used in the preparation of both local and French dishes. Another example of a banquet prepared for foreign guests was organized at the Şale Kiosk in Yıldız Palace during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit II (1876–1908) in 1889. There is little information about this banquet apart from the lists of kitchen expenses. We know that the banquet was prepared for a foreign guest in the Yıldız Palace, but we can only speculate to whom it was served.35 During the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit, the Ottoman court welcomed the German Emperor Wilhelm twice. During the first day of his first visit (in 1889), a sumptuous banquet was given at Yıldız Palace for 120 guests. Another banquet was prepared the following day in the Şale Kiosk within Yıldız Palace.36   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Maliye İrade Defteri, no. 14310, as cited in Z. Orgun, ‘Osmanlı Sarayında Kilercibaşılık ve Kilercibaşı Defterinden Saray Tatlıları’, in Geleneksel Türk Tatlıları Sempozyumu Bildirileri (Ankara, 1984), pp. 57–70. 34   Ibid. 35   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Hazine-i Hassa, MTA. no. 142/96. 36   F. Demirel, Dolmabahçe ve Yıldız Saraylarında Son Ziyafetler (Istanbul, 2007). 33

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The archival document highlighted above may be the expenditure list of this latter. The lists of the ingredients purchased and supplied for the preparation of this banquet show that expensive and exotic ingredients were used in the preparation of the dishes. Fine pasta in a Naples style, Parmesan cheese, bottles of capers and mustard, Milanese butter, canned duck liver and large truffles, tapioca, whole filets of beef, whole deer, pheasants, woodcock, partridges, bottles of English sauce, apricot sauce, cock crests, canned pineapples, vanilla pods, canned asparagus, mushrooms, beans and peas, rum, cognac, Marsala, sponge cake (pandispanya), and potatoes were listed. The list also includes the payment made for the uniforms for kitchen and serving staff.37 Compared to the types of ingredients listed in the daily or monthly account registers of the imperial kitchens, these food items were new and exotic for the cuisine of the Ottoman palace in the nineteenth century.38 These ingredients were used in the preparation of Western-style dishes mentioned in the document. Several banquets were organized in honor of the second visit of the German emperor in October 1898. According to the menus, which were published in the Ottoman newspaper Ikdam, the dishes served were prepared in both French and Ottoman styles. Some of the French dishes were bouillon, bouchées, sea bass fillet with sauce, fowl pâté, punch, asparagus, almond cream, and ice cream. Pilaf, kebab, and börek are examples of Turkish dishes listed in these menus.39 As mentioned previously, the kitchen account registers in the Ottoman archives did not include the menus of the official banquets arranged for foreign dignitaries until the early decades of the twentieth century. The same documents rarely mention the names of the dishes served during the daily meals in the palace. However, from the last decades of the nineteenth century, some of the menus prepared for official banquets given in the Ottoman palace were published in local newspapers. According to the examples of these menus, we understand that most of the dishes served during these banquets were in the French style. These menus were written in both French and Turkish languages, for foreign and local guests. For example, the menu of the banquet arranged for the ambassador Baron de Pedro of Portugal in 1890 in the Yıldız Palace, consisted of 14 courses. The dinner started with a soup potage aux quenelles de volaille, then savory pastries called bouchée, five different entrées and relevés (filets de sole Joinville, quillettes de boeuf à la financière, côtelettes de poulet au petits pois, homard à la Polonaise, asperges sauce Hollandaise). Punch à la Romaine was 37   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Hazine-i Hassa, MTA. no. 142/96. 38   For further information about the types of ingredients used in the nineteenthcentury Ottoman palace cuisine, see Samancı, ‘Culinary Consumption Patterns’. 39   Demirel, Dolmabahçe ve Yıldız Saraylarında Son Ziyafetler, pp. 65, 70, 76.

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served before the roast turkey (dindonneaux rôtis) and pilaf. The dinner ended with three different kinds of dessert and ice cream (pudding au sauce sabayon, dattes à la crème, bavaroise au pomme à la vanille et glaces [sic]). According to the same menu, the only Ottoman dishes served were two kinds of pilaf (pilaf with pieces of mutton and pilaf with tomatoes). This dish was written in Turkish in both menus: pilaw in the French one and pilav in the Turkish one.40 We should note that the new table manners that were first embraced and promoted by the Ottoman sultan from the 1830s became a model for the rest of society in the capital—although to begin with, only within the sultan’s entourage. In parallel with the adoption of Western-style banquets while receiving foreign guests in the Ottoman court from the 1830s, the adoption of new table manners continued both within the palace and throughout the capital. For example, according to the memoirs of a woman who lived in the harem of the Ottoman palace in the second half of the nineteenth century, from the 1860s onwards, knives and forks began to be used more commonly during ordinary meals.41 The kitchen account registers of Dolmabahçe and Yıldız Palace also support this. From the 1850s, the purchase of European tableware and knives and forks for the palace were more frequently recorded.42 During the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit II (1876–1908), new table manners were adopted not only in the palace but also among the Ottoman elite circles.43 Another important change that occurred in the Ottoman elite culinary culture during the second half of the nineteenth century, was the partial adaptation of European cuisine. This new kind of cuisine, composed of Ottoman and French components served during official banquets prepared for foreign dignitaries in the palace from the 1850s, became a model for some of the elites of the capital. Ottoman cookbooks published from the 1880s onwards in Istanbul reflect this partial adoption of European cuisine by Ottoman society. The cookbook Housewife (Ev Kadını), which was published in 1882, includes recipes of French cuisine alongside Turkish. Another cookbook, titled New Cookbook (Yeni Yemek Kitabı) and published in 1881, also lists some new recipes adapted from European cuisine. These cookbooks included French dishes such as bouillon, charlotte, ragout, sauces, tart, biscuits, and pâtés.44 The existence of foreign dishes, especially French, in Ottoman cookbooks published since the 1880s implies that Ottoman court cuisine welcomed European cuisine,     42   43   44   40

E. Eldem, ’Bir mönünün anatomisi’, Toplumsal Tarih, 114 (2003): pp. 48–50. L. Saz, The Imperial Harem of the Sultans (Istanbul, 1995), pp. 108–9. Samancı, ‘The Culinary Consumption Patterns’. R. Halit Karay, Üç Nesil Üç Hayat (İstanbul, 1996), pp. 63–5. A. Fahriye, Ev Kadını (Istanbul, 1882); Yeni Yemek Kitabı (Istanbul, 1883–1884); Ö. Samancı, ‘19. yüzyıl Osmanlı Mutfağında Yeni Lezzetler’, Yemek ve Kültür, 6 (2006): pp. 86–98. 41

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at least during official banquets, which also started to influence also the culinary habits of larger society. Pilaf and Bouchées The Ottoman court continued to present foreign guests with banquets prepared in the European style at the beginning of the twentieth century. A catalog found in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul includes the menus of the 31 official banquets prepared between 1911 and 1918 at the Ottoman court. These documents imply that Western- style banquets continued until the end of the empire.45 These documents, kept as part of palace protocol, also include the layout of each banquet table, the names of each guest, and their seats at the table. Most of these banquets, which were registered in these archival documents, were held at Dolmabahçe and Yıldız Palaces. The place of each guest at the banquet table reflected political hierarchy, which was respected at these gatherings (Figure 5.3). The seat of the sultan was generally symbolized by a figure of a sun or a star. The seat in front of the sultan was always devoted to the director of palace protocol. We cannot be certain that the sultan actually participated in these banquets. The directors of palace protocols may have represented him as, traditionally, the sultans did not sit and eat with others. This was a tradition codified in the second half of the fifteenth century by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror to reflect the sultan’s superiority.46 This code was abandoned during Sultan Abdülhamit II’s reign. According to travelers’ accounts, we learn that Sultan Abdülhamit joined banquets arranged for European dignitaries, such as that organized for the German emperor in 1889,47 and another organized at Yıldız Palace for the English ambassador.48 The participation of the 45   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Babıali Evrak Odası Gelen-Giden defterleri, no. 904–55–9. These archival documents were first introduced to readers by Mübahat Kütükoğlu in 1995. Kütükoğlu presented examples of some documents in her article, but she did not give the French menus that were also in the original documents. Turkish dishes were only displayed, thus the types of dishes served during these banquets were not explained in great detail. M. Kütükoğlu, ‘Son Devir Osmanlı Ziyafetleri’, in Prof. Hakkı Dursun Yıldız Armağanı (Ankara, 1995), pp. 369–93. See also Ö. Samancı, ‘Fransız Üslubunda Osmanlı Ziyafetleri: 1914–1918 yılları arasında düzenlenen on dört ziyafet mönüsünün gastronomik dili üzerine inceleme’, Yemek ve Kültür, 8 (2007): pp. 48– 62; E. Eldem, ‘Bilin Bakalım Kim Yemeğe Geliyor? 1914–1918 yılları arasında düzenlenen ondört ziyafet tertibinin siyasi ve prozopografik incelenmesi’, Yemek ve Kültür, 8 (2007): pp. 86–102. 46   Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial and Power, p.19. 47   Demirel, Son Ziyafetler, p. 80. 48   M. Müller, Letters from Constantinople (London, 1897).

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Figure 5.3 The layout of the banquet arranged for the commander of the English navy at Yıldız Palace on June 28, 1914 (Source: Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 20a).

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Figure 5.4

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The menu and concert program of the banquet arranged for the commander of the English navy at Yıldız Palace on June 28, 1914

(Source: Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 19b).

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sultan in official banquets from the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit may be seen as part of the modernization of Ottoman palace protocol. The same documents include the concert programs that accompanied the banquets (Figure 5.4). Only the lists of ingredients purchased for the dishes served are absent in these documents. According to these documents, the 31 banquets arranged in honor of foreign dignitaries at the Dolmabahçe and Yıldız Palaces, as well as in the residence of the grand vizier between 1911 and 1918, were all prepared in the French style. The menus were written in French with Turkish translation. The dinners were served on long rectangular tables where the place of each guest was marked. Western-style music accompanied the meals.49 An example of one such banquet was held on March 15, 1911 at Dolmabahçe Palace for the commander of the English Mediterranean naval force, Sir Edmond Poe. Sixty-one guests were invited to the banquet. The place of each guest is marked on the schema of the banquet table. The names and the titles of the high officials from the English army and from the Ottoman state are on the document. Vice-Admiral Sir Edmond Poe was seated next to Sultan Mehmet V, in the middle of the table on the left. The menu of the banquet was written in French and Turkish. The dinner comprised 14 dishes: potage crème royale, beurek, darnes de saumon sauce verte, selle de veau Richelieu, suprême de Bécasse Clamart, neige de mandarin, croutes de Strasbourg, poularde de Mans truffée, salade, asperges en branches, pilaw Ali Pacha, glace succès, friandises, Chester cake. Apart from savory pastry, written beurek in French (börek in Turkish) and Ali Pacha style pilaf, all of the dishes were French. Chester cake was included to honor the English guests.50 Another example of such a banquet was that prepared in honor of the commandant of the German navy, Souchon, on May 17, 1914 at Dolmabahçe Palace (Figure 5.5). Seventy people were invited to this banquet. Ottoman ministers and highranking military officials as well as German military officials were listed as guests. The place of each guest is marked in the schema of the banquet table. The seat of the heir to the throne, Yusuf İzzettin Efendi, is in front of the sultan in the middle of the long rectangular table. The sultan’s place is symbolized by a star. German ambassador, Baron Wangenheim, was seated to his right and Contre Admiral Souchon was placed to his left. The menu served during this banquet included 12 dishes: consommé de volaille glacé, beurek, suprême de bar orientale, selle d’agneau à l’Amiral, chauffroid de cailles, neige d’ananas, poussins perigourdine, salade, artichaut aux fèves, pilaw, fraises voilées, dessert.51 The menus were written in French and Turkish (Figure 5.6).   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Babıâli Evrak Odası Gelen-Giden defterleri, no. 904–55–9. 50   Ibid., pp. 0b–1a. 51   Ibid., pp. 18a, 17b. 49

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Figure 5.5 The layout of the banquet prepared in honor of the commandant of the German navy at Dolmabahçe Palace on May 17, 1914 (Source: Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 18a).

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Figure 5.6 The menu of the banquet prepared in honor of the commandant of the German navy at Dolmabahçe Palace on May 17, 1914. Source: (Ottoman Archives, BEO. GGd., 17b).

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Analysis of the menus of these 31 banquets mentioned above implies that 90 percent of the dishes served during the banquets were examples of French grande cuisine. The menus include French dishes such as consommé, potage, bouchée, chaud-froid, and poultry served with supreme sauce, sorbet; fish served with sauces such as caviar sauce or Mont-blanc sauce; meat dishes such as fillets, côtelettes, and tournedos; desserts such as tarts, vacherin, and gâteau.52 Pilaf, which has been an essential part of Ottoman cuisine since the early days of the empire, was the only dish that was present at every banquet. Kebabs and savory pastries (börek) were other examples of local dishes served to the guests during some of the banquets. Why were pilaf, kebab, and börek preserved in the menus? The menus kept some local dishes in order to please the appetite of the local notables. Pilaf, börek, and kebab were common dishes within ordinary meals served in the palace. Although börek could be substituted by bouchées and kebabs by roasts in the menus, pilaf was present in nearly every menu. There is no substitute for pilaf in French cuisine. Although these menus contained some local dishes, in general they reflected the taste of French gastronomy. The order in which the dishes were served also reflected French style. Comparison of these menus with those from the French or other European courts in the nineteenth century verifies this argument. The Russian service style, which was in use in France during the nineteenth century, was also used during these banquets. The order of French dishes in the nineteenth century was arranged as: Soups or consommé/Hors d’oeuvres (such as savory pastries bouchée)/Fish/Relevés (meat entrées)/Entrées/Sorbet/Roasts/Salad/ Vegetable dishes/Entremets/Desserts.53 The menus of the Ottoman official banquets arranged from the late-nineteenth century onwards, were arranged in the same manner. For example, the menu of the banquet given by the Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha to the ambassadors on March 30, 1914 listed 10 dishes. The menu consisted of crème langoustine served as soup, beureks served as hot hors d’œuvres, rouget oriental as fish, Agneau Sultane served as relevé, foie de Strasbourg en croûte as entrée, poularde du Mans truffé as roast, salad, fonds d’artichauts à la crème served as vegetable, tarte hollandaise and crème de Nice as entremets, and dessert. 54 Pilaf, which was served in most of the banquets, was served after the vegetable course. The names of the French dishes served during these banquets can be found in some of the French cookbooks published in the nineteenth century, such as those written by Marie-Antoine (Antonin)   See the list of dishes of these banquets in the Annex.   J.-L. Flandrin, L’Ordre des Mets (Paris, 2002), pp. 149–63; J.-P. Poulain and E.

52 53

Neirinck, Histoire de la cuisine et des cuisiniers (Paris, 2004), p. 75. 54   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Babıâli Evrak Odası Gelen-Giden defterleri no. 904–55–9, p. 12b.

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Carême in 1833–34 and by Jules Gouffé in 1867.55 Most of the names of the dishes are present in more recent French cookbooks, such as Escoffier’s Culinary Guide, which was published in 1902.56 We can assume that these French-style dishes were prepared or supervised by French or European chefs in the Ottoman palace. The lists of salaries of cooks and employees in the Ottoman palace show that European chefs were temporarily employed in the imperial kitchens from the 1850s onwards. These French chefs worked with translators in the Ottoman palace kitchens.57 French cooks may have started to work permanently from the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit, as the memoirs of the sultan’s daughter attest to this argument. According to her, alongside local chefs, two French chefs were working in her father’s kitchens: one was responsible for main dishes, the other for cakes and biscuits.58 The presence of French chefs in the Ottoman sultan’s kitchen from the end of the nineteenth century may imply that French cuisine was in demand in the Ottoman court at this time. Other examples of menus belonging to the Ottoman palace from the first two decades of the twentieth century show that some of the French dishes were also served during banquets arranged for local notables and in the daily meals of the sultan. This fact implies that the integration of French cuisine into Ottoman high cuisine had been completed by then, as the menus reflect both Ottoman and French cuisines. For example, the menu of the banquet given by Sultan Abdülhamit II in 1909 at Yıldız Palace for the members of the parliament to celebrate the proclamation of the constitution of 1908 contains 11 dishes that reflect both French and Ottoman tastes. This menu consisted of bouillon with eggs, cheese börek, sea bass with mayonnaise, filets of beef with vegetables, veal liver paté, partridge kebab and turkey, chicken pilaf with white sauce, four brothers’ pudding, creams, and ice cream.59 The menus of these banquets for local guests and the menus of the daily meals served to the sultan contain local dishes but also some new ones adapted from French cuisine. For example, the menu of the banquet given to the Ottoman deputies on June 9, 1912 for the occasion of a religious day (kandil) was made up of nine dishes: börek, fish in papillote (kağıtta barbunya balığı), kebab (testi kebabı), vegetable stew (türlü), chicken kebab (piliç kebabı), baked pilaf (güveç pilavı), strawberry cream (çilekli 55   A. Carême, L’Art de la cuisine française au XIXe siècle: Les Grands classiques de la gastronomie Payot (Paris, 1994); J. Gouffé, Le Livre de Cuisine (Paris, 1867). 56   A. Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire (Paris, 1993). 57   Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Yıldız Perakende Hazine-i Hassa, no. 23/9. 58   Ş. Osmanoğlu, Hayatımın Acı ve Tatlı Günleri (Istanbul, 1966), p. 23. 59   İkdam newspaper, 5246 (1909).

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krema), ice cream, and fruits.60 In this menu, fish in papillote and strawberry ice cream are examples of new dishes. Concluding Remarks There are various reasons for the changes in the style of banquet prepared when receiving foreign dignitaries in the Ottoman palace. First, the ideas of reformation promoted by the Ottoman sultan stimulated the change seen in official banqueting style. As mentioned earlier, the westernization process, which started at the end of the eighteenth century, continued until the end of the Ottoman Empire. European modes of life as well as culinary culture became, in time, sources of inspiration for those who supported the ideas of reform among the Ottoman elites. The adoption of European table manners in the palace circles, as well as the new reception style arranged for foreign visitors from the end of the reign of Mahmut II in the 1830s, can be interpreted as a part of this modernization process of the Ottoman state. It should be noted that the whole process of reformation inspired from Western civilization realized in the military, institutional, and educational areas during the nineteenth century as promoted by the Ottoman sultans, also encouraged other changes that took place in the Ottoman court ceremonies from the reign of Mahmut II onwards. The Ottoman court started to use a different language in public spheres. For example, the Ottoman palaces constructed in the nineteenth century reflected both Western and Ottoman architectural styles, in both exterior and interior designs. Another reason for the change in the style of official banquets in the palace was the Ottoman court’s desire to make foreign dignitaries feel comfortable and at ease. Since the reign of Sultan Abdülmecit, members of the European court started to visit the Ottoman capital. At the same time, the Ottoman palace, along with adopting Western table manners, started to adopt European cuisine, namely French haute cuisine, a cuisine highly valued at that time within other European courts. French haute cuisine, which developed in aristocratic households starting in the seventeenth century, became the professional cuisine first in France and then in other parts of Europe during the nineteenth century. French cuisine developed into the international haute cuisine and was in demand in both aristocratic and bourgeois milieus in Europe at that time.61 The Ottoman court   Orgun, ‘Osmanlı Sarayında Kilercibaşılık,’ p. 69.   See, for the rise of French haute cuisine in the international arena in the nineteenth

60 61

century, A. Trubek, Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession (Philadelphia, 2000).

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was no exception. French haute cuisine was used as an international gastronomic language by the Ottoman court while communicating with the Western world. Most of the dishes served during these court banquets to European dignitaries were examples of French cuisine. The service style of the banquet and the order of the dishes were arranged also according to the international trend of that time. The Russian service style, which replaced the French in the nineteenth century in Europe, was also present at Ottoman official banquets. The menus of these banquets were written in French and translated into Turkish. As mentioned by Trubek, “during the nineteenth century French culinary vocabulary was considered as an acceptable way to describe the evening’s menu, whether in France, Australia, Britain, or America.”62 The presence of a French menu implied a fancy meal. In the nineteenth century the culinary language used by the Ottoman court in the diplomatic world changed: the Ottoman governors now preferred to use the international gastronomical language when communicating with the outside world. They changed the style of the reception of ambassadors in the Ottoman palace, primarily because the Ottoman court, by using the same language, wanted to represent itself as equal to its adversaries. Banquets arranged in the Ottoman palace for foreign guests were planned in a French style because French cuisine was at the top of the gastronomical world at that time,63 and French gastronomical language was particularly valued in Europe during this era. Some of the elements of Ottoman cuisine were preserved in this new gastronomical style, such as the serving of local dishes—pilaf, börek, and kebabs—during official banquets for foreign guests. The influence of French haute cuisine on Ottoman court cuisine was not unique at the time; this influence was also discernable in other European courts. For example, from the end of the eighteenth century, Russian elites welcomed French suppers and wines. French chefs were employed in many European courts in the nineteenth century. The famous chef Antoine Carême directed the tsars’ kitchens in Russia, serving the Galler prince.64 Food continued to be an agent for displaying power in the Ottoman court during the last epoch of the empire. The use of French gastronomical language during Ottoman official banquets reinforces this assumption. The Ottoman court chose to use this highly praised gastronomical language while making contact with the outside world to confirm its sumptuousness and its equivalence. The use of French gastronomy during official banquets prepared in the Ottoman   Trubek, Haute Cuisine, p. 22.   S. Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the

62 63

Middle Ages to the Present, (Chicago, 1996), p. 134; Trubek, Haute Cuisine. 64   H. D’Almeida-Topor, Le Goût de l’Etranger, (Paris, 2006), p. 20, p. 31; Trubek, Haute Cuisine, p. 47.

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palace also enabled the partial adaptation of French cuisine by Ottoman palace cuisine. The menus of the banquets arranged for local notables in the Ottoman palace at the beginning of the twentieth century support this argument. The new cuisine promoted by the Ottoman court from the 1850s, also influenced in some respects the culinary culture of the upper classes of Ottoman society, which becomes clear from looking at Ottoman cookbooks published after 1880. Annex: Dishes Served During Late Ottoman Official Banquets As mentioned previously, a catalog found in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul includes the menus of the 31 official banquets prepared by the Ottoman court between 1911 and 1918. The list of dishes served during these banquets, according to their service at the table, illustrates the use of French gastronomical language in the late Ottoman court (Table 5.1).65 In this table, the first column demonstrates the type of dish; the second column presents the French names of the dishes; and the third column the Turkish names as they were written in the menus. The last column displays the English explanation of the dishes. This table illuminates three important points: the types of the dishes served during the banquets; how the names of French dishes were translated into Turkish; and the order in which dishes were served. We should note that the translation of the names of French dishes into the Turkish language was generally incomplete as these dishes did not exist in the gastronomical vocabulary of Ottoman culture. Table 5.1 Types of dishes Soups

Dishes served during late Ottoman official banquets Names of dishes in French Consommé Consommé à la Reine

Consommé de volaille glacé

Names of dishes in Turkish Et suyu (meat stock)

Explanation of dishes

Clarified meat or fish broth Et suyu (meat stock) Chicken consommé thickened with tapioca and served with pieces of chicken1 Soğuk tavuk suyu (cold Cold chicken consommé chicken broth)

  Ottoman Archives of Prime Minister (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), Babıâli Evrak Odası Gelen-Giden defterleri no. 904–55–9. 65

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138 Consommé de volaille Consommé Impérial

Tavuk Çorbası (chicken soup) Çorba (soup)

Consommé julienne

Çorba (soup)

Consommé tapioca

Tavuk Çorbası (chicken soup)

Crème royale

Çorba (soup)

Potage à la Reine

Çorba (soup)

Potage crème d’asperge

Kuşkonmaz çorbası (asparagus soup)

Potage Orientale Hors d’œuvres

Beureks

Börek (savory pastry)

Beureks à la Financière Börek (savory pastry)

Fish

Bouchées à la Reine

Tepsi Böreği (savory pastry served in tray)

Bouchées chasseur

Avcı böreği (savory pastry of “hunter”)

Bouchées de volaille

Börek (savory pastry)

Bouchées des dames

Börek (savory pastry)

Bar au court bouillon

Levrek Haşlaması (boiled sea bass)

Chicken consommé Chicken consommé thickened with rice, served with cockscombs, kidneys, and shredded savory pastry2 Consommé served with julienne vegetables Consommé thickened with tapioca Chicken soup thickened with cream and cooked with truffle and diced chicken Chicken soup thickened with tapioca and cooked with pureed chicken3 Asparagus soup with cream Oriental soup Ottoman savory pastry made with sheets of pastry Small, round puff pastry filled with a mixture of truffle, diced chicken, liver, and sweetbread Small, round puff pastry filled with salpicon à la Reine4 Small, round puff pastry filled with mushrooms, cream, and demi-glace sauce Small, round puff pastry case filled with poultry Small, round puff pastry case filled with a sauce Sea bass cooked in a spiced aromatic liquor or stock

Pilaf and Bouchées Bar braisé au Champagne

Filets de turbot sauce blanche Poisson

Şampanyalı levrek Sea bass cooked in court balığı (sea bass au bouillon with champagne champagne) Levrek Balığı (sea bass) Cold sea bass served with Mont Blanc sauce Havyar salçalı levrek Sea bass with caviar sauce balığı (sea bass with caviar sauce) Balık (fish) Turbot served with white sauce Balık (fish) Fish

Rougets

Balık (fish)

Red mullet

Rougets en caisses

Barbunya balığı (red mullet)

Red mullet cooked in paper

Bar froid sauce Mont Blanc Bar poché sauce caviar

Rougets glacés

Relevés/ entrées

139

Cold red mullet

Suprême de Bar Orientale

Levrek balığı (sea bass) Sea bass fillet served with oriental sauce

Suprême de poissons

Balık (fish)

Fillet of fishes

Cailles à l’Impériale

Güveçde Bıldırcın (quails in casserole)

Quails garnished with truffle and duck liver Roasted quails

Cannetons de fois gras

Kaz ciğeri ezmesi (Pureed duck liver)

Duckling served with duck liver

Côtelettes d’agneau glacées

Soğuk kuzu pirzolası (cold lamb chops)

Cailles rôties

Lamb chops cooked with gelatin and served cold with white sauce Chaud-froid de dindon Soğuk Hindi (cold Turkey cooked with turkey) gelatin and served cold with white sauce Chauffroid de cailles Ciğerli soğuk bıldırcın Quails cooked with (cold quails with liver) gelatin and served cold with white sauce Lobster cooked with Homard froid Soğuk İstakoz (cold lobster) gelatin and served cold with white sauce

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140 Poulardes truffées

Tavuk (chicken)

Poulets nouveaux à la broche Poussins Albouféra

Piliç kebabı (kebab of young chicken) Küçük piliç (small young chickens) Piliç kızartması (roasted young chickens) Dana kızartması Roasted sweetbread (roasted veal) Soğuk piliç (cold young Breast or wing of poultry chicken) cooked in gelatin and served with white sauce Kuzu pirzolası (lamb Lamb chops coated with chops) breadcrumbs and fried, served with Villerois sauce Kuzu kızartması Rump of lamb served with (roasted lamb) vegetable garniture Garnitürlü filleto (fillet Veal fillet served with with garnishes) garniture

Poussins Périgourdine Ris de veau fleurs fines Suprême de volaille froid Roasts

Côtelettes d’agneau Villerois Double d’agneau printanière Filet à la jardinière

Roasted chicken served with Périgourdine sauce made of truffles and duck liver Roasted young chicken on skewers Chicks served with Albuféra sauce Young chickens served with Périgourdine sauce

Filet d’agneau bouquetières

Kuzu Filesi (lamb fillet)

Filet d’agneau

Kuzu filesi (lamb fillet) Lamb fillet

Filet d’agneau printanière

Kuzu filesi (lamb fillet) Lamb fillet served with vegetable garniture

Filet de poulet

Piliç filesi (fillet of young chicken)

Chicken fillet

Poulet de grains garnis

Piliç kebabı (roasted young chicken)

Roasted young chicken served with vegetable garniture Lamb rump served with vegetable garniture Roasted lamb served with garniture à l’Amiral Roasted lamb rump served with vegetable garnish Rump of Pauillac lamb roasted on skewers

Gigot de pré- salé printanière Selle d’agneau à l’Amiral Selle d’agneau primeur Selle de Pauillac à la broche

Kuzu fırını (roasted lamb) Kuzu filetosu (fillet of lamb) Kebab

Lamb fillet served with vegetable garniture

Pilaf and Bouchées Tournedos à la Moëlle Salads

Vegetables

Pilafs

Salade

141

Dana Filesi (veal fillet) Grilled sirloin steak served with boiled bone marrow Salata (salad)

Salade d’artichauts

Enginar salatası (artichoke salad)

Salade de laitues etuvées

Salata (salad)

Lettuce salad

Salade Lucullus

Salata (salad)

Lucullus salad

Artichauts à Bezelyeli enginar fırını l’Allemande Artichauts à l’Orientale Enginar fırını (Roasted artichokes) Artichauts aux fèves Zeytinyağlı baklalı enginar Artichauts crème au Enginar (artichokes) gratin Artichauts farcis sauce blanche Asperges à la crème Kuşkonmaz (asparagus) Asperges en branches Kuşkonmaz (asparagus) Asperges sauce Kuşkonmaz mousseline (asparagus)

Roasted artichokes with peas Artichokes in oriental style Artichokes with broad beans in olive oil Oven-cooked artichokes with cream Stuffed artichokes with white sauce Asparagus served with cream Young asparagus

Asperges sauce tartare

Kuşkonmaz (asparagus)

Asparagus served with tartar sauce

Cardons à la Moëlle

Enginar fidanı (young artichokes)

Cardoons served with bone-marrow sauce

Courgettes Impérial

Asma kabağı fırını (gourd roasted in oven)

Gourds in the imperial style (roasted)

Pilaf truffé

Asparagus served with mousseline sauce

Pilaf with truffle

Pilaw

Pilav

Pilaf

Pilaw Amberbou

Anberbu pilavı (pilaf amberbu)

Pilaf with spices and dried fruits

Pilaw aux poulets

Tavuklu pilav (pilaf with chicken)

Chicken pilaf

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142 Entremets Crème de fruits and desserts Fraises voilées Gâteaux aux fruits Gâteaux aux amandes Gâteaux Marquise Gâteaux panaché Dessert Gaufrettes Sultanié Glace Glace aveline

Kaymaklı meyve tatlısı (fruit dessert with clotted cream) Kaymaklı çilek (strawberries with clotted cream) Meyveli pasta (fruit cake) Bademli pasta (almond cake) Çikolata tatlısı (chocolate dessert)

Fruits served with cream Chantilly

Yemişli bademli pasta (cake with fruits and almond) Şekerleme (candies)

Ice-cream cake with fruits

Strawberries served with cream Chantilly

Marquise cake

Dessert

Kaymaklı yaprak tatlısı Sultan’s waffles (puff pastry with clotted cream) Dondurma (ice cream) Dondurma (ice cream) Ice cream made with hazelnuts

Strawberry sorbet Granité glacé aux fraises Çilekli dondurma (strawberry ice cream) Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc cake

Neige d’Ananas

Ananaslı dondurma (pineapple ice cream)

Pineapple sorbet

Tarte à la Chambord

Şambor tatlısı (Chambord dessert)

Tart Chambord

Vacherin Chantilly

Kremalı tatlı (dessert with cream)

Vacherin Chantilly

Notes: 1   T. Gringoire and L. Saulnier, Le Répertoire de la Cuisine (Paris, 1986), p. 34. 2   J. Robuchon, Larousse Gastronomique (London, 2001), p. 331. 3   Ibid., p. 34. 4   Ibid., p. 142.

Chapter 6

The Ceremony of Dining at Napoleon III’s Court Between 1852 and 1870 Anne Lair

Immediately following the French Revolution, France went through a period of political instability and lost much of its status as a world power. However, thanks to the genius and military victories of Napoleon I (1804–1814), the first emperor of France, the country regained its strength and power during his reign. His ambitious nephew, Louis Napoleon, took power through a coup d’état and thus ruled France from 1852 until 1870, as the last emperor. This parvenu, as he frequently referred to himself, had established his court at the Palace of the Tuileries (the Louvre) prior to becoming emperor. The sixteenth-century building was the obvious residence for the imperial family: synonymous with power and style, the palace was remodeled to host grand receptions, lunches, and dinners comparable in extravagance to those in the past. The main purpose of these events was to entice national and international admiration and thereby regain the status France had lost. Before elaborating on court food during the Second Empire, it is crucial to examine Louis XIV’s dining habits, since he imposed ceremony, etiquette, and table manners on the court; this will facilitate an understanding of Napoleon III’s motivations in shaping the cuisine and food service at the Palace of the Tuileries and at Compiègne, another court residence. Finally, a comparison will be made between the food served at Napoleon III’s court and that of fancy Parisian restaurants during the Second Empire, in order to assess the form and quality of court food. Louis XIV’s “Theatre of Power” The Sun King believed he received his power directly from God, which explained the manner in which he lived and why “the fetish character of every

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act in the etiquette was clearly developed at the time of Louis XIV.” He used etiquette as an instrument not only of distance but also of power and for ruling his subjects. The more the king distanced himself, the more respected he became by the people. As the lord of the house and the lord of the land, he ruled everything personally. Due to his extraordinary power, all the places became royal, the royal bedroom, the royal potager, and verger, all actions being done for the king. “The magnitude of his rule was reflected in his domestic functions.” This sense of etiquette and ceremony led to the development of a social hierarchy among the court staff, with a supervisor in charge of servants for whom it was an honor to serve the monarch. From then on, the schedule of the king was exploited to the maximum; each event or activity, however seemingly trivial, became a ceremonial and grandiose performance, from the moment the king woke up until he went to bed. Being present at his levée and his couchée was considered an honor, and people strived to attend, their goal being to get closer to the king: The greater his [Louis XIV’s] sphere of power was and the more directly everyone at court depended on him, the greater was the number of people who sought to approach him. He liked and desired this congestion of people; it too glorified his existence. […] Each gesture, utterance and step he made was for the supplicants of utmost importance in terms of prestige.

As Joan DeJean points out in The Essence of Style, the most powerful monarch in French history very quickly imposed the essence of style, fashion, etiquette, and ceremony, versions of which can still be observed currently in rich circles. Conspicuous cuisine and culinary extravagance were a must for the monarch of France, and his eating habits were characterized by gluttony. In order to cook the king’s meal, 324 people were employed in the kitchens of Versailles. The service de bouche (service for the king’s mouth) was divided into several stations: paneterie was responsible for the table, the bread, and the tablecloth; échansonnerie was for wine and water; cuisine bouche and the fruiterie for candelabras and fruits, respectively; and the fourrière for fire and coal. Meat and poultry, synonymous with wealth, were among the monarch’s favorites, and were thus served two to three times a day, depending on the religious calendar.   N. Elias, The Court Society (Dublin, 2006), p. 94.   Ibid., p. 90.    Ibid., p. 149.    J. DeJean, The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food,  

Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication and Glamour (New York, 2005).    A. Castelot, L’Histoire à table ‘Si la cuisine m’était contée …’ (Paris, 1972), p. 388.

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Each dish was prepared differently to demonstrate uniqueness. Sixty-nine poultry birds were used to prepare a sauce for one of the ordinary meals that was served to him exclusively. Ceremony was a must; as soon as the monarch was seated for dinner, timpani and fifes announced the beautifully arranged meat that was ceremoniously brought into the king’s bedroom by a maître d’hôtel accompanied by 36 servants, along with 12 men carrying cloche-covered, silverplated trays from the kitchen (located in another building). Appearance and presentation mattered tremendously; thus, Louis XIV placed greater importance on the pleasure of the eyes than on the pleasure of the palate. For instance, even a “simple” ingredient such as bread was covered in a napkin, which was folded differently each time. The high number of servants was also an indication of the monarch’s power. He never served himself, but rather several servants were there to help each time he needed something to drink. As another sign of power, the Sun King would usually eat alone in front of the window at a square table set on which silverware and crystal glasses were shining. When not eating alone, he and his family, along with high court guests such as the noblesse (princes, dukes, and marquis), would have dinner together for the grand couvert, which was open to the public. Everyone was invited to admire the monarch eating, and travelers and onlookers would invade the various galleries to see Louis eating his soup. Louis XIV’s dinner was a culinary spectacle, not only because the king was put on a pedestal while eating in front of the public, but also because of the etiquette, food preparation, and service exclusively designed for him. Thanks to La Quintinie, the king’s intendant, and the king’s own preferences, fresh produce started appearing on the table, especially in Versailles, where a large variety of fresh vegetables and fruits were planted in the potagers and vergers. This contributed to better nutrition and brought innovation in food consumption. At Versailles in 1651, 300 different types of pears, 88 different kinds of apples, and 37 varieties of peaches were grown,10 in addition to figs, strawberries, and cherries.11 These were used to reinforce status through ornamentation, with pyramids of fruits and flowers arrayed in the middle of the table.12           

M.-L. Verroust, Cuisines et cuisiniers (Paris, 1999), p. 36. H. Parienté and G. de Ternant, Histoire de la cuisine française (Paris, 1994), p. 169. Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 387. Ibid., p. 389. 10   Verroust, Cuisines et cuisiniers, p. 41. 11   Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 390. 12   G. Blond and G. Blond, Histoire pittoresque de notre alimentation (vol. II) (Paris, 1961), p. 343. 

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Table settings were another way to impose etiquette. The table, always visually superb, was impeccably set, with a long white damask tablecloth reaching down to the floor. Matching napkins were folded artistically before being placed on the guests’ laps, and were changed after each course to remain immaculate. Dishes in Versailles were made from precious silver. Personal plates, soup bowls, dinner plates, and dessert plates—novelties in the seventeenth century—had replaced the single platter. Even though silverware existed, people still ate with their fingers, using a spoon and a knife, but not a fork. It was not yet customary in the seventeenth century for a host to provide glassware, therefore guests had to bring their own, which they would leave on the sideboard.13 Another example of etiquette was to keep one’s hat on while eating, but to remove it when addressing the king. Nothing was too lavish for the Sun King; elaborate meals for up to 600 people were served by servants in the formal gardens, with music, entertainment, and fountains, and punctuated with fireworks. Amusement and performance were, thus, a central element of life in Versailles.14 Through his utilization of etiquette and ceremony, Louis XIV established new conventions with regard to table manners and table settings at the French court that would subsequently spread throughout the world: “The French court was extremely influential for European courtly society. During the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI the elaborateness of the royal table was well established.”15 Obviously, these dining spectacles, so important under the Sun King, proved the major role that food and entertainment played. As stated earlier, pleasing the guests and making them envious was a requirement: For centuries, the grand couvert, the protocol-wrapped meal open to an audience, had impressed the observer with the distance separating him from the monarch. […] By the late eighteenth century, however, the grand couvert, along with other court ceremonies, had become to many an empty formality; no longer inspiring awe, it instead provoked slight embarrassment. […] [H]ow many of them, in leaving the sight of these sumptuous tables, ha[d] nothing on which to dine or sup?16

Napoleon III and his wife Eugenie were the hosts at the Louvre Palace during the Second Empire (1852–1870). The new imperial family used this inherited etiquette and ceremony expected from the ruling family of France to help   Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 391.   Parienté and de Ternant, Histoire de la cuisine française, p. 170. 15   A. Trubek, Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession 13 14

(Philadelphia, 2000), p. 55. 16   R. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant (Cambridge, MA, 2000), p. 97.

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establish itself, as that was the protocol. However, as the emperor and empress were also Louis Napoleon and Eugenie (and, thus, people), examining their backgrounds will help in understanding their preferences, dislikes, and practices. Understanding Napoleon III and Eugenie From an early age, Louis Napoleon felt the need to fulfill an epic mission, an idea mostly nourished by his mother, Hortense, and later reinforced by his wife, Eugenie. The Bonapartes had a strong sense of grand spectacle centered around them, modeled on the ceremonies of the great dynasties of the past. Extremely proud of his ancestry and a strong admirer of his uncle Napoleon I, Louis Napoleon followed in his uncle’s footsteps to become a general, and then emperor (though he lacked his uncle’s abilities or genius to rule). He understood very well that in order to be elected he needed the support of the people, and therefore positioned himself as the only defender of the French people. Very skillfully taking advantage of the fragile political situation in the country and turning dissension to his favor, he was elected Prince-président thanks to a popular vote in December 1848. By restoring universal male suffrage in time for the plebiscite in December 1850, he received dictatorial powers as president for a time span of ten years; a year later, in another plebiscite, he won the approval, by an overwhelming majority, to be emperor of France. In other words, the constitution established by Napoleon III, with the mandate of the plebiscites of 1851 and 1852, enabled him to rule with virtually unrestricted personal authority, much like Louis XIV, whom he greatly admired. The rapport he built with the French people explained many of his actions and tastes in ruling and hosting. At the same time, his wife Eugenie, the Countess de Montijo, grew up in Spain in a privileged environment, and as with any young person of her status, received an education that enabled her to become a good hostess; she was, among other things, a sparkling conversationalist. She enjoyed reading, took drawing and painting lessons, studied English, and participated in sporting activities. In her twenties, her main occupations were traveling and discussing political conflicts. As public figures, women of her status were supposed to stand by their husbands, and Eugenie did (Louis Napoleon, not surprisingly, did have extra-marital affairs). She enjoyed her role as empress, entertaining people and appearing next to the emperor whenever required. In terms of food, she did not have a good palate, and evidently everything tasted good to her. However, she was a great admirer of Marie-Antoinette and, therefore, adopted some of her habits and tastes to camouflage her lack of taste.

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The emperor soon understood the importance of building his own public image. Figurative art, symbols, myths, and illusions were all used to contribute to promoting his power, prestige, and position and to his myth.17 Appearance and extravagance played a major role in building the image of a great leader, and thus traditions from the past were emulated: There was, it is true, as in the Ancien Régime, the same emphasis on spectacle, on symbols of centrality and of continuity within a prestigious tradition. There was the same theatricality, a seeking after effect or éclat, the same highly elaborate ritualization of significant domestic events such as a wedding or a baptism, and there were the triumphal displays on occasions of military significance. There was, furthermore, the same multiplication of images of the sovereign, surrounded by the symbols of his power as majesty, with equivalent stylization to show the ruler to best effect, abstracting him from the imperfections of his private reality and transporting him into the idealized and ornate modes of representation of his public image.18

All this was just an illusion (Louis Napoleon was not, as previously mentioned, a particularly adept ruler), but it had an effect, especially on the French people, who were Napoleon III’s power base. They reacted positively to images and ceremonies that represented the nation and its heroic aspirations. He projected the image of a heroic leader in charge of a modern nation: he took inspiration and continuity from his relation with his uncle to give the impression of reinstating the empire, but relied on illusion, appearances, masks, and reflections to sustain his power.19 Appearance mattered tremendously for Napoleon III (as it had to Louis XIV and Napoleon I). He wanted a court that was even more beautiful than his uncle’s had been. Above all, he wanted to have his revenge by impressing all those who were against him or who had not supported him prior to 1848. Hosting the Fête Impériale (meaning a constant lavish reception) in order to show off the regime was an important element contributing to this appearance. Actually, numerous ceremonies of the Second Empire were aligned with memories of Napoleon I, such as his birthday on August 15 (declared as a national holiday or Fête Nationale, and thus celebrated extravagantly with grandiose fireworks and elaborate decorations).20 Another important aspect of appearance was the   D. Baguley, Napoleon III and His Regime: an Extravaganza (Baton Rouge, 2000), pp. 149–50. 18   Ibid., p. 150. 19   Ibid., p. 160. 20   Ibid., p. 165. 17

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rebuilding program in Paris, which contributed to the prestige of the regime; this was also (not coincidentally) one of his uncle’s unfinished programs. The emphasis here too was more on decorativeness than on utility; modernizing buildings, introducing new materials, and creating a nice façade did, without a doubt, result in exactly what he wanted, an amazing effect. The Palace of the Tuileries had two important functions: first, it served as the court’s residence; and second, it was where political decisions were made during most of the year. Utilizing this sumptuous building exhibited the power of the regime. The Palace of the Tuileries became a place of no-expense-spared extravagant displays, which reminded all of Versailles under Louis XIV. On December 12, 1851, the senate-consul agreed to allocate: some twenty-five million francs a year, of which six million were allocated for the expenses of the imperial household and twelve million for the improvements and decoration of the imperial palaces, libraries, museums, estates, and forests, the court could move in grand style in the hallowed royal tradition from one splendid monument of the royal past to another, according to the season.21

No previous ruler had received such a lavish amount of money on which to live. Yet, sumptuousness was not synonymous with the aesthetical norms of the time. Upon completion, the Tuileries was the most majestic and largest palace in the world, which was enough to bedazzle nouveau riche society, the French people, and other nations. But “old money” was much more critical towards the décor and the lack of comfort.22 In terms of politics, Napoleon III had deemed it necessary to impress other nations, and the people at home. The court was the showcase of France, reflecting its splendor, power, and glory,23 even as pauperism continued to exist in Paris. The Napoleon III Apartments The Napoleon III apartments were inaugurated on February 11, 1861. Used as reception areas, they had been fitted out in the new Louvre to house the Ministry of State. Although the décor clearly reflected the period and the style of the Second Empire, there was a strong similarity between Versailles and the Napoleon III wing at the Louvre. The emperor was a strong admirer of Louis   Ibid., pp. 252–3.   P. Milza, Napoléon III (Paris, 2006), p. 524. 23   Baguley, Napoleon III and His Regime: an Extravaganza, pp. 201–2. 21 22

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XIV, which may explain why the Louis XIV style was chosen and apparently became the rule for official buildings.24 According to Anne Dion-Tenenbaum: The coves of the ceiling illustrate the stages of construction of the Louvre and Tuileries under François I, Catherine de Medicis, Henri IV, and Louis XIV, for the continuity of building under successive monarchs was a theme dear to Napoleon III. […] When the rooms were first opened a journalist for the Paris newspaper Le Monde illustre of February 16, 1861, wrote: One cannot imagine a more opulent residence, and one wonders how it will be possible to decorate the renovated Tuileries even more richly, as befits the state residence of the sovereign!25

After all, under Louis XIV, France was the leading European power, not only in terms of military and politics, but also for its grandiose style. The reception rooms were utilized for special occasions and immediately created a theatrical effect for the guests. In the center of the grand dining room was the table that could accommodate 40 guests or more, of ebonized wood with turned feet, the same red leather chairs as in the small or everyday dining room, and a large buffet with gilt bronze ornamentation curved to fit in the room’s hemicycle.26 The ceilings and wall panels of the dining rooms were illustrated with mythology, outdoor, and hunting scenes, thus emphasizing the imperial family’s interests and elevating them to the rank of mythic characters. At the Louvre, two dining rooms, one leading into the next, were located in the Louis XIV salon, and were possibly united for large receptions since they had similar décor and neo-Boulle style furniture (Figure 6.1). The small or everyday dining room was unique, with a trompe l’œil painting in the niche representing a stone balustrade, caryatids, and atlantes, theatrically giving the strange impression of being outside. This image contrasted with the dark wainscot lit with gilt arabesques, making the room look larger. The furniture (the table and the buffet) was made from ebonized wood with rich gilt bronze ornamentation. The oval table, with its quadrupled pedestal, was surrounded by chairs in the Louis XIV style, upholstered in red leather.27   A. Dion-Tenenbaum, The Napoleon III Apartments (Paris, 2006), p. 8.   A. Dion-Tenenbaum, ‘The Napoleon III Rooms in the Musée du Louvre, Paris’,

24 25

Magazine Antiques (March 1994). 26   Dion-Tenenbaum, The Napoleon III Apartments, p. 50. 27   Ibid., p. 44.

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Figure 6.1

151

The large dining room at the Louvre Palace

Black, red, and gold—representing severity, life, and wealth—were the colors of the Second Empire.28   Pictures of both dining rooms can be found on the following website: http://www. louvre.fr/llv/musee/visite_virtuelle_detail.jsp?CURRENT_LLV_DEP%3C%3Efolder_id =1408474395181114&CURRENT_LLV_VISITE_VIRTUELLE%3C%3Ecnt_id=1013 4198673232578&baseIndex=4&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673232579&b mLocale=en. 28

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There was no specific style developed during the Second Empire; it was rather a derivative and eclectic mixture of grand styles of the past.29 However, these styles had a strong effect, since the nouveau riche society was to reproduce them for their luxury and comfort, and more than anything else, for their extravagance in their own hôtel privé. Imitation, profusion, and ostentation were synonymous with the Second Empire, and these effects certainly mattered more than originality. The ubiquitous presence of gold definitely added to the lavishness and opulence of the ensemble, covering the walls and the beautifully carved ornamentation with its high relief effects representing flowers and trophies. Also important for the décor was the sculpted decoration of the ceilings, made of stucco and fixed on wooden panels. Lefuel, the architect in charge of the Louvre project, deliberately chose inexpensive materials for the décor, but was still able to produce theatrical effects and trompe l’œil illusions. He utilized carton-pierre, which was light, solid, and very popular in the nineteenth century. He also used galvanization (a form of metal-plating) to cover inexpensive metals with silver or gold. Surfaces were covered with faux painting, imitating marble or Boulle marquetry. Beautiful and large fresh bouquets of flowers were present throughout the rooms. Although all these elements (except for the flowers) were fake, the ensemble of all these details created an effect and gave the illusion of wealth and grandiosity in the reception rooms, such as the grand salons, the theater-salon, and the dining rooms, making them more impressive when entering. For an even more impressive effect, the extravagant and unique décor was exaggerated; an element was never used only one time, everything had to be multiplied. Each room had its own set of doors: four-leaf doors graced the theatre-salon, while the neo-Boulle ornamentation of gold filets on black grounds covered the doors separating the dining rooms; glass doors separated the grand dining room from the halls, allowing the magical effect created by the massive chandeliers. Unity between the décor and the furniture was not the point; what mattered was the extensive use of gold.30 In 1842, Charles Christofle purchased the patent for galvanization, a process for gilding and silvering by electrolysis, which became a commonly used technique during the Second Empire, allowing the gold plating of the large metal parts made for the banister, grand staircase chandelier, and chimney-piece ornaments. The more affordable price of plated base metal allowed the purchase of spectacular centerpieces and candelabra present in the dining rooms, the

  Baguley, Napoleon III and His Regime: an Extravaganza, pp. 252–3.   Dion-Tenenbaum, The Napoleon III Apartments, p. 49.

29 30

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door patera in gilt bronze, and the profusion of silverware.31 Items were not only galvanized but were also extremely ornamental, which added to the extravagance of the palace in a way very similar to Versailles. Very quickly, the new techniques of illusion became popular among the emperor’s circle and the bourgeoisie, and became a great success economically. France could no longer afford the extravagances of the pre-Revolution period, and therefore only fake and inexpensive materials for the Palace of the Tuileries could be used. In 1852, Napoleon III ordered a Christofle centerpiece for a dinner for 100 people at the Tuileries (Figure 6.2). In 1862, the half-brother of the emperor, the Duke of Morny, requested one in Louis XVI style, composed of several dozen elements, with one being at least a meter long.

Figure 6.2 Christofle basket (Source: Musée du Louvre).

  Ibid., p. 52.

31

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The elite of the Nouveau Régime did not have the same upbringing as did the Ancien Régime, and consequently lacked values, knowledge, and savoir-vivre. None of them could differentiate an original from a replica; though the look of an object was the same, the weight and feel were not. The Imperial Couple’s Receptions The imperial couple used the small dining room, conveniently located next to the empress’s apartments, for their ordinary lunch. Lunch usually started around noon, shared by the emperor and his wife in tête-à-tête. Dinners took place in the formal dining room in the Louis XIV salon, involving a lot of ceremony, reminiscent of life in Versailles and Napoleon I’s court. Napoleon III admired these two rulers and therefore, as in the Ancien Régime, there was: the same emphasis on spectacle, on symbols of centrality and of continuity within a prestigious tradition. There was the same theatricality, a seeking after effect or éclat, the same highly elaborate ritualization of significant domestic events such as a wedding or a baptism, and there were the triumphal displays on occasions of military significance.32

Before reaching the dining area, guests and presiding grandees in charge of the organization of the meal—the grand chambellan, the grand maréchal du palais, the grand écuyer, the grand aumônier, the grand veneur, and, above all, the grand maître des cérémonies (exactly the same type of personnel and protocol used at Louis XIV’s court)—were all invited to eat with the imperial couple. Napoleon III selected people directly working for him at the palace and who, therefore, depended on him. Sitting at the imperial family’s table meant being part of the intimate circle. All were gathered in the Apollo Gallery, forming a procession preceded by the emperor and empress, both wearing lavish costumes.33 This contributed to the formal atmosphere of the dinners. Napoleon III and the court occupied the castle of Compiègne every fall for four or five weeks, where the court celebrated the empress’s birthday on November 15. This beautiful castle, the emperor’s favorite, was used for sumptuous weeklong visits by their guests. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Louis XIV’s court, the empress would select about 60 guests (politicians, diplomats, highranking military officers, industrial leaders, financiers, and artists) to come   Baguley, Napoleon III and His Regime: an Extravaganza, p. 150.   Ibid., p. 252.

32 33

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and stay with the imperial family. The theme would change each week, based on personalities present.34 Such visits required meticulous preparations, with schedules and personal habits carefully evaluated, and resulted in a memorable stay for each guest, which gave the impression of being a part of the emperor’s inner circle. Each evening, two different guests were designated to escort the emperor and Eugenie from the Galerie des Cartes to the dining room, following the same ceremony used at the Louvre Palace.35 Guests gathered around the table in the dining room,36 which was graced by a spectacular centerpiece (a gilded replica of a piece with illustrated hunting scenes that had belonged to Louis XV). The beauty and detailed ornamentation took one’s breath away, as fake gold shined even more brightly than real gold.37 The profusion of galvanized silverware added to the ostentatious table decoration. Beginning with the Second Empire, separate crystal glasses (Baccarat and SaintLouis) for each kind of wine and also water stood on the table in front of each plate. As during the reign of the Sun King, dinner plates were made of silver, however dessert plates were blue Sèvres porcelain with gold ornamentation. The choice for this beautiful dinnerware was not anodyne, since this porcelain, manufactured under royal supervision at Sèvres, was renowned for its elegance and delicacy.38 Starting in the eighteenth century, Sèvres dinnerware was commissioned not only for each royal French residence before the revolution but also for the monarchs of other nations.39 Louis XV often gave dinner services as presents to royal visitors. As at the Palace of the Tuileries, the table settings at Compiègne were designed to impress the dinner guests through profusion and magnificence. Consequently, guests had certain expectations when eating at the emperor’s table. Meals were copious and merely good; a total of 14 dishes were divided into four services each containing two dishes, not including dessert. Service à la russe had by then become the norm. Despite a sufficient number of dishes, some guests pointed out the lack of innovation in the culinary preparations. A regular   Milza, Napoléon III, pp. 534–5.   Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 197; Milza, Napoléon III, p. 536. 36   A picture of the dining room in Compiègne can be seen at: http://www.napoleon. 34

35

org/en/gallery/pictures/files/Chateau_Compiegne_Emperor_s.asp. 37   Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 197. 38   Trubek, Haute Cuisine, p. 55. 39   It was easily identifiable because of its floral and figural decoration, with lavish applications of gilding, and rich background colors of royal blue, yellow, pea green, and pink. After 1789, the manufacturer innovated its work and came up with new décor based on the political climate and also new styles of containers, thus satisfying the evolving arts of the table of the nineteenth century.

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guest at the court, Princess de Metternich, spouse of the Prince de Metternich who held a high position at the court and was “old money,” mentioned the copiousness and also the continuous absence of refinement of the culinary dishes.40 In The New York Times on January 18, 1860, a guest at court who had been invited to have dinner in Compiègne with the imperial couple and a few of their friends, reported his impressions: “The dinner was most superb. […] The eating and drinking is more abundant and soigné than ever.” Despite the profusion of dishes and wines, there are no details about what was served. As Rebecca Spang points out, although travelers were eager to taste French cuisine, they had little to say about meals they ate, due to their lack of experience. They instead focused on the décor and table settings.41 Following the French Revolution, the grand bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie became the new elite, especially during the Empire (1804–1814) and the Restoration (1815–1830), both periods of splendor and prosperity. They too wanted to show refinement. But starting with the July Monarchy (1830), Parisian society changed, and the aristocratic salons were neglected in favor of parvenu salons. Furthermore, most participants at the Fête Impériale were from the monde and demi-monde, more impressed by profusion, opulence, and flashy décor than by refined culinary preparations. Abundance (quantity) and refinement (quality) are two distinct concepts and both were to be expected from any court. Chefs carried huge responsibilities as they had to satisfy the appetites of their patrons and their guests. Unlike his predecessors and many of his contemporaries, however, Napoleon III did not have the greatest chefs cooking for him. With his simple culinary taste, he not only revealed his modest interest in fine food but also his awareness that the menus of imperial banquets, which were often reprinted in newspapers, were seen by the French people, who formed a significant element of his support. In addition, most of the illustrious chefs had been hired at foreign courts. Jules Gouffé was considered the best chef, or officier de bouche of that period, but was employed at the Jockey Club in Paris. Emile Bernard started his career at the Louvre Palace under Napoleon III, only to later join Urbain Dubois and cook for Wilhelm I of Prussia,42 leaving the most prestigious palace in France, the country of haute cuisine, to go to a foreign court. Yet, the kitchens at the Tuileries were well equipped and suitable for any type of culinary preparation. As a print of the time period illustrates, multiple chefs and sous-chefs worked in the kitchens

  Ibid., p. 619.   Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant, p. 198. 42   Verroust, Cuisines et cuisiniers, pp. 208–9. 40 41

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preparing elaborate meals.43 Between 1800 and 1900, the number of personal chefs in the private sphere decreased, whereas it increased in the public sphere (where haute cuisine was fulfilling the culinary interests and delights of the bourgeoisie).44 Although the imperial couple’s aim was to impress their guests, they used a profusion of plain culinary preparations to do so rather than by the refinement of the dishes. The imperial couple had simple culinary tastes and liked the fresh vegetables and fruits grown in Versailles, which were offered every day.45 However, this may simply be mimicry of Louis XIV’s taste for the fresh fruits and vegetables grown by La Quintinie, also at Versailles. It is clear, however, that neither Napoleon III nor Eugenie seemed concerned with haute cuisine.46 The empress remained fond of Spanish food where all of the ingredients were mixed together, even though it did not have a good reputation in France: these dishes contained onion, olive, and pimento as a base, combined with local ingredients. According to Prosper Mérimée, a loyal friend of the empress, “The worst ratatouille dish finds grace in front of her palate whereas others hold on to their heads or their stomachs.” In one instance she asked for a second serving of an awful omelet cooked in stinky oil.47 Was it because of her loyalty to her country? Perhaps she simply liked the familiar taste of olive oil, then unknown in France. Meals at the court lasted no more than 45 minutes48 and no one lingered over the cuisine even when foreign dignitaries were present; this again suggests a lack of interest in the arts of cooking. The imperial couple was, on the other hand, served by their own domestic staff, thus distancing them from their guests who were served by different household staff,49 a protocol established by Louis XIV. Another indication of their limited curiosity for food is the lack of variety in the manner in which it was prepared. Below are three menus served to Napoleon III and Eugenie covering a period of five years (Table 6.1). There is no indication

 

43

p. 80.

J.-P. Poulain and E. Neirinck, Histoire de la cuisine et des cuisiniers (Paris, 2004),

  Trubek, Haute Cuisine, pp. 40–41.   Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 619. 46   Blond and Blond, Histoire pittoresque de notre alimentation, p. 443. 47   “La plus infecte ratatouille trouve grâce devant son palais tandis que les autres 44

45

(convives) se tiennent la tête ou le ventre.” “On raconte qu’à un repas, où l’on servait une omelette innommable accommodée dans une “huile puante”, elle s’écria, ravie: Donnez-moi encore un peu de cette délicieuse omelette, il n’y en a pas assez pour tout le monde.” Castelot, L’Histoire à table, pp. 280–81. 48   Milza, Napoléon III, p. 526. 49   Castelot, L’Histoire à table, p. 197.

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whether or not special guests were present at these dinners.50 As mentioned previously, service à la russe had been generally adopted by this time. There were four services with a minimum of 14 dishes: two potages; two grosses pièces; four entrées, two rôts; and four entremets, which indeed represented a copious meal. After the French Revolution, we do observe a plurality of the services; it became the norm as well to serve one dish of fish at every meal, and not only on Friday, usually in the grosses pièces. However, if offered more than once, then it was as an entrée.51

When comparing the various courses offered over the five-year period, the few choices are beef (served twice on the 1860 menu), veal, lamb, capon, kidney beans, salmon or trout, or sole, and rice (served twice on the 1858 menu), each time fixed simply and often prepared the same way. These were the main ingredients repetitively served at the Palace of the Tuileries; though every possible foodstuff was accessible in Paris, this was not reflected in menus of the imperial table. Serving luxurious ingredients such as turbot, crawfish, or oysters would have been against the emperor’s commitment to the people and too reminiscent of the Ancien Régime. Though foie gras was not a summer dish it was still present during the 1860 meal, which was most likely a summer meal based on the seasonal cauliflower, artichokes, and green beans (also present in the 1855 and 1858 dinners). Vegetables were prepared simply and did not highlight the chef’s talent or gastronomy. Also, some identical dishes recurred: the potage à la bourgeoise, roast beef, capon prepared with watercress, kidney beans, butter sauce, charlotte, petits pâtés au naturel, with the pains à la Mecque offered twice. Above all, these dishes were not generally innovative, which again reflected the royal lack of interest in and understanding of food; menus were obviously tailored to their personal tastes, and needed to appear unostentatious. One can actually agree with Princess de Metternich, who claimed that there was a lack of culinary refinement and creativity in the dinners hosted by Napoleon III and Eugenie. Though Napoleon III wanted to impress the haute bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, and succeeded with the grandeur of his dining rooms, this was certainly not the case when related to the food served therein. Napoleon III, however, certainly did impress the people and in particular the petite bourgeoisie, the rising social class constituted primarily of shopkeepers and small business owners. They supported the political power through plebiscites in 1851 and 1852 in exchange for protection, and benefited from it financially as well. Typically working at the Halles, they fed the upper classes and bourgeoisie 50   For the first and second menus, see: J.-L. Flandrin, L’Ordre des mets (Paris, 2002), p. 143; for the third, see ‘Banquets Royaux’, http://www.cuisine-classique.com/banquets_royaux. htm. 51   Flandrin, L’Ordre des mets, pp. 142–4.

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Table 6.1

159

Three menus served at the imperial court of Napoleon and Eugenie, spanning a period of five years

Samedi 12 août 1855

Vendredi 18 juin 1858

Potages: A la bourgeoise Aux nouilles d’Italie

Potages: A la bourgeoise Riz au consommé Hors d’œuvres: Petits pâtés au naturel Grosses pièces: Grosses pièces: Truite sauce anchois Saumon à l’écossaise Filet de bœuf au madère à la Longe de veau dans son jus jardinière aux tomates farcies Entrées: Entrées: Côtelettes d’agneau Noix de veau aux pois Filets de volaille à la épigrammes aux pois à Maréchale à l’écarlate l’anglaise Côtelettes de gibier à la Canetons à la Richelieu Bourguignonne Salade de homard à la Russe Casserole de riz à la financière Côte de bœuf à la gelée Rôts: Rôts: Canetons au cresson Chapons au cresson Quartier d’agneau Cailles aux croûtons Entremets: Chicorée aux croûtons Haricots flageolets Beignets soufflés Pots de crème au chocolat et à la vanille

Entremets: Asperges sauce au beurre Haricots flageolets à la maître d’hôtel Charlotte russe aux fraises Pains à la Mecque

1860 Potages Pot-au-Feu Purée à la Reine Hors d’œuvres: Petits pâtés au naturel Grosses pièces: Pièce de boeuf à la jardinière Rosbif garni de croquettes Tête de veau en tortue Entrées: Petites timbales à la Lavallière Grenadins à la chicorée Suprême de poulets, pointes d’asperges Chauds-froids de foie gras Salade de filets de sole à la ravigote Rôts: Faisans et chapons au Cresson Artichauts frits Entremets: Choux-fleurs, sauce au beurre Haricots verts sautés Charlotte Russe au chocolat Timbale de poires à l’Italienne Gelée, macédoine de fruits Pains à la Mecque Desserts

and also nourished themselves with what they prepared and sold. Finding food had been an issue during the French Revolution, but that was no longer the case by the 1850s. Eating became a pleasure more than a necessity, especially for the lower classes who were eager for copious amounts of food. To them, meats, any type of stew, and filling preparations were much appreciated, whereas fish, or

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dishes considered too delicate, were regarded as unrewarding. Quantity mattered over quality. Although they are fictional, Zola’s works illustrated well how the lower classes lived. Gervaise, the shopkeeper in L’Assommoir,52 prepared a feast for her birthday celebration, and even when no longer hungry, her guests continued to eat until all the dishes were cleared. She fixed three types of meat, an expensive ingredient by definition, and potatoes, but no fish. As at Napoleon III’s table, Gervaise did serve some pot-au-feu bouillon, which she said was always appreciated. A dish often offered at the imperial table, kidney beans, had the reputation of being popular and among the favorites of the petite bourgeoisie, since it was inexpensive and filling. Instead, Gervaise served potatoes, also considered a filling dish. There are no indications about the wines served at the Tuileries. We do know, however, that Napoleon III, an amateur of the Bordeaux wine Cos d’Estournel (St Esthèphe classified in 1855), loved this wine so much that he had several thousand bottles sent to the Palace of the Tuileries; nothing is said about how much he shared, but it does give us an indication of the sort of wine favored by the emperor. During the Ancien Régime and even during the Empire, culinary extravagance was the norm. Banquets were a way to underscore the leader’s superiority and to put the social stratification on parade.53 However, at Napoleon III’s court, there were no displays of rare foodstuffs in the menus that suggested culinary extravagance. Instead, display related to the setting (of both place and table) and was used as a means to awe.

Restaurants and Haute Cuisine As previously mentioned, the Ancien Régime had access to haute cuisine and culinary extravagance. They had the best chefs who used the finest produce and employed superior methods of preparation. Following the French Revolution, personal chefs opened their own restaurants to make a living by satisfying the new elite of the nineteenth century, the bourgeoisie, who were eager to taste these exquisite culinary preparations: Haute cuisine became the privilege of all those who can afford it. The first home of French haute cuisine was the court, but with the passage of time and changes

  E. Zola, L’Assommoir (Paris, 1996). See chapter 7.   P.P. Ferguson, Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine (Chicago, 2004),

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pp. 151–2.

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in social and economic institutions, haute cuisine became part of a much broader and deeper configuration of elite culture.54

In the early nineteenth century, Paris, the French center of politics, culture, and arts, was also the gastronomic capital of France, and indeed, of Europe. Paris was the most frequently visited place by foreigners, due to the variety of delightful activities available in the city, including dining on exquisite food. Paris had the most reputed cuisine prepared by the most talented chefs and was also the place where good chefs went for training.55 While nothing was grown in the capital, paradoxically every possible foodstuff was available. One could hardly ignore the large quantities and varieties of fresh and exotic produce shipped to the capital and available in Paris as a result of the industrial revolution. Oysters, all kinds of fresh fish, different types of meats, game, charcuterie, vegetables, cheese, and all sorts of other edibles became available in Paris. Because the central administration of France was established in Paris, all routes converged there. As a representation and recognition of the regions, each province produced and shipped the best produce to be prepared and consumed in Paris; the products of the provinces, as well as international foodstuffs from neighboring lands and from overseas, nourished Paris. Needless to say, wealth created the demand for illustrious chefs to develop innovative recipes based on the variety of ingredients, thus shaping another dimension of cuisine and causing culinary preparations to peak in the first half of the nineteenth century. Restaurants began to burgeon with the growth of gastronomic discourse and literature. Cafés and clubs already existed during the eighteenth century, favored by bourgeois men as places to discuss politics and public matters; women, excluded from these conversations, hosted their salons littéraires at home or devoted time to charity.56 There were fewer than 100 restaurants in Paris prior to 1789, but by 1834 there were over 2,000. “Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the restaurant’s trope was ‘copia’—cornucopia, to be precise. The restaurant was full to overflowing.”57 People now dined out for pleasure, selecting restaurants based on their income, the bourgeois inviting either his spouse (rarely) or a mistress (usually); or, very simply, men would eat with other men.58 At first, the bourgeois—afraid of showing ostentatious tastes in public   Trubek, Haute Cuisine, p. 41.   Poulain and Neirinck, Histoire de la cuisine et des cuisiniers, p. 69. 56   D. Davidson, France after Revolution: Urban Life, Gender, and the New Social Order 54

55

(Cambridge, 2007), p. 132. 57   Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant, p. 170 58   M. Toussaint-Samat, Histoire de la cuisine bourgeoise du Moyen Age à nos jours (Paris, 2001), p. 164.

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and embarrassed by their new social status—ordered only a few dishes that were served one at a time, which is where the term à la carte originated.59 Obviously, only a few à la carte restaurants existed, first located in the neighbourhood around the Palais Royal and then on the boulevards. The Frères Provençaux, the Véfour, and the Maison Dorée, each serving their own specialties, were renowned for their cuisine, resulting from very impressive à la carte options (over one hundred dishes long), the excellent chefs in the kitchens, and their extensive wine lists. These restaurants attracted a wealthy clientele, not only from France, but from all over the world, eager to savor exquisite culinary preparations. The décor was refined, with a profusion of tables and dinnerware reminiscent of the Ancien Régime, with its strong emphasis on food and wines.60 The role that highly trained chefs first played in the private sphere and later in the public one cannot be neglected. These artists determined, shaped, and gave meaning to food resulting in a mark of haute.61 The most refined and expensive ingredients were prepared in every possible way, thus showing off the chefs’ talents and dazzling patrons. Consumers were especially interested in those ingredients coming from overseas.62 Maintaining a solid reputation was challenging since it depended on the chef, who was solely responsible for pleasing and impressing the clientele as well as earning his own income. Because there was such demand, chefs were able to exercise their talents. The strong leadership and reputation established by a chef made it difficult to find a successor once he passed away; many restaurants did not remain open after such an event or had difficulties doing so. The trend in restaurants and cuisine tended to change every 30 years, the average length of a career.63 Competition was stiff and was fueled by restaurant guidebooks. Many of the earliest establishments around the Palais Royal were unable to survive. New cooking methods were developed and, more importantly, new sauces were invented. Throughout the century, these sauces, which functioned to highlight fine dishes, were developed and refined by the talents of the best chefs—Beauvilliers, Carême, and later Urbain Dubois. This allowed a particular item to be served in a multitude of ways. Nineteenth-century chefs continued to invent and elaborate on culinary preparations using the most refined and delicate foodstuffs, requiring the most attentive and lavish preparations:     61   62   63   59

Poulain and Neirinck, Histoire de la cuisine et des cuisiniers, p. 71. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant, p. 178. Trubek, Haute Cuisine, p. 65. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant, p. 155, p. 184. B. Girveau, ‘Le Restaurant pour tous.’ In A table au XIXe siècle: Paris Musée d’Orsay 4 décembre 2001–3 mars 2002 (Paris, 2002), p. 188. 60

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Classified by Carême at the beginning of the 19th century, and redefined by Escoffier a century later in his Guide culinaire (1903), this luxurious, sumptuous and decorative cuisine used and combined in complex, sophisticated ways the rarest and most expensive defined produce—truffles, foie gras, fillet of beef, pheasant, woodcock, salmon, lobster—for the delectation of a wealthy and privileged clientele […].64

In order to appreciate dishes of this sort, one had to be a “gastronome.” This term first appeared in 1803, referring to someone who likes and knows how to appreciate refined cuisine, unlike a “gourmand” who enjoys eating to excess. “Gastronomie” (or “the art of good eating”) first entered the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française in 1806 “as one means of satisfying the incessant hunger for aesthetic debates,”65 and was, thus, more applicable to the amphitryon (or host). As we now use the term, it refers to a culinary tradition implying refined cuisine. However, to identify as a gastronome one had to show some savoir-faire, savoirvivre, and education from guidebooks and gastronomical literature such as Le Manuel des amphitryons, by Grimod de La Reynière. Diners became capable of appreciating what chefs prepared for them in the public sphere. Chefs created a demand on the part of gastronome consumers, especially in the Palais Royal neighborhoods. By the 1820s and 1830s, the boulevards had started to attract diverse crowds; with the opening of theaters and dance halls they became the new home of trendy Parisian street life.66 This success consequently led to new restaurants and cafés. The type of cafés with the accent on appearance with sumptuous décor and carefully chosen furniture, caught the eye of the new bourgeoisie—the dandies. These young people with new money, no class, no savoir-faire, no refined palate, and no taste frequented these establishments with the goal of flaunting their wealth. Alas, they were unable to appreciate what they were served.67 Despite the high number of restaurants and clubs in Paris, very few succeeded; more and more chefs left the private sphere to work in the public circle, but only a few stood out. Also “new” diners (the nouvelle bourgeoisie) focused on frequenting trendy restaurants in order to be seen rather than to enjoy exquisite cuisine, and this meant diners went in large numbers to a small number of establishments that were the rage at any given moment. Additionally, Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état brought France under a (benevolent) dictatorship that rejected the principles of refined eating and forced distinguished celebrities     66   67   64

65

P. Freedman (ed.), Food: The History of Taste (London, 2007), p. 277. Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant, p. 150. Davidson, France after Revolution, p. 78. J.-P. Aron, Le Mangeur du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1989), p. 63.

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such as Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (one of the finest gastronomes in French history) into exile. After having trained prestigious culinary chefs who had developed skills to the highest level, France no longer seemed to be the place where these chefs wanted to practice their knowledge and passion for food! Emile Bernard, Urbain Dubois, Jules Gouffé, and Auguste Escoffier, among others, worked for the most prestigious foreign courts or palaces,68 where haute cuisine was highly appreciated. But not every chef went abroad. Adolphe Dugléré (1805–1884)—after managing the Baron de Rothschild’s kitchens until 1848, and then the Frères Provençaux restaurant—decided to take over the kitchens of the Café Anglais in 1866 (Urbain Dubois, his former apprentice, followed him there before taking a position in Russia). The décor of the Café Anglais was sumptuous, with mahogany and walnut wood panels, flashy gold mirrors, and red velvet sofas and love seats in the grand salons. With Dugléré’s culinary talents, the Café acquired a first-class culinary reputation and became the place where the tout-Paris and the most famous people visiting the capital wanted to eat, especially during the World Fair in 1867. Due to its chef ’s illustrious reputation, the Café was full almost every night, a strong indication of the interest Parisians had in gastronomy (and perhaps of the dearth of top-class options available at the time). On June 7, 1867, Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, a regular of the Café, invited Alexander II, the future Alexander III, and Otto Von Bismarck for a gastronomic dinner at the Café Anglais, while touring Paris for the World Fair.69 The emperors asked Dugléré to prepare a memorable menu. This became the dinner for the “Three Emperors,” and the bill came to 1,200 francs, or in today’s terms $12,950, which still remains the most expensive meal in history.70 Potages: Impératrice et Fontanges Soufflés à la Reine Relevés: Filets de sole à la vénitienne Escalopes de turbot au gratin Selle de mouton purée bretonne

  Verroust, Cuisines et cuisiniers, pp. 208–9.   Parienté and de Ternant, Histoire de la cuisine française, p. 270. 70   For more details see the following website: http://menus.free.fr/page109.html. 68 69

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Entrées: Poulet à la portugaise Pâté chaud de cailles Homard à la parisienne Sorbets au vin Rôtis: Cannetons à la rouennaise Ortolans sur canapé Entremets: Aubergines à l’espagnole Asperges en branche Cassolettes princesse Bombes glacées Vins: Madère retour de l’Inde 1810 Xérès de 1821 Château-Yquem 1847 Chambertin 1846 Château-Margaux 1847 Château-Latour 1847 Château-Lafite 1848 Champagne Roederer frappé

What an honor for the Café Anglais to host such a dinner! However, the pressure was intense, since not only was the reputation of the chef at stake, but also that of French culinary art. Every step had to be perfect. Obviously the chef opted for preparations reflecting cultural nationalism, such as selle de mouton purée bretonne, homard à la parisienne, and cannetons à la rouennaise, symbolizing France and French cultural power as well as showcasing culinary excellence.71 Due to his experience, Dugléré knew what to cook to impress these special visitors in Paris and no expense was spared. The most exquisite and therefore the most expensive foodstuffs were selected for this dinner, which showcased new and lavish dishes. Fish such as sole, turbot (the king of fish),72 and lobster were used. Like his mentor, Carême, Dugléré believed using fresh, quality   Trubek, Haute Cuisine, p. 67.   In his Almanach des Gourmands (Paris, 1803), Grimod de La Reynière explained

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where to find the freshest produce in Paris.

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products was primary to success in cooking. He adopted some of the recipes he had learned from Carême while working at the Rothschilds’ kitchens, and then made them his own. Following the trend of the à la carte restaurant, the grosses pièces became individual portions served in fillets (filets de sole à la vénitienne, or escalopes de turbot au gratin); both recipes were published in Carême’s L’Art de la cuisine française au XIXe siècle. Warm hors d’œuvres were served after the potages, and fish appeared on the menu along with meat.73 Unlike Carême, Dugléré served individual portions, which was a novelty for the time. Delicate and rare meats were prepared such as ortolan and cannetons, thereby contributing to the elaborate presentation. Dugléré’s respect for fresh and seasonal ingredients explains the absence of some French delicacies such as foie gras and truffles, which were considered winter dishes.74 Obviously, Dugléré’s preparations that evening must have been a success since Alexandre Dumas later adopted some of them.75 Other elements of refinement included that evening were the coup du milieu (an alcoholic sorbet very much in vogue during the second half of the nineteenth century as a palate cleanser, before or between the rôts and the entremets) and wines offered to complement particular dishes. Starting in the 1840s, fashionable restaurants featured extensive wine cellars (caves) to further elevate the cuisine. The wine list became equally as important as the menu since the variety of wines enabled the harmonization of dishes and wines. Mr Delhomme, from Bordeaux originally, the proprietor of the Café in 1855 and noted wine connoisseur, invested heavily in Bordeaux wines and champagnes, which he loved, over Burgundy to which he was indifferent. He also purchased other wines to satisfy the tastes of his clientele, as well as foreign wines for which there was a strong demand, especially Madeira and sherry.76 By the end of the eighteenth century, Bordeaux was well known for its wines, and highly appreciated in France and England. Wine was expensive and Delhomme had in his cellar over 300,000 bottles of the best vintages, which he allowed to age. From the start, this important investment turned out to be very fruitful and contributed to the success of the Café Anglais. To enhance the flavor of the most stunning meals the best years of the top wines were selected; each bottle was roughly 20 years old in the case of the French wines. The head sommelier, Claudius Burdel, was in charge of selecting the pairings.   Flandrin, L’Ordre des mets, pp. 156–7.   Alexander II, fond of foie gras, had to accept the fact it was a winter dish and not a

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summer preparation. This remark illustrates his knowledge and appreciation of French food and its appreciation. 75   ‘Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine’, http://www.dumaspere.com/pages/biblio/ chapitrecuisine.php?lid=c1&cid=744. 76   http://hearsight.com/articles/d.johnson/sommelier3.html.

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The “evening of the three emperors” at the Café Anglais began with Madère 181077 and Xérès 1821 (as was common practice at the time). This was followed by an offering of three out of four of the period’s top grands crus classés: Margaux 1847, Latour 1847, and Lafite 1848. Other wines were served as well, such as Château Yquem 1847, a fifth cru supérieur Sauternes. 1847 is still considered the year for Bordeaux wines and some are savored even today. The meal was completed with an excellent Chambertin 1846 and finally Champagne Roederer. All these bottles added to the already exquisite food to make it a memorable feast that only a few people could appreciate or afford, since the wines themselves costed a fortune. Why were so many Bordeaux wines offered on that particular evening? As previously stated, the proprietor was from that region. More important, the Bordeaux wines were already highly praised in France and around the world, which motivated Napoleon III to have the Bordeaux wines represented at the World Fair in Paris in 1855. The Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Bordeaux (CCI) with the help of the Syndicat des Courtiers (brokers’ syndicate) was responsible for classifying the Gironde wines. At that time, only wines from Médoc and Graves were present at the World Fair and therefore classified in 1855. Established according to the reputation of the crus and the price of commercial transactions, the classification system reflects the market value of the crus included. The scheme distinguished five classes, from the first to the fifth growth and still highly respected today. In addition, 27 sweet white wines from Sauternes and Barsac were also classified in 1855: one premier cru supérieur, Château Yquem.78 Needless to say, this classification helped market the Bordeaux wines and led to a similar classification of Burgundy wines in 1861. The idea was to categorize the best wine properties in Burgundy. At first, wines were classified as first, second, and third vintage; and then, starting in 1935, France created a classification system called Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), still in use today. Again for that dinner, the Champagne Roederer was obvious since already by 1850 their champagnes were served at the Prussian, Hungarian, Swedish, and Russian courts. In 1876, thanks to Alexander II, the prestigious cuvée prestige Cristal was created for the tsar, in a crystal bottle adorned with the imperial coat of arms.79 Thanks to this unique selection of grands crus classés wines and champagnes, Burdel became the official buyer of three great European courts.   http://menus.free.fr/page109.html.   ‘The 1855 Classification’, http://www.bordeaux.com/Tout-Vins/Classification.

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aspx?contentId=42. 79   ‘Champagne Roederer’, http://www.champagne-roederer.com.

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This dinner at the Café Anglais lasted for eight hours. Wilhelm I, a gastronome who wanted to satisfy the palates of two European dominant ruling figures, intentionally commissioned it. Establishing good relations with such leaders was another important reason. They would appreciate such an exquisite evening, especially Alexander II, another gastronome, who requested foie gras to satisfy his palate and who as a result of that dinner sent his own sommelier to Maison Roederer. This dinner is the perfect example of what French culinary artists were capable of preparing and actually wanted to do: creating the synergy that comes by serving refined and lavish cuisine accompanied by the most complementary wines. None of the guests were French, but it did not matter. What was important and universal was to be a gastronome that evening. Due to its excellent reputation, they visited the best restaurant in Paris with the intent of experiencing the most memorable meal of their life. Concluding Remarks: Culinary Contrasts In all cases presented, dinner took place in beautiful dining rooms, where “society” was involved, and where food was displayed before being consumed. On one hand, Napoleon III’s dinners took place in the private sphere, at the Louvre Palace or at Compiègne, where the ruler of France invited the monde and the demi-monde on a regular basis but where no illustrious chefs practiced their talents. Table displays were extraordinary; but dinner only lasted 45 minutes, and the cuisine was ordinary. Quantity was chosen over quality, a more bourgeois and petite bourgeoisie characteristic. Although the emperor was invited from time to time for dinner in the public sphere, and therefore was exposed to refined and lavish preparations, he never showed interest in this type of food; nor did he use fancy food for political power, which was a way to show his affiliation to the French people. On the other hand, Dugléré, aware of his prestige and responsibilities as a chef, used all of his talents and resources to please gastronomes, and moreover to honor the three emperors who were touring France and who wanted this experience to be memorable. Success and the reputation of his establishment depended on his talents and his staff. He showed what a talented chef could do, and, through his creativity and access to excellent ingredients, was able to impress and please his diners. By creating an inviting atmosphere in a refined private salon filled with conviviality, and by serving the rarest ingredients prepared with the best recipes and accompanied by outstanding wines, this fabled meal became the fabulous experience of every gourmet’s dreams.

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Extravagant culinary arts were a way to underscore the power of the court, as seen during the Ancien Régime and the Second Empire. Personal chefs, the profusion of fresh produce, table setting, and table manners all contributed to conspicuous cuisine. However, starting in the 1830s, the number of excellent chefs cooking in the private court diminished, while it increased in the public sphere, the emphasis on cuisine shifting away from the aristocratic court to the new elite, the bourgeoisie. Also, many talented chefs went to work at foreign courts, where French culinary art was very much appreciated. However, those who stayed and cooked in the great restaurants continued developing French haute cuisine. During the Second Empire, Napoleon III’s court continued to host lavish receptions, with the emphasis on appearance, room decoration, and table setting, elements calculated to bedazzle guests. The more gold there was, the more impressed people were, which heightened the sense of the power of Napoleon III’s court and of France. However, when it came to culinary excellence, refinement was lacking because of his efforts to maintain an affiliation with the French populous. French cuisine, so crucial for the courts of the Ancien Régime, lost some of its significance at the court of Napoleon III. His court was based on superficiality—to impress the nation and other states he created effect through lavishness—and the grandiose receptions held at the palaces (as well as the aggrandizement of Paris) were perfect examples of this attempt to dazzle the people. The motivations for the imperial couple to host such large and sumptuous events were to give the illusion of grandeur in order to maintain power. Pomp worked well on the nouveau riche, the bourgeoisie, and the people, but not on “old money,” which was very critical of décor and food, stressing that it lacked refinement. The emperor’s tastes were reflected through food served at court. Quantity was interpreted as a form of opulence; his modest interest in food explained why the Second Empire’s court food was simply copious— neither refined nor intriguing. Unlike leaders of other nations of the same time period, Napoleon III and Eugenie rejected the powerful role culinary art played. Nonetheless, French haute cuisine was at its apogee during the nineteenth century, especially in refined restaurants like Chez Véry and the Café Anglais, hence satisfying the tastes of gourmets and gastronomes. Thanks to them, haute cuisine survived and continued growing, to become the basis for contemporary three-star restaurants.

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Chapter 7

Culinary Networks of Power in a Nineteenth-Century Court Society: Dining with the Kings of the Belgians (1831–1909) Daniëlle De Vooght

Although the impact of the French Revolution on aristocracy and monarchy outside France may be exaggerated by some, it did bring forth the end of absolutist regimes in Western Europe. Monarchs could no longer claim superiority to everything and everyone as God’s representatives on earth, and nineteenth-century rulers—often from newly established monarchies—realized this. Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians (1831–1865), was no exception. This is apparent in his letters to his niece, the future Queen Victoria of Britain, in which he contemplates the unpredictable circumstances under which he became king of the recently founded Belgian kingdom. In 1875, Leopold’s son, Leopold II, the second king of the Belgians, arranged the marriage of his 17-year old daughter Louise to a member of the Hungarian branch of the Coburg family. With this marriage, the Belgian court became connected to the Habsburg Empire; it already had family ties to Queen Victoria. Although Belgium emerged as an independent nation with a king, it had rather strong parliamentary control as well. Both kings, Leopold I and II, wanted to be strong rulers; they embedded themselves in a well-built (international) network. Princess Louise’s marriage served this cause perfectly, as is confirmed   See for example: J. Deploige and G. Deneckere (eds), Mystifying the Monarch: Studies on Discourse, Power, and History (Amsterdam, 2006); P. Janssens, De evolutie van de Belgische adel sinds de Late Middeleeuwen (Brussels, 1998).    D. De Vooght, ‘Performing Power at the Dining Table: Dinner Guests of the Belgian Kings in the Nineteenth Century’, in P. Janssens and S. Zeischka (eds), The Dining Nobility, from the Burgundian Dukes to the Belgian Royalty (Brussels, 2008), pp. 104–11.    King Leopold I was also related (through marriage) to the last king of France, LouisPhilippe, who reigned between 1830 and 1848. 

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by a passage in the journal L’Echo du Parlement. L’Echo, reporting about the wedding, summarized the compilation of the royal guest list in the following words: “l’Almanach Royal y passerait tout entier.” Can the Belgian royal court indeed be approached as a privileged locus of social, economic, cultural, and political power? The chapter at hand will examine this by looking at the (con)figuration of Leopold I and II’s dinner guest lists. Introducing Elias’s The Court Society It may seem somewhat masochistic for a historian to commence an argument by referring to sociologist Norbert Elias’s The Court Society. Indeed, Elias’s famous study sets about comparing the métier of the historian with that of the sociologist, the latter clearly being considered the more “useful” and “real” craft, since sociology examines the social formations in which individuals’ actions take place instead of these actions as such. According to Elias, “what is called history often looks like an accumulation of discrete actions by individual people […]. The connections between particular phenomena are often left to arbitrary interpretation and speculation.” Needless to say, historians, certainly those of the (post-) Annales period, will not agree with Elias’s depiction of their trade. To use Roger Chartier’s words, “Thus kings have been dethroned in historical preoccupations, and with them the illusion of the power of individual intentions.” When examining the introduction to The Court Society more closely, it becomes clear that Elias actually pleads for a collaboration between both history and sociology. He even reproaches sociologists for coming up with grand theoretical schemes that lack the empirical evidence to back them up.10 In The Court Society, Elias combines what he considers to be the better of two worlds: using ample historical empirical material to formulate and test sociological theories. Therefore, when studying a court, even as a historian, it appears that    L’Almanach Royal is a list of personnel employed by the Belgian State, including members of Parliament, government, ministries, et cetera.    Archief Koninklijk Paleis, Fonds Leopold II. Departement Grootmaarschalk, 81.    N. Elias, The Court Society (Dublin, 2006).    Elias, The Court Society, p. 6.    One should not forget that this work was actually written by Elias in the early 1930s.    R. Chartier, ‘Social Figuration and Habitus: Reading Elias’, in E. Dunning and S. Mennell (eds), Norbert Elias. Volume I (London, 2003), p. 258. 10   Elias, The Court Society, pp. 25–31.

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Elias cannot be ignored. But can Elias’s findings actually be used as a lead when researching all courts? In the aforementioned work, Elias examines courts of the Ancien Régime, especially focusing on the reign of France’s Louis XIV (1661–1715). More specifically, he wonders how and why during a certain phase in state formation it was possible that one person was so remarkably powerful; how and why a king could become an absolute ruler.11 His study could be read (superficially) as a description of a place of ritual and symbolic display. However, as Elias boldly states, “it is the task of sociology to bring the unstructured background of much previous historical research into the foreground and to make it accessible to systematic research as a structured weft of individuals and their actions,”12 it is clear that his study of a court society should transcend the illustrative level. Elias actually wants to prove that, whether examining a group of friends, the inhabitants of a village, or a group of courtiers, one should always focus on the relationships between people, not on individuals as such. By looking at the structure of dwellings as well as at etiquette and ceremony, Elias argues that it was the specific figuration of the residents of Louis XIV’s court, a situation of reciprocal respect and fear of losing one’s position within the figuration, that provided for the Sun King’s emergence as an absolute monarch. Determining whether or not Elias was right falls outside the scope of this chapter. Moreover, several authors have already tackled this question.13 Nonetheless, the usefulness of the concept of figuration should be further explored. According to Elias, talking of the individual and society “can lead us to forget that people always come in groups and that “society” is nothing more than a structured set of individuals.”14 This oversight should be avoided at all cost. Furthermore, it is imperative that these “structured sets of individuals” are not considered to be static. In Elias’s opinion, sociologists should abstain from considering a “stable” community to be “normal” and a “changing” one to be “unusual.”15 The processual character of sociology’s subjects should be included in (instead of abstracted from) the concepts that are being used to describe them. Consequently, Elias refrains from employing the denomination “structure” when describing society, but instead talks about “dynamic figurations of

  Elias, The Court Society, p. 2.   Elias, The Court Society, p. 29. 13   For more information on this topic: see this chapter’s bibliography. 14   E. Dunning and S. Mennell, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in Dunning and Mennell, 11 12

Norbert Elias. Volume I, p. xvi. 15   N. Elias, Wat is sociologie? (Utrecht and Amsterdam, 1970), p. 127.

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interdependent humans,”16 figurations alluding to both human individuals’ actions and their interdependence.17 Important notions for grasping the concept of figuration therefore are formation, interdependence, and balance of tensions: A figuration is a social form of extremely variable extent (made up of a group playing cards together, the patrons of a café, a school class, a village, a city, a nation) in which the individuals involved are linked by a specific mode of reciprocal dependence and the reproduction of which supposes a mobile balance of tensions.18

The advantage of this approach is the flexibility of the interdependency chains’ modes of definition. With his notion of changing social formations Elias wishes to transcend the polarity between free individuals and human beings as members of a community, and between “concrete” human beings and “abstract” social bindings between people.19 Finally, Elias’s representation of social reality should be mentioned. Elias’s social reality unifies intentions and non-intentional actions, it does not separate these two levels. “Rather it emphasizes that the interconnections between intentions can have a non-intentional character.”20 Social reality should not be equated with intentional (meaningful) connections between human beings, since both intentions and individuality are the outcome of unplanned processes.21 With this perspective Elias tries to avoid having too much significance attributed to either intentions or non-intentional actions.22 Elias’s perception of power emanates from this changing and relational worldview. Or perhaps it is the other way around. On the one hand, power can be   This formulation incites Dunning and Mennell to state that “through this and similar formulations, Elias succeeded in circumventing what philosophically minded sociologists such as Anthony Giddens call the ‘agency-structure dilemma.’” Unfortunately, an in depth discussion of this sociological issue falls outside the scope of this chapter. However, it remains an interesting topic. For more information: Dunning and Mennell, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, p. xvi. 17   E. Dunning, ‘‘Agency’ and ‘Structure’ in the Work of Norbert Elias’, in Dunning and Mennell, Norbert Elias. Volume I, p. 327. 18   Chartier, ‘Social Figuration and Habitus: Reading Elias’, p. 263. 19   Ibid., p. 264. 20   A. Bogner, ‘The Structure of Social Processes: A Commentary on the Sociology of Norbert Elias’, in Dunning and Mennell, Norbert Elias. Volume I, pp. 206–7. 21   Ibid., p. 207. 22   This idea has been thoroughly elaborated on in The Civilizing Process. J. Goudsblom, J. Heilbron and N. Wilterdink (eds), Norbert Elias. Het civilisatieproces. Sociogenetische en psychogenetische onderzoekingen (Amsterdam, 2001). 16

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possessed and exercised by individuals, but power remains relational and altering, following the shifts in balance within social networks/figurations.23 On the other hand, it is because of the multitude of centers of resources and the asymmetry of human relationships that power can only occur in a dynamic environment, therefore requiring a processual social reality.24 Anyhow, according to Elias, power relations and (changing) figurations of interdependency are interrelated and he stresses the dynamic nature of the concept of power: “Power is not like an amulet that is possessed by one and not by another; it is a structural characteristic of human relations—all human relations.”25 In order to explain how (groups of ) people are always related, even unintentionally, and how these relationships have a bearing on the balance of power, Elias has developed figuration models based on games, for example playing a game of cards.26 In these models, he discerns game situations in which two players are competing, and games in which more than two players are involved. For each type of game he then visualizes what would happen if the playing strength of the different players varied during the course of the game: “Like “figuration” itself, Elias’s term “power” is the name of a relational and processual concept—a combination which is far from trivial.”27 From these experiments it indeed becomes clear that, for Elias, power relations are related to the existence of asymmetric networks of control and constraint.28 Looking for Figurations at Courts This is the case in all kinds of social groups, as there are court societies, which, according to Elias, have been neglected by sociologists for too long. In The Court Society he concentrates on the emergence of the absolute ruler. However, he does not focus on the individual king,29 but instead wonders how this royal position, which holds an exceptional amount of power, could have developed—a development that only came to a halt as a result of the extension   R. Sibeon, Rethinking Social Theory (London, 2004), p. 65.   J. Arnason, ‘Figurational Sociology as a Counter-Paradigm’, in M. Featherstone

23 24

(ed.), Norbert Elias and Figurational Sociology. Special issue of Theory, Culture & Society: Explorations in Critical Social Science (London, 1987), pp. 442–3. 25   Translation by author. Text in Dutch from Elias, Wat is sociologie?, p. 81: “Macht is niet een amulet, die de een bezit en de ander niet; het is een structuurkenmerk van menselijke betrekkingen—van alle menselijke betrekkingen.” 26   Elias, Wat is sociologie?, pp. 79–113. 27   Bogner, ‘The Structure of Social Processes’, p. 210. 28   Arnason, ‘Figurational Sociology as a Counter-Paradigm,’ p. 433. 29   This is what historians would do, according to Elias.

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of industrialization and urbanization. As already mentioned, his study uses Louis XIV’s court as a starting point. According to Elias, “even Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, who is often taken as the supreme example of the omnipotent absolute monarch […] could preserve his power only by a carefully calculated strategy which was governed by the peculiar structure of court society in the narrow sense, and more broadly by society at large.”30 Although he focuses on one court in particular, with his approach, Elias aims at developing a model that makes it possible to compare different court societies and to understand and even explain the rulers’ actions.31 He even suggests that the findings emerging from studying a court society can provide insight in all human relations: “even as a limited model, court society is well suited to test through practical application, and so to clarify the meaning of concepts that may seem unfamiliar, such as “figuration,” “interdependence,” “balance of tensions,” and the “evolution” of a figuration.”32 Different aspects of Elias’s approach, however, have been criticized.33 For example Sibeon mentions (combining the arguments of different authors) that “social networks/social systems vary in the degree of integration, unitaryness or homogeneity that they exhibit.”34 Critics also point out that focusing on social networks might underrate the significance of individual actions for the sake of structure.35 More concrete is Jeroen Duindam’s critique of the model of figuration Elias applied to court society: In their abstract form the mechanisms in Elias’s model mesh well with one another; the logic disappears, however, when the model is applied to concrete situations and individuals. […] Thus in Elias there is a yawning gap between fact and theory, which he, like those he criticized for this deficiency, was unable to bridge.36

    32   33   30

Elias, The Court Society, p. 5. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 226. See, for example, ‘Part Seven. Critiques and Counter-Critiques’ in E. Dunning and S. Mennell (eds), Norbert Elias. Volume IV (London, 2003); M. Featherstone, Norbert Elias and Figurational Sociology; Special Issue of Theory, Culture & Society: Explorations in Critical Social Science (London, 1987); M.-J. de Jong, Grootmeesters van de sociologie (Boom, 1997). 34   Sibeon, Rethinking Social Theory, p. 160. 35   D. De Vooght, ‘Culinary Networks of Power: Dining with King Leopold II of Belgium (1865–1909)’ Food & History, 4/1 (2006): p. 89. 36   J. Duindam, Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court (Amsterdam, 1995), p. 183. 31

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Nonetheless, Elias did introduce some important conceptual principles.37 Without disregarding the aforementioned remarks, one could indeed benefit from focusing on a group of individuals rather than concentrating mainly on the individuals as such. Analyzing networks helps one to picture the dynamics within a group, define its (con)figuration, and examine this (con)figuration’s influence on the mode of operation of both the group and the individuals comprising it, and it might even allow the investigation of the formation’s long term evolution. “[…] it could be argued that the concept of figuration is a useful descriptive (rather than explanatory) tool for analysing the ways in which […] networks of people interrelate […] over time in terms of their different degrees of power over one another.”38 Indeed, Elias’s approach is especially useful as far as the notion of power is concerned. As Duindam formulates it, “he puts the phenomenon of power into perspective” by regarding it as a “permanent fact of any relationship […] a shifting, flexible balance of power.”39 It is particularly this relational and dynamic understanding of power that might be of use for court studies:40 “In the pre-industrial era, the princely court was the most common form of power […] The comparison of the courts of early modern Europe with courts of the pre-industrial era and courts outside of Europe, however, indicates […] a significant degree of continuity.”41 Can Elias’s figurational model be used, not as an explanatory factor of a specific process, but as a framework of analysis, for example when studying courts other than seventeenth-century Versailles? Performing Power at the Dining Table The introductory chapter of this book has clearly established a relationship between food (culture) and the execution of power. With this in mind—as well as Elias’s dynamic and figurational perception of power, his suggestion that a court society can be utilized as a “proxy” for society (cf. supra), and the idea that food is a central issue within a court (cf. the introductory chapter of this book)— analyzing the king’s dinner guests in order to gain insight into (a society’s) shifting power relations is not that far-fetched. Court life as it occurred in the seventeenth   Sibeon, Rethinking Social Theory, p. 65.   D. Layder, ‘A Critique of Elias’s Conception of Sociological Analysis’, in Dunning

37 38

and Mennell, Norbert Elias. Volume IV, p. 315. 39   Duindam, Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court, p. 189. 40   Ibid. 41   Ibid., p. 192.

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and eighteenth centuries ceased to exist in post-French Revolution Western Europe. Courts no longer assembled a group of courtiers around an absolute monarch. Nonetheless, courtly dinners did convene all sorts and conditions of people on an almost daily basis—as opposed to state balls, weddings, and funerals, which were mostly sheer manifestations of pomp and circumstance.42 Who was invited to join the king and queen at the dining table for lunch or dinner?43 How did the guest lists evolve over time? Can subgroups be detected, and do the “culinary networks” (or figurations) at the king’s dining table reflect a (shifting) balance of power within Belgian society at that moment in time? And was food at a nineteenth-century royal court relevant in the context of exerting power, as was the case at Louis XIV’s court, for example? This chapter will examine dinner guests at the court in the years 1835, 1855, 1869, and 1888, which takes into account different periods within the reign of both the first king of the Belgians, Leopold I (1831–1865), and the second king, Leopold II (1865–1909), and consequently enables a comparison between two distinct eras. It will analyze the figuration of the king and queen’s dinner guests making use of the technique of Social Network Analysis (SNA).44 The core of network analysis consists of several key concepts. Members of a group, departments in a firm, or even nation-states in the world are actors. Actors are connected to one another by relational or social ties. A social network is the finite set of actors and the relations defined on them. It is these relationships among social units and the fact that the focus of the analysis is on a group of individuals that embody the distinctiveness of Social Network Analysis.45 Although Elias stresses the importance of a relational worldview, he does not provide for an   See also: G. Deneckere, ‘The Impossible Neutrality of the Speech from the Throne: A Ritual between National Unity and Political Dispute. Belgium, 1831–1918’, in Deploige and Deneckere, Mystifying the Monarch, pp. 205–21; De Vooght, ‘Performing Power at the Dining Table: Dinner Guests of the Belgian Kings in the Nineteenth Century’. 43   Guest lists were kept at the Belgian Royal Archives. The department of the lord chamberlain started keeping track of dinner guests from the very beginning of the Belgian monarchy. The chronologically sorted lists go back to September 1831 and cover every year (almost without exception) until 1909. The alphabetically arranged guest lists are preserved as of 1844. We find names, titles, and governmental position (when applicable) of the guests and often there is a seating chart included. For more information: De Vooght, ‘Culinary Networks of Power: Dining with King Leopold II of Belgium (1865–1909)’, pp. 92–5; Archief Koninklijk Paleis, Fonds Leopold II. Departement Grootmaarschalk, Genodigdenlijsten. 44   I will use Pajek software. This software is especially interesting when dealing with large networks, of 1,000 actors and more. For more information: http://pajek.imfm.si/doku.php. 45   For more detailed information on Social Network Analysis, see also: P. Mercklé, La sociologie des réseaux sociaux (Paris, 2004); J.P. Scott, Social Network Analysis: A Handbook (London, 2000); S. Wasserman and K. Faust (eds), Social Network Analysis: Methods and 42

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analytical tool. Therefore, SNA is a useful technique when looking for figurations in the spirit of Elias’s work. Gaining a first insight into the “culinary networks” at the Belgian royal court might provide a glimpse at the power relations within Belgian society of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the analysis can help determine whether Elias’s figurational approach is indeed a useful tool when analyzing power relations between people. In Search of Networks at the Belgian King’s Dining Table A first understanding of changes in the composition of the dinner guest lists can be retrieved by merely looking at the number of dinner occasions and the number of guests (unique and on average). This exploration shows a steep decline between 1835 and 1888, but especially between 1835 and 1855 (with a decrease of 20 percent in both the number of dinner occasions and the average number of guests).46 Between 1855 and 1888 the number of unique entries increased, while the average number of guests and the number of dinner occasions hardly changed during the same period. This probably means that more individuals were invited at the court, but that fewer of them got an invitation more than once in the same year. Indeed, in 1835, 60 percent of the guests were invited only once during that year, while 6 percent received seven dinner invitations or more. Already in 1855, 67 percent received only one invitation, but this did not seem to have an influence on the number of guests who were invited seven times or more. This situation altered during the reign of King Leopold II. The number of guests who were to have dinner at the royal court seven times or more decreased to 3 percent in 1869 and only 2 percent in 1888. This is a decline of more than 60 percent in the number of (very) frequent guests in a period of just over 50 years. Meanwhile, the number of one-time-per-year guests increased by 18 percent. In the following, the dinner occasions will be examined a bit more closely by using the SNA technique. Figure 7.1 shows dinners at the Belgian royal court in 1835. The ties (lines) between the occasions represent those guests who were invited to both of two occasions. It is clear that all dinner occasions are connected to one or more other events. This is not surprising, since the king and queen and their staff are considered guests as well, and were present at all occasions taken into account. Applications (Cambridge, 1994); De Vooght, ‘Culinary Networks of Power: Dining with King Leopold II of Belgium (1865–1909)’, pp. 85–104. 46   For a more detailed analysis of these data: De Vooght, ‘Performing Power at the Dining Table: Dinner Guests of the Belgian Kings in the Nineteenth Century’.

Figure 7.1

Visual representation of all dinner occasions at the Belgian royal court in 1835 and how these are linked by guests. (Pajek software).

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Table 7.1 Line values of the one-mode network consisting of dinner occasions, 1835 (Pajek Report Window). Line Values ( … 1.0000) (1.0000 … 2.0000) (2.0000 … 3.0000) (3.0000 … 4.0000) (4.0000 … 5.0000) (5.0000 … 6.0000) (6.0000 … 7.0000) (7.0000 … 8.0000) (8.0000 … 9.0000) (9.0000 … 10.0000) (10.0000 … 11.0000) (11.0000 … 12.0000) (12.0000 … 13.0000) (13.0000 … 14.0000) (14.0000 … 15.0000) (15.0000 … 16.0000) (16.0000 … 17.0000) (17.0000 … 18.0000) (18.0000 … 19.0000) (19.0000 … 20.0000) (20.0000 … 21.0000) (21.0000 … 22.0000) (22.0000 … 23.0000) (23.0000 … 24.0000) (24.0000 … 25.0000) (25.0000 … 26.0000) (26.0000 … 27.0000) (27.0000 … 28.0000) (29.0000 … 29.0000)

Frequency

CumFreq%

20 2 2 8 15 17 30 58 39 39 28 24 16 10 9 10 7 5 3 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1

5.7803 6.3584 6.9364 9.2486 13.5838 18.4971 27.1676 43.9306 55.2023 66.4740 74.5665 81.5029 86.1272 89.0173 91.6185 94.5087 96.5318 97.9769 98.8439 98.8439 98.8439 99.1329 99.4220 99.4220 99.4220 99.4220 99.7110 99.7110 100.0000

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Table 7.2 Line values of the one-mode network consisting of dinner guests, 1835 (Pajek Report Window). Line Values ( … 1.0000) (1.0000 … 2.0000) (2.0000 … 3.0000) (3.0000 … 4.0000) (4.0000 … 5.0000) (5.0000 … 6.0000) (6.0000 … 7.0000) (7.0000 … 8.0000) (8.0000 … 9.0000) (9.0000 … 10.0000) (10.0000 … 11.0000) (11.0000 … 12.0000) (12.0000 … 13.0000) (13.0000 … 14.0000) (14.0000 … 15.0000) (15.0000 … 16.0000) (16.0000 … 17.0000) (17.0000 … 18.0000) (18.0000 … 19.0000) (19.0000 … 20.0000) (20.0000 … 21.0000) (21.0000 … 22.0000)

Frequency

CumFreq%

26386 1888 529 223 129 56 43 21 6 17 17 12 3 9 4 4 5 3 5 3 2 3

89.8461 96.2749 98.0761 98.8355 99.2747 99.4654 99.6118 99.6833 99.7038 99.7616 99.8195 99.8604 99.8706 99.9013 99.9149 99.9285 99.9455 99.9557 99.9728 99.9830 99.9898 100.0000

Nonetheless, when these actors47 are removed48 from the equation, the picture remains the same: all events in 1835 are connected to each other by one or more guests and, thus, have one or more guests in common. Zooming in on the ties between the events (Tablw 7.1), it becomes clear that approximately 66 percent of these ties (lines linking a pair of dinner occasions) have a line value of ten or fewer guests (or: two dinner occasions are connected to each other by ten lines, and thus guests, or fewer). In other words, 66 percent of the total pairs of events have ten or fewer guests in common. One pair of dinner occasions (0.29 percent) has 29   In Pajek, actors are called vertices. I use the word actor because this is more clear.   Le Grand Maréchal, le Capitaine de Garde, le Grand Ecuyer, le Général de Han (head

47 48

of the king’s military household), Leurs Majestés, Monsieur Vanpraet (the king’s secretary), la Comtesse de Mérode, and la Baronne de Stassart (ladies-in-waiting) were removed from the network and the network was redrawn without these actors.

Figure 7.2

Visualization of the component of the one-mode network consisting of guests (tied by occasions), 1869 (Pajek).

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guests in common (29 people that were invited for one event, were also invited for the other), 20 pairs of events (5.78 percent) have only one guest in common.49 Does this mean that dinners at the Belgian royal court were not a place of frequent gatherings and contacts between invitees, and, consequently, were not really privileged loci of power as was the case in the early modern period? Looking at the network of guests might shed some light on this issue. Table 7.2 shows that almost 90 percent of the pairs of guests are tied to one another by only one dinner occasion. This means that if two people met (at dinner) at the court in 1835, there was a 90 percent chance they would not meet each other again that year for dinner at the court. This rate does indeed imply that dinner occasions at the court (in 1835) were not places where people could meet and interact. Perhaps the number of guests one could interact with makes up for the lack of frequency. Looking at the degree50 of the invitees might help answer this question. Apparently, when one was to have dinner at the Belgian royal court in 1835, a year in which 715 different guests were invited, one was to meet at least 14 different people: ten percent of the invitees were directly connected to 14–49 persons present; almost 15 percent were related to 54 other guests; and 75 percent were tied to 14–77 other invitees. However, it is imperative to realize that this direct connection is a consequence of how Social Network Analysis works. These people were invited to the same dinner occasion, and are therefore tied; but this does not necessarily mean they actually had direct contact with one another. Nonetheless, before taking their places at the dining table in one of the palace’s salles à manger, dinner guests were welcomed in the salon, which is where guests departed from as well.51 Therefore, the relationship between dinner guests should not be minimized either, since these people did indeed have the chance to interact and “interpersonal ties matter […], because they transmit behavior, attitudes, information, or goods.”52 Moreover, the one-mode network of guests only has one component.53 This means that, even though two people   The king, queen, and their staff included.   “In a simple undirected network, the degree of a vertex is equal to the number of

49 50

vertices that are adjacent to this vertex: its neighbors. Each line that is incident with the vertex connects it to another vertex […]” W. de Nooy, A. Mrvar and V. Batagelj (eds), Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek (Cambridge, 2005), p. 64. 51   Archief Koninklijk Paleis (s.d.), Fonds Leopold I. Departement Grootmaarschalk, 141bis: protocollaire richtlijnen. 52   de Nooy, Mrvar and Batagelj (eds), Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek, p. 3. 53   A network is connected if each pair of vertices (actors) is connected by a (semi)path. A (semi)path is a sequence of lines between two vertices (actors) in which no vertex (actor) occurs more than once (and is therefore the most efficient route between two vertices

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were not invited on the same day, they might have been invited together with a third (or fourth, or fifth …) person. Consequently, the first pair of invitees is related as well. Apparently, invitees of 1835 were all connected to one another in an indirect way, and, thus, information could be distributed to all members of the network of dinner guests in an indirect way. In the preceding paragraphs, it has been established that people did not meet often (at dinner) at the court in 1835, but that they did have access to a substantial network of other invitees. Let us examine how these networks evolved over the nineteenth century. In all three other years that were examined (1855, 1869, and 1888), again all dinners shared guests with one or more other event. Table 7.3 Interpretation of the line values of the one-mode network consisting of all dinner occasions (tied by guests)54 Year

1835 1855 1869 1888

Percentage of pairs Max. number of of events with 10 guests in common or fewer guests in common 66.47 59.52 86.03 87.86

29 25 17 20

Percentage of pairs of events with the max. number of guests in common 0.29 0.48 0.55 1.16

Percentage of pairs of events with 1 guest in common 5.78 0.48 4.47 1.16

Table 7.3 shows an interpretation of the line values of the pairs of dinner occasions in the four different years. No clear pattern emerges when looking at these numbers, but two things can be pointed out. First, there is a dramatic increase in the percentage of pairs of events that have trn or fewer guests in common, especially when the reign of Leopold I (1835 and 1855) is compared to that of Leopold II (1869 and 1888). Second, the maximum number of guests that a pair of events had in common decreases throughout the century, again implying a difference between the reigns of both kings. The idea that dinner occasions at the Belgian royal court of the nineteenth century were not venues for frequent gathering is also reinforced by these data. Moreover, the line values of the pairs of guests in the one-mode network consisting of all guests add up to this equation, since these show a 90 to 95 percent chance that two people who met each other [actors]). A component is a maximal connected sub-network. For more information on components: de Nooy, Mrvar and Batagelj (eds), Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek, pp. 66–70. 54   This table summarizes the report windows generated by Pajek.

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once at a dinner occasion at the court would not meet again for dinner at the court in that particular year.55

Table 7.4 Interpretation of the degree of all vertices in the one-mode network consisting of all dinner guests (tied by occasions)56 Year 1835 1855 1869 1888

Min. number of people someone was connected to 14 21 15 11

Number of guests Number of guests Number of guests that 10% of guests that 50% of guests that 75% of guests were connected to were connected to were connected to 14–49 14–56 14–77 21–28 21–52 21–99 15–24 15–76 15–99 11–29 11–77 11–85

Although the year 1855 seems to differ slightly from the other three years, important changes do not seem to have taken place as far as the number of ties between guests is concerned (Table 7.4). When invited for dinner at the court, one was to meet at least ten to 20 other invitees, and 75 percent of the invitees were tied to between ten and almost 100 dinner companions. Moreover, these networks were also composed of only one component, implying that all invitees were connected to one another in a direct or indirect way. Figure 7.2 illustrates the visualization of the components of the 1869 network by Pajek. It is clear that all actors within this network are directly or indirectly tied to one another.

Apparently, people were not to have dinner often at the Belgian royal court in the nineteenth century; but when they did, they had access to a substantial network of other invitees, either in a direct or indirect way. Let us now take a look at the composition of the guest lists. From the evolution of the number of dinner invitations per year it is clear that ever fewer people were invited often, and that increasingly more people got invited only once per year. Of course, the members of the royal family and of the Maison du Roi57 are to be found among the people who were to have dinner at the court   Percentages of pairs of guests who have one dinner occasion in common:

55

1835: 89.85 percent 1855: 91.38 percent 1869: 95.55 percent 1888: 95.61 percent.

  This table summarizes the report windows generated by Pajek.   La Maison du Roi consists of four departments. Every department plays its part in

56 57

assisting the king. Le Cabinet du Roi is occupied with the social and political life in Belgium and organizes meetings with the government. The Military Office takes care of the security

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ten times or more per year. This did not change over the course of the century. However, the composition of the remainder of the guest list did change. In 1835, almost half of the frequent dinner guests of the king were members of notable Belgian families (e.g. de Mérode, Vilain XIIII, d’Hooghvorst). The guest list was completed by members of the government58 and several high-ranking military officers. In 1855, the king and his family were again accompanied most often by members of the government59 and by Charles de Brouckère, a former minister but by then the mayor of Brussels. Unless they had taken up a governmental position, the prominent families were no longer habitués at the Belgian royal court. They did not even make up the majority of people who were invited four to six times per year; these were mostly military fonctionnaires. The years 1869 and 1888 show the same habitués: the royal family, the Maison du Roi, and the most important members of government. In 1888 only le Baron de Lambermont, ministre d’état, and le Prince de Chimay, ministre des affaires étrangères, were invited for dinner more than seven times. Moreover, they were invited on the same day four times that year and both sat at the king’s table;60 75 percent of the time they were invited together and they sat next to each other in close proximity to the king.61 “Reminding ourselves of the fact that Leopold II bought l’Etat Indépendant du Congo in 1885, and that Lambermont played

of the royal family and advises the king on cases concerning defense strategies. La Liste Civil is responsible for finances at the court and the Department of the Royal Chamberlain is occupied with the public appearance of the king and his family. For more information on this topic: A. Molitor, La fonction royale en Belgique (Brussels, 1994); G. Janssens, ‘De koningen der Belgen. Inzet voor vrede en evenwicht in eigen land en in Europa’, in A. Molitor, G. Janssens, M. Vermeire and G. de Greef (eds), Koninklijk paleis Brussel (Brussels, 1993), pp. 24–57. 58   Le Vicomte Charles Vilain XIIII (ministre des affaires étrangères), Monsieur De Decker (ministre de l’intérieur), le Général Greindl (ministre de la guerre), Monsieur Dumon (ministre des travaux publics), Monsieur Mercier (ministre des finances), and Monsieur Nothomb (ministre de la justice). 59   Le Vicomte Charles Vilain XIIII (ministre des affaires étrangères), Monsieur De Decker (ministre de l’intérieur), le Général Greindl (ministre de la guerre), Monsieur Dumon (ministre des travaux publics), Monsieur Mercier (ministre des finances), and Monsieur Nothomb (ministre de la justice). 60   In 1869 also, the most frequent guests were often invited on the same day and sat at the king’s table. This information can be obtained from the table arrangements that were saved with the guest lists for the period of the reign of King Leopold II. Unfortunately, this information is not available for the reign of Leopold I. 61   Archief Koninklijk Paleis, Fonds Leopold II. Departement Grootmaarschalk, Diners. Chronologische lijst der genodigden. Register 461 (1886–1892).

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a substantial part in this purchase, one might wonder about the subject of the table talk in those days […]”62 At the same time that the number of habitués decreased, the number of one-time-per-year invitations expanded. And the profile of these guests seems to be ever more diversified. While fonctionnaires importants and members of prominent families dominated Leopold I’s guest lists, Leopold II also invited artists, curators, architects, and members of the financial world. Finally, the number of guests one is related to in a network (the degree, cf. supra) provides an insight into the position of each table companion in the network. In the years 1835 and 1855 it was not King Leopold I who was tied to the most other guests in the network of dinner companions, but the Grand Maréchal. In 1869 and 1888, King Leopold II counted for the most connections with other guests. As can be expected, members of the royal family and of the Maison du Roi were tied to the most other invitees, since they also were present at almost every occasion. Proportional to the number of dinner invitations, members of government take a high spot in this ranking. In 1888, for example, le Prince de Chimay and le Baron de Lambermont are connected to 298 and 248 people respectively, which puts them in eighth and ninth place. The diversification in the guests’ profile is also confirmed by the degree of the actors. Notables drop down the list when the number of relations is concerned, while representatives seem to climb the ranking, and in 1888, artists and architects appear. For example, Monsieur Robin, a painter, is connected to 88 other guests in 1888 and takes 54th place. Of course, these numbers as such are not that important. However, knowing which people were the cores of the network (and knowing who was directly and indirectly tied to these cores) means being able to identify how information (and thus power?) could have been distributed easily and quickly within the network. Culinary Networks of Power The “theatre of power”63 in which monarchs had to perform changed dramatically over the nineteenth century, mostly due to what happened in the wake of the French Revolution. Instead of being God’s representatives on earth, the kings and queens of the nineteenth century were to be approachable, “human,” familiar, but nonetheless magical. Kings Leopold I and Leopold II were each titled “King 62   De Vooght, ‘Performing Power at the Dining Table: Dinner Guests of the Belgian Kings in the Nineteenth Century’, p. 110. 63   J. van Osta, Het theater van de Staat. Oranje, Windsor en de moderne monarchie (Amsterdam, 1998).

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of the Belgians,” which already explains a lot about the transformations that had occurred since the eighteenth century. Like monarchy, aristocracy underwent drastic changes in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Although the often-drawn picture of decay and disintegration proves to be wrong, nobles of the nineteenth century did need to adjust to retain power.64 In Belgium, a monarchy with strong parliamentary control was instituted after the revolution against the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830. Although Belgium was founded by “revolutionaries” with extreme opinions who definitely did not want to go back to the Ancien Régime, the nation-state was built more pragmatically, and “old” noble families also got a part in it.65 This is not hard to understand, since these families were still very important social and economic forces with a political and cultural impact that could not be ignored. However, this changed over the course of the century: bankers, industrialists, and merchants became ever more important in ruling the country in not only economic and political terms, but in cultural and social ones as well. The analysis of the king’s dinner guests confirms and amplifies the actuality of this situation. It also shows that the king’s inner circle became smaller and that the guest lists became ever more diversified, including for example artists and architects in 1888. This diversification is an echo of the shifting balance of power within the Belgian ruling classes. Indeed, although some habitués clearly embodied the king’s personal interests—e.g. the Minister of War who was often nothing less than subordinate to the king and le Baron Lambermont with his part in the purchase of the Congo—being invited for dinner at the court was mostly a direct consequence of a person’s function in society. It also became clear that the Belgian royal court of the nineteenth century did not provide for a place of frequent gathering by organizing dinner occasions. People did not get invited often enough for this to happen. Nonetheless, dinners provided a substantial network for all invitees and therefore presumably facilitated power performance for those present, and—possibly even more interesting— made it more difficult for those absent. Altogether, dinner occasions at the court confirmed the playing field of power relations, and provided perhaps not the, but a place to be in nineteenth-century Belgium. This analysis demonstrates as well that studying food culture indeed provides an interesting tool to tackle broader questions. Even though one cannot compare the relationship between an absolute ruler and his royal household of courtiers   Janssens, De evolutie van de Belgische adel sinds de Late Middeleeuwen.   E. Witte, ‘De constructie van België, 1828–1847’, in E. Witte, J.-P. Nandrin, E.

64 65

Gubin and G. Deneckere (eds), Nieuwe geschiedenis van België I: 1830–1905 (Tielt, 2005), pp. 109–25.

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at an early modern “court society” with that between a post- French Revolution monarch and his dinner invitees at a nineteenth-century court, examining dinner occasions at the royal court proved to have more to offer than merely menus of exuberant meals. In fact, without even taking the actual meals into account, investigating food culture brings forth interesting elements about shifting balances of power. Which brings us back to our starting point: Elias’s notion of a figurational social reality. Is it useful to focus on the relationships between the members of a group instead of looking at the individuals comprising the group? As Duindam points out, “Elias’s model fits well with recent court studies, for one of their general characteristics can be found in the perception of power. Power is increasingly conceived as the power of the network, the group, the forms and contacts.”66 Although this statement actually concerns early modern courts, the analysis of the dinner occasions at the Belgian royal court shows that it can also be applied to a nineteenth-century Western European court. Shifting balances within the network of dinner guests mirrored the situation of the Belgian ruling class outside the palace walls. Although examining the invitees’ network as if it were a proxy for society would be overestimating the importance of the court as a locus of power, it indeed proves to be a utilitarian instrument when picturing the shifting balance of power. More specifically, when investigating the position of the monarchy and aristocracy in the nineteenth century, analyzing networks between invitees uncovers a shift in the balances of power that would not have been discovered when focusing on several interesting individuals. From this exercise in the network (figuration) analysis of dinner guests of the king of the Belgians, it can be concluded that Elias’s concept of figuration is indeed useful when describing the relationship patterns of the members of a (“closed”) group.67 Whether it can also be employed to explain certain changes within a cluster of people that transcends this “closed” gathering (e.g. society as a whole) remains to be seen.

 

66

p. 189.

Duindam, Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court,

67   Of course the group of invitees cannot be conceived of as a closed group, since its members are also related to people outside the palace walls. Nonetheless, when taking the position of the monarch as a starting point, looking at the network of invitees as a “closed” group is less far-fetched.

Conclusion Stephen Mennell

Hospitality, food, and eating have always played a part in the exercise of power through royal and princely courts, at least since courts assumed their familiar form as centers of leisure, luxury, and refinement. Courts in this sense gradually emerged out of the households of territorial warrior rulers. A.F. Pollard remarked that the English royal household was the “constitutional protoplasm” out of which many of the institutions of the modern state developed, including the courts of law, the legislature (formally “the High Court of Parliament”), and the executive arm of government (beginning in the Privy Council). What remained after the royal court had given birth to these offspring gradually became part of what Walter Bagehot called the “dignified” as opposed to the “efficient” part of the constitution, a center of ceremonial. Even today, however, the British royal court and others like it are not totally devoid of power, at least in the setting of social models—though this power is a shadow of its former self. What Pollard observed about England had its parallels elsewhere. Other European countries followed a broadly similar track of development toward similar forms of princely court, as indeed did other parts of the world at structurally equivalent stages of development (which is to say, not necessarily in the same chronological periods). The impressive Tower of Justice in the Second Court of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul signifies the unfolding of a similar process of constitutional and political development in the Ottoman Empire. Before this process of functional differentiation, princely courts were above all military households. They contained the seeds not just of law courts, parliaments and government ministries but also of the modern armed forces. They were, in short, barracks, too. This may help to explain why, although in most cultures throughout history domestic cookery has been associated with women, whenever a technically more elaborate, socially more prestigious cuisine has begun to develop—usually in princely courts—it has been associated with male chefs. Jack Goody has noted how, since as early as ancient Egypt, it has   A.F. Pollard, The Evolution of Parliament (London, 1920), p. 25.   W. Bagehot, The English Constitution (London, 1867).

 

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been men who took over women’s recipes and transformed them into a court cuisine. I have speculated that the explanation may lie in the origin of the social institution of the court not as a “private” or “domestic” household, but as a military establishment. It is probable that men always served as cooks with armies (and by extension on fighting ships), and that their function in the kitchens of the courts began as an extension of their role in the field. The military connections of male cooks were still perceptible in the courts of late medieval and early modern Europe: Taillevent, for example, appears to have had some function in the provisioning of armies, and La Varenne, whose title of écuyer retains military connotations, speaks of cooking for his master, the Marquis d’Uxelles, in the field. Unfortunately, I have not pursued further research to test this speculation, and as far as I am aware no one else has done so, either. In his book Luxus und Kapitalismus, Werner Sombart identified the papal court at Avignon (1309–77) as the earliest clear instance in Western Europe of a court in the sense of being a center of a cultured and leisured upper class. Of course, as Norbert Elias noted, “nothing is more fruitless, when dealing with long-term social processes, than to attempt to locate an absolute beginning.” The process of court formation proceeded at different speeds in various parts of Europe. A century after the court at Avignon, Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro was simultaneously the seat both of one of the greatest fighting condottieri and one of the greatest humanistic courts of the Italian Renaissance. Nevertheless, the direction of development was clear. Court societies formed in early modern Europe through the struggle of secular rulers toward the internal pacification of their territories—a pacification process that went paradoxically hand in hand with an “elimination contest” involving larger-scale warfare with their neighbors as territory was concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of more powerful central rulers. “Internal pacification” involved the “taming of warriors”—that is, depriving the regional nobility of their capacity to wage war independently of (and frequently against) the central ruler. The taming of warriors is a central and essential, but neglected, part-process within the overall   J.R. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class (Cambridge, 1982), p. 101.   S. Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the

 

Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford, 1985), p. 201.    Taillevent, G. Tirel dit, Le Viandier (Paris, 1887 [ca. 1380]); F.P. de La Varenne, Le Cuisinier François (Paris, 1651).    W. Sombart, Luxury and Capitalism (Ann Arbor, MN, 1969).    N. Elias, The Court Society (Dublin, 2007), p. 249.    See S. Mennell, Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image (Oxford, 1989; rev. edn, Norbert Elias: An Introduction, Dublin, 1998), chapter 3.

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process of state formation everywhere. It has, for example, been lucidly depicted in Japanese history by Eiko Ikegami.10 Our knowledge of the part played by food, cookery, and eating at early courts is no doubt abundant, but still requires collation and synthesis. From the classic medieval cookery manuscripts such as Taillevent, The Forme of Cury and the Libro di cucina,11 it would appear that there was a very similar elite cuisine in the courts across Western Europe, from Italy to England. Cultural contact between the courts was close (even if they were often at war with each other), but cultural influence between courts remained for a long time stronger than between courtly strata and within the same region. The contrasts in diet and cuisine between strata were much greater than between courts; the courts were remote from the mass of the people, and were “model-setting” centers for them—in food as well as in manners and ways of life—to a much less marked extent than during the period covered by the chapters in this book. Moreover, elite cuisine appears to have been the prerogative of a small minority of a minority. There is a good deal of evidence that even in many noble households, the daily diet in winter was plain and not overabundant. Above all, the famous medieval banquets on great occasions, which sometimes lasted days and involved hundreds of people, appear to have been exercises in potlatch: in the demonstration of the host’s wealth and power through the sheer wasteful abundance of foodstuffs rather than through refined and elaborate cookery. By the early modern period, however, clear signs of the development of a much more elaborate cuisine are evident in sixteenthcentury Italy (vide the recipes of the papal cook Scappi12) and in France from the middle of the seventeenth through the eighteenth century, in the sequence of works by La Varenne, Massialot, L.S.R., Menon (and many others) to which Ken Albala refers. In All Manners of Food I argue that there was a transition in the use of food for the assertion of social rank and power that can be roughly described as moving “from quantity to quality.” As Albala notes, this was not the first time such a transition can be observed in history: he points to Archestratus as signaling such a process in ancient Greece. If earlier instances such as this did   In discussing state-formation processes, sociologists are (for once) nearly unanimous in employing Max Weber’s definition of a state as “an organisation which successfully upholds a claim to binding rule-making over a territory, by virtue of commanding a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence” (M. Weber, Economy and Society (2 vols, Berkeley, CA, 1978 [1922]), vol. I, p. 54. 10   E. Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA, 1995). 11   S. Pegge (ed.), The Forme of Cury (London, 1780); L. Frati (ed.), Libro di cucina del secolo XIV (Livorno, 1899). 12   B. Scappi, Opera (Venice, 1570). 

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happen, the underlying social conditions were probably similar. In my view, in early modern Europe it happened because the courtly aristocracy had become what Georg Simmel called a “two-front stratum.” On the one front, they were increasingly subjected to royal power and deprived of the power their ancestors had had, particularly to exercise independent military power and rule over their own lands. As a consequence, virtuoso consumption as a badge of rank became more centrally important to their social identity. This appears to have been more true of eighteenth-century France than England,13 but also persisted (according to Sarasùa, cited by De Vooght and Scholliers in their introduction), into the early nineteenth century among impoverished aristocrats in Spain. On the other front, such aristocrats were subject to “pressure from below” exerted by the increasingly prosperous merchant strata. In response to this two-way squeeze, it appears that something recognizable as haute cuisine took shape in aristocratic kitchens. Haute cuisine is not as easy to define as it is to recognize, but one characteristic is that it involves the production of commodities by means of commodities14—many stages of production and planning, and therefore very costly in terms of labor—as well as a continuous pressure for innovation and an ever-widening variety of dishes. The point is well illustrated by Anne Lair’s reference to 69 items of poultry being used to prepare a sauce for a dish at one of Louis XIV’s ordinary meals, and to the “uniqueness” of each dish; the reference in Özge Samancı’s chapter to 50 or 60 dishes being presented to the sultan at each meal may indicate the same tendency, though the context is more ambiguous. Reading the chapters in this volume has made me realize that the conceptualization “from quantity to quality” is an oversimplification. The process must at least be seen as involving a sliding scale, along which sheer quantity continues to retain some significance even as qualitative refinement grows. Rengenier Rittersma’s research on the diplomatic use of truffles by the rulers of Savoy is especially thought provoking. Admittedly, this did not directly involve cooking and dining, the usual vehicles for the courtly signification of rank and power. But the practice has a whiff of potlatch about it. Truffles themselves were already one of the most prized and rare ingredients of a haute cuisine, probably safely out of the reach of all but the wealthiest of the roturiers. Yet their diplomatic use in manipulating the power ratios between two significant territorial powers certainly smacks of the quantitative: the strategy of subordinating the recipient through a generous gift. Since it would be undiplomatic to see any resemblance between the white truffle and the oolichan oil, blankets, and zinc boilers of the   Mennell, All Manners of Food, pp. 108–33.   When I used this phrase in All Manners of Food, it was as a private joke, alluding to

13 14

Piero Sraffa’s famous contribution to Marxist economic theory, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory (Cambridge, 1960).

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Kwakiutl, Rittersma is wise to draw more inspiration from Mauss’s Le Don than from Franz Boas’s studies of potlatch. The findings that emerge from Daniëlle De Vooght’s use of sophisticated software to analyze the networks involved in royal entertaining after the establishment of the Belgian royal court can be seen in a similar light. It is easy to understand that hospitality had to play a large part in establishing the legitimacy of the new monarchy and in the court’s rooting itself in the social structure of the newly independent country. Yet, even if that had been the personal taste of members of the royal family—who stemmed from a minor Protestant principality in Thuringia, and had to make a major religious realignment to be acceptable as monarchs of Catholic Belgium—the adoption of a cuisine many times removed from that of the more prosperous of their subjects would very likely have been counterproductive. The apparently well-planned, even calculated, character of their choice of guests to eat at court, therefore, has a hint of the potlatch about it and calls into question once more any rigidly dichotomous model of a transition from quantity to quality. The question of whether the quantity or quality of food plays the greater part in social display at courts is indeed subsidiary to a broader question: to what extent did courts in the period mainly under discussion in this book— the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—continue to play a “model-setting” role? Did they continue to set the fashion—in manners, food, and cultural taste generally—that would be followed in the rest of their respective societies? Was the pattern still overwhelmingly in one direction, “trickle down?” The chapters collected here suggest that this is not the case. The problem has to be framed carefully. Once more, it is dangerous to pose it in a dichotomous “either/or” manner. As seats of heads of state, courts plainly remained at the top of the social pyramid. As Lair remarks of the court of Napoléon III, the food was “copious and good”—one could scarcely expect anything else. Ludington rightly points to the British royal courts from George III to Victoria and Albert as continuing sources of fashion, whether seabathing, agricultural improvement, or Christmas trees. And there is evidence that fashions spread from court to court through their continuing contact with each other: Christmas trees once more, dining alafranga in Istanbul, or service à la russe—though by no means in the medieval way, when the social distance between noble elites and the lower orders was much greater. It is more suitable to ask to what extent were courts still able to monopolize the model-setting function, or did they now have to share it with other strata, or indeed did they begin to follow fashions essentially being formed elsewhere in society? This is in effect the question that De Vooght and Scholliers pose at the outset when they write that this book:

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addresses […] the traditional top layer of society [and] considers the way royalty, the nobility, and aristocrats wined and dined in the rapidly changing world of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a period in which the bourgeoisie and even the menu peuple […] obtained political rights, economic influence, social importance, and cultural authority.

That is the right question, but it leads me to disown a view attributed to Norbert Elias and me. I don’t think that Elias held the conviction “that a court society can be studied as a ‘proxy’ for society as a whole” (De Vooght, my italics). And I feel equally uncomfortable with the idea attributed to me that the “role of the court, with its elites as a culturally powerful establishment that shapes good taste and appropriate manners, must be seen as a blueprint of power relations in society as a whole” (De Vooght and Scholliers, my italics). All I would say is that the study of courts tells us a lot about the wider society of which they are part, and that courts can only be understood as parts of wider figurations of power. More exactly: The role and power of courts and their associated elites in determining such models of good tastes requires much attention. So do the ways in which that role and power differed between countries. And their power in cultural matters cannot be understood separately from the unfolding patterns of power more generally in each country as a whole.15

This book greatly advances just such a project, because the courts studied by the authors vary considerably in their position in the broader social figuration of their respective countries. In the case of Russia, it appears to me (though I confess to knowing far less about Russian history than I do about that of Western Europe) that the pattern of culinary development described by Burrow is clearly related to the historically very different power relations found in Imperial Russia. Yes, tsars—notably Peter the Great—were concerned to subordinate and indeed to “civilize” their nobility. But, no, the nobility did not experience very much in the way of “pressure from below.” One can speculate that the relative informality of Russian dining among the Russian “elite” (in the sense that Burrow defines it) and especially the slightly potlatch character of the “open table” may be a reflection of the autocrats of All the Russias’ sense of security in their own power, and that since the menu people were not of much account, there was only a moderate pressure for either the tsars or members of the elite to display their rank through ever-refined cookery.   Mennell, All Manners of Food, p. 108.

15

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Another case, not mentioned in this book, is that of the Netherlands. The court of the Stadhouder in Den Haag was recognizably courtly in style, but the effective power in the Dutch Republic rested with the merchant Regenten class of the trading cities; they were the real Dutch model-setting elite, and the styles of everything from their houses to their food were very different from those associated with the courtly tradition. This was in strong contrast to the neighboring Austrian Netherlands, and I have suggested that it is one reason for the sudden culinary shift that persists to this day when one drives over the border from the Netherlands to Belgium.16 Something resembling the Dutch case may also have been broadly the case in much of Germany, where there was a historic ideological divide between the courtly culture symbolized by the concept of Zivilisation and the ideal of Kultur adopted by the Bildungsbürgertum.17 Regional variations, reflecting the very late consolidation of the German state, and a predominantly gutbürgerlich style of eating, are characteristic of German food culture. Although the Prussian court—especially under the Kaiserreich— attempted to emulate the absolutist courts of the past in the cultivation of courtly ritual,18 French models seem to have been explicitly rejected in the case of cuisine (at least for purposes of national propaganda). As Lair’s chapter makes clear, by the time of the Second Empire the locus of innovation and development in French cuisine—which had, to a remarkable extent, by then achieved a kind of international hegemony in the “best circles”— had long since shifted to the restaurants and hotels. The driving force was commercial competition in the marketplace. “Despite a sufficient number of dishes” at meals in the Louvre and at Compiègne, some people “pointed out the lack of innovation in the culinary preparations.” In other words, the French court was as much following fashion as leading it. The same was happening elsewhere. Ludington demonstrates that by drinking port on such a lavish scale the Georgian court was effectively giving its imprimatur to what had previously been a socially “middle-rank” taste. (He also describes William IV, no doubt correctly, as essentially a “middle-class gentleman.” Although no one could possibly describe his elder brother, George IV, in such terms, it would appear that   S. Mennell, ‘Eten in Nederland’, De Gids 150/2–3 (1987): pp. 199–207.   Elias, The Civilizing Process (rev. edn Oxford, 2000), pp. 5–43; W. Lepenies, The

16 17

Seduction of Culture in German History (Princeton, NJ, 2006); E. Barlösius, ‘Sociale und historisches Aspekte der deutschen Küche’, in S. Mennell, Die Kultivierung des Appetits (Frankfurt am Main, 1985), pp. 423–44. 18   N. Elias, The Germans: Power Struggles and the Development of Habitus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Cambridge, 1996), chapter 1B, ‘Duelling and Membership of the Imperial Ruling Class: Demanding and Giving Satisfaction’, pp. 44−119.

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under them and their father George III the royal court in Britain remained no more than primus inter pares among the great Whig houses—albeit somewhat less “comatose” than under the first two Georges.) Also pointing in the same direction is the celebration of traditional foods at state functions in various countries in the nineteenth century—Albala mentions Hungarian goulash, Swedish (Danish?) smorgasbord and Spanish paella, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt serving hot dogs to the British king and queen on their state visit to the USA in 1939. While it may be tempting to interpret this trend as a manifestation of rising national pride and of increasing conflicts among the great powers, such gestures toward popular tastes are also a sign of shifting social power balances within the various countries. Eventually, conspicuous consumption at court can actually become unacceptable or embarrassing. By the mid-twentieth century, the food eaten at the royal courts that still survived in Europe was more a reflection of—rather than a model for—eating among their subjects. The change is well documented in the memoirs of Gabriel Tschumi, a Swiss cook who came to work in Queen Victoria’s kitchens at the end of the nineteenth century.19 Then, and under King Edward VII (1901–10), lavish, expensive, and above all copious food was eaten by the courtiers and (possibly with greater gusto) by their kitchen servants. Under George V and Queen Mary (1910–36), influenced to some extent by the tastes of the royal personages but also clearly by the bleakness of the First World War and the mass unemployment between the wars, royal food became much more domestic, much more like the “country housewife” style that had long been dominant in England. And, in his final years of royal service during the period of rationing after the Second World War, Tschumi puts on a brave face to describe the preparation of bridge rolls (a sort of sandwich) for royal receptions. Rationing—indeed famine—would not have so affected food at the courts of the Renaissance popes or of Louis XIV. Still more symptomatic of changes in British society was the discontinuation after 1958 of the presentation of debutantes—young, aristocratic or otherwise wealthy young women—at court. Such a ritualized line of demarcation between courtly circles and the rest of society was no longer defensible. Thus, by the mid-twentieth century, instances of “trickle up” (or social capillarity) became as evident as the more familiar “trickle down”. Instances include not just President Roosevelt’s hot dogs but also the adoption of blue jeans (originally working men’s clothing) by people of all ranks across the world. Another is the notion that everyone—even princes of the blood—ought to have an occupation, when not being involved in paid employment had long   G. Tschumi, Royal Chef: Recollections of Life in Royal Households from Queen Victoria to Queen Mary (London, 1954). 19

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been a mark of distinction for the upper classes. Trickle-up is associated with a specific trend in society, toward diminishing power ratios between social classes and other groups within society,20 or what Norbert Elias termed “functional democratisation.” Which brings us back to another question posed by De Vooght and Scholliers in their introduction: “can Elias’s findings actually be used as a lead when researching all courts?” The question is pertinent because, directly or indirectly, the contributions to this book are all inspired by Norbert Elias’s classic Die höfische Gesellschaft, or The Court Society in English.21 The answer to the question is both yes and no. Yes, his study can provide a lead in drawing the historian’s attention to the similarities and differences between courts in different countries and different periods. No, not all courts are the same. But the social formation of the absolutist court did play a significant part in the development of European society and culture; and it appears to have its counterparts in other parts of the globe, such as India, China, Japan, and the Islamic world. The discussion of courts needs to be set in the context of a much older debate among historians regarding “the transition from feudalism to capitalism.”22 In the Marxist tradition, feudal society is generally seen as giving way directly to the capitalist phase. In the 1960s and 1970s, Marxism held a very central place in European sociology, and Eric Dunning vividly recalls a party in Leicester in 1968 at which pride of place was held by an argument between Elias and Perry Anderson over whether Marx’s “feudalism–capitalism” sequence was adequate (as Anderson maintained), or whether the concept of an intervening dynastic–absolutist phase was necessary.23 Elias must have landed some hard punches, because a few years later Perry Anderson’s Lineages of the Absolutist State appeared.24 On the other hand, Elias was not dogmatically arguing that the formation of courts like the one he had studied in ancien régime Versailles was an inevitable  

20

2007).

See C. Wouters, Informalization: Manners and Emotions since 1890 (London,

  The best texts are the new editions now published in the Norbert Elias Gesammelte Schriften and Collected Works: Die höfische Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 2002 [Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 2]); The Court Society (Dublin, 2006 [Collected Works, vol. 2]). 22   See: P.M. Sweezy et al., The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism: a Symposium (London, 1954); M. Dobb, Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (London, 1963); R.J. Holton, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (London, 1985). 23   See Eric Dunning’s footnote in N. Elias and E. Dunning, Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process, rev. edn by E. Dunning (Dublin, 2008 [Collected Works, vol. 7]), p. 139. 24   P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974). 21

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social process, nor that all courts were necessarily much the same. He saw The Court Society as advancing a “real type” model, rather than an “ideal type.”25 Weberian ideal types, abstracted in some unspecified way from a range of cases, ended up—he argued—having an uncertain connection with any specific empirical reality. Rather: Princely courts have often emerged under certain conditions, in conjunction with specific power constellations, quite independently of one another in the most diverse societies. The very fact that the same conceptual symbol, the concept of the princely court, can and must be related to all of them, indicates that we are not concerned here with an idealising abstraction which actually has nothing in common with, or similarity to, social reality. Systematic investigations enable us to identify commonalities and differences in the structure and operation of princely courts over the course of generations. Verifiable real-type models of such a figuration, and the associated models of processes of court formation, can sooner or later be standardised.26

Research on the history of courts has progressed a great deal since the publication of Elias’s Die höfische Gesellschaft in 1969, let alone since he completed the basic research for the book in the early 1930s, so some of his theses need to be modified in detail.27 Yet the court at Versailles can still serve as a benchmark—a real type—from which the courts of other countries and later periods deviate in varying degrees according to the disposition of social power in their own times and places. The chapters in this book, which focus on “food consumption, status, and power,” advance the task of understanding more precisely the development of courts and the changing part they have played in the functioning of society more generally.

  Elias first advocated the use of “real types”, in opposition to the “ideal types” associated with the work of Max Weber, in 1939 in The Civilizing Process (p. 533). The concept of the real type was originally coined by the economist Carl Menger and was beginning to be used by historians and economists in the late 1930s and 1940s. See R. Kilminster, Norbert Elias: Post-philosophical Sociology (Abingdon, 2007), p. 165n for a brief overview and further references on the subject. 26   N. Elias, ‘Science or Sciences? Contribution to a debate with reality-blind philosophers’, in Essays I: On the Sociology of Knowledge and the Sciences (Dublin, 2009 [Collected Works, vol. 16]). 27   Jeroen Duindam undertook this task in his valuable critique, Myths of Power: Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court (Amsterdam, 1995). 25

Bibliography Introduction (Daniëlle De Vooght and Peter Scholliers) Food and Power: Studying Food at (Modern) Courts Albala, K., The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007). Allard, J., ‘Repas et manières de table à la court d’Espagne au Siècle d’Or’, in J.-L. Flandrin and J. Cobbi (eds), Tables d’hier, tables d’ailleurs (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1999). Bailey, H., ‘No White House Food Fight’, Newsweek, January 17, 2009. As read on: http://www.newsweek.com/id/180097 (accessed on January 20, 2009). Beardsworth, A. and Keil, T., Sociology on the Menu: an Invitation to the Study of Food and Society (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). Belasco, W., ‘Food Matters: Perspectives on an Emerging Field’, in W. Belasco and P. Scranton (eds), Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies (New York and London: Routledge, 2002). Bennassar, B. and Goy, J., ‘Contribution à l’histoire de la consommation alimentaire du XIVe au XIXe siècle’, Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 30/2–3 (1975): 402–30. Bray, T.L., ‘The Commensal Politics of Early States and Empires’, in T.L. Bray (ed.), Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003). Chan Tat Chuen, W., A la table de l’empereur de Chine (Arles: Editions Philip Piquier, 2007). Counihan, C. and Van Esterik, P., ‘Introduction’, in C. Counihan and P. Van Esterik (eds), Food and Culture: A Reader (New York and London: Routledge, 1997). De Vooght, D., ‘Culinary Networks of Power: Dining with King Leopold II of Belgium (1865–1909)’, Food & History, 4/1 (2006): 85–104. Dietler, M., ‘Feasts and Commensal Politics in the Political Economy: Food, Power and Status in Prehistoric Europe’, in P. Wiessner and W. Schiefenhövel

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Index alafranga 10, 112, 120, 122, 124, 193 alaturka 122, 124 Abdülaziz, Sultan 123 Abdülhamit, Sultan 124, 126, 127, 130, 134 Abdülmecit, Sultan 120, 121, 135 absolutism 24, 42, 89, 90 Albert, Prince 57–9, 63–5, 79, 80–85, 195 Alexander I, Emperor 90, 103 Alexander II, Emperor 107, 108, 164, 167, 168 ambassador 10, 38, 41, 46–7, 50–52, 96–8, 104, 112–13, 115–16, 120–121, 125, 127, 130, 133, 136 Ancien Régime 11, 24, 59, 148, 154, 158, 160, 162, 169, 173, 189, 199 AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) 40, 44, 167 appearance 88, 102, 107, 145, 148, 163, 169, 187 architecture 15, 24, 58, 88, 112–13, 127 army see military artisan 7, 62, 68 autocracy/autocrat 89, 90, 92, 109, 196 banquet 9, 14–16, 23, 71, 93, 97, 98, 100, 106, 107, 109, 111–17, 119–37, 156, 158, 160, 193 baklava 116, 121 beer 64, 67, 87, 124 Bernard, Emile 156, 164 börek 116, 121, 125, 130, 133, 134, 136, 138 bourgeoisie 2, 8, 20, 62, 78, 82, 153, 156–8, 160, 163, 168–9, 196

bread 1, 17, 25, 87, 91–3, 96, 100, 114–15, 199, 124, 138, 140, 144–5 budgets 3–5, 42, 50–51, 78, 80 Café Anglais 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169 Carême, Antonin 14, 23, 133, 134, 136, 162, 163, 165, 166 castle see palace Catherine the Great, Empress 90, 92, 101–3, 109 cellar see wine ceremony/ceremonial 6, 10–11, 14, 47, 72, 81, 88, 91, 93, 97, 112–13, 121, 127, 143–7, 149, 151, 153–5, 157, 159, 161, 163, 165, 167, 169, 173, 191 cheese 17, 87, 93, 119, 122–5, 134, 161 chef 2, 14–16, 24, 26, 78, 124, 134, 136, 156–8, 160–165, 168–9, 191, 198 Christian(s)/Christianity 9, 18, 21, 59, 91–3, 96, 100 Christmas 26, 65, 93, 195 Christofle, Charles 11, 152, 153 Church Catholic 21, 73, 195 Orthodox 89, 92–3, 95–9, 104, 109, 118 Protestant 21, 195 civilization 17, 21, 135, 192 clothes/clothing 4, 64–5, 70–71, 198 coffee 27–8, 35, 100, 105, 112 colonial(ism) 9, 26–9 consumption 1–7, 10, 34, 63, 67, 69, 70, 71, 78–82, 84–5, 87, 91–2, 99, 103, 108, 118, 125–6, 145, 194, 198, 200

228

Royal Taste

conspicuous 4–5, 7, 42, 62, 87, 100, 103, 144, 169, 198 cookbook 14, 16, 19–20, 23–4, 26, 88, 104, 116, 126, 133–4, 137 cooking ingredients 17, 20–21, 24, 26, 28–9, 116, 122–5, 130, 145, 157–8, 160–162, 166, 168, 194 court Belgian 11, 171–2, 178–81, 184–7, 189–190, 195 British 10, 57–61, 63–6, 68–70, 73, 76, 78–9, 81–6, 191, 195, 198 French9, 11, 143–4, 146–9, 155–6, 159–61, 164–5, 169, 197 Ottoman 11, 111–13, 115, 119–120, 124, 126–7, 133–8, 191 Russian 10, 87–93, 95–101, 103, 105–9, 196–7 society 8, 37, 40–42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 146, 171–3, 175–9, 190, 196, 198–200 courtier 43, 61, 69, 81, 85, 113, 167, 173, 178, 190, 198 cuisine French 24, 112, 121, 126, 133–7, 156, 160, 169, 195 haute 11, 22–3, 135–6, 157, 160–161, 164, 169, 194 cutlery see tableware décor/decorations 2, 7, 11, 23, 29, 65, 94–5, 106, 120–121, 148–150, 152, 155–6, 162–4, 169 diet/dietary 2–4, 6, 17–18, 21, 43, 91, 93, 113, 193 dignitary/dignitaries 111–13, 117, 121–3, 125–7, 130, 135–6 dining room 150–152, 154–5, 158, 168 dinner see meal

diplomacy/diplomats 2, 8, 10, 32, 35–9, 42, 44–5, 47, 49–50, 52, 55, 69, 80, 100, 106, 136, 154, 194 discourse 7, 19, 103, 161, 171, 178 dish 7, 14, 16, 20, 23–6, 28–9, 44, 96, 100–101, 112, 115–16, 118–27, 130, 133–7, 145–6, 155–8, 160, 162–3, 165–7, 194, 197–8 distinction 42, 54, 63, 90, 99, 199 Domostroi (House Order) 94–6, 109 drunkenness 66–8, 72, 75 Dubois, Urbain 156, 162, 164 Dugléré, Adolphe 164, 165, 166, 168 Easter 93, 99, 100, 106 eating out see restaurant Edward VII, King 24, 85, 198 Elias, Norbert 5, 7–8, 11, 49, 94, 172–7, 179, 190, 192, 196, 199–200 elite 4, 6, 8, 11, 15, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 40, 55, 59, 66, 67, 69–70, 72, 74, 76, 81, 83, 87–93, 95–105, 107–110, 113, 117–19, 121, 126, 135–6, 154, 156, 160–161, 169, 193, 195–7 Escoffier, Auguste 15, 16, 24, 134, 163 etiquettesee also table manners 7, 11, 94, 108, 119–120, 143–6, 173 Eugenie, Empress 11, 123, 146, 147, 155, 157, 158, 159, 169 exclusive/exclusively/exclusivity 4, 16, 34, 40, 55, 73, 88, 145 exotic(ism) 14, 16, 19, 25–9, 122, 125, 161 feast 2, 21, 34, 92, 93, 95, 97–8, 100–101, 109, 111–12, 117, 120–121, 160, 167 Fête impériale148, 156 figuration see also sociology 7, 11, 13, 161, 172–9, 190, 196, 200 fish 17, 20–22, 101, 104, 119, 123–4, 133–5, 137–9, 158–61, 165–6 Foie gras121, 158–9, 163, 166, 168

Index foodstyle European 10, 112, 118, 120–123, 127 Ottoman 10, 112, 115, 125 gastronomy 133, 136, 158, 164 gentry 57, 63–4, 68 George I, King 58 George III, King 10, 57, 59, 63–5, 67–71, 86, 195, 198 George IV, King 59, 64–5, 71–8, 86, 197 gifts / gift giving 10, 31–5, 39–42, 45–6, 49, 51–5, 97–8, 104, 194 Gouffé, Jules 134, 156, 164 gourmand 14, 163, 165 gourmet 11, 108, 168–9 government 23, 63, 117, 187–8, 191 guest(s) 2, 7–8, 10–11, 67–8, 73, 78–81, 83–4, 93–101, 103, 106–7, 112–13, 115–16, 120–127, 130, 133–4, 136, 145–6, 150, 154–8, 160, 168–9, 171–2, 178–190, 195 identity 1–2, 5–6, 62, 67, 70, 76, 89–91, 97, 194 ideology/ideologies 2 imperialism 22, 28, 70 industrialization 15, 176 innovation 3, 21, 117, 145, 155, 194, 197 institutions 6, 9–10, 21–2, 31, 42, 50, 59–60, 63, 82, 86–7, 95, 103, 113, 117, 135, 161, 191 intoxication see drunkenness invitee see guest kebab 116, 125, 133, 134, 136, 140 kitchen 15, 25, 101, 112–13, 116, 121–6, 134, 136, 144–5, 156, 162, 164, 166, 192, 194, 198 Leopold I, King 20, 80, 171–2, 178, 185, 188

229

Leopold II, King 171–2, 178–9, 185, 187–8 Louis XIV, Sun King 5, 9, 24, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 154, 155, 157, 173, 176, 178, 192, 196 Louis XV, King 40, 146, 155 Louis XVI, King 40, 146, 153 luxury/luxurious 4–5, 9, 16, 17–19, 57–8, 82, 99, 103, 152, 158, 163, 191–2 Mahmut II, Sultan 112, 117, 118, 120, 121, 135 maître d’hôtel see staff masculinity/manly 72, 76, 81, 82 meal dinner 8, 11, 24, 26, 65, 78–81, 84, 87–8, 93–4, 96–101, 103–7, 109, 118–19, 121, 125–6, 130, 143, 145–6, 153–6, 158, 162, 164–5, 167—68, 171–2, 178–82, 184–190 lunch(eon) 79, 84, 103, 143, 154, 178 menu (card) 2, 5, 10–11, 23–4, 26, 28–9, 87–8, 104, 112, 115, 121–2, 124–7, 129–130, 132–7, 156–160, 164, 166–7, 190, 196 middle class/middle ranks10, 20, 60–63, 67–72, 74–9, 81–6, 197 military77, 88–90, 117, 120, 130, 135, 140, 143, 148, 150, 154, 182, 186–7, 191,194 modernization 12, 111, 117, 120, 130, 135 monarch(y)Napoleon I, Emperor 143, 147, 148, 154 Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon), Emperor 143, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 160, 163, 167, 168, 169, 193 Napoléon, Prince 122, 123 nationalism 23, 88, 90, 104, 165,

230

Royal Taste

network(s) see also Social Network Analysis2, 11, 171, 175–9, 185–190, 195 Nicholas I, Emperor 90–92, 106–9 noble(s)/nobility2, 4, 7, 9–10, 25, 28, 37–8, 42, 50, 54, 88–92, 94–5, 97–9, 103, 107–8, 118, 145, 189, 192–3, 195–6 nouveau-riche 20 novelty see innovation palace/castle Buckingham 83 Compiègne 143, 154, 155, 156, 168, 195 Dolmabahçe 118, 121, 126, 127, 130–32 Kensington 58, 87 St James’s 77, 78, 84 Topkapı 111, 112, 113,114, 189 Tuileries (Louvre) 11, 143, 146, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 156, 158, 160, 168, 195 Versailles 5, 9, 11, 124, 144, 145, 146, 149, 153, 154, 157, 177, 197, 198 Windsor 83–4 Yıldız 124–30, 134 parliament/parliamentary 61, 78, 134, 171, 189,191 Paris 8, 11, 26, 29, 55, 101, 124, 149, 150, 156, 158, 161, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169 patriotism 78, 90, 104 Peter the Great, Emperor 89, 92, 98–100, 109 Piedmont/piedmontese 10, 31–2, 35, 37–41, 43–7, 52 pilaf 111, 113, 115, 116, 119, 121, 125, 126, 130, 133, 134, 136, 141 politics 2, 6, 8, 32, 59, 149–150, 161 power 1–3, 5–15, 18–19, 21, 26–9, 35–6, 38, 46, 50–51, 59–60, 62–3, 65,

72, 85–6, 88, 90–91, 104, 106, 109, 113, 136, 143–5, 147–150, 158, 165, 168–9, 172–94 scenarios of 10, 88, 91, 106–8, 110

present see gifts prestige 2–5, 34, 37, 40–41, 55, 64, 77, 85, 95–6, 144, 148–9, 167–8 professionalization 15, 42 protocol 14, 23, 100, 102, 121, 127, 130, 146–7, 154, 157 public sphere/places 11, 58, 135, 157, 162–3, 168–9 quality 2, 4, 17, 26, 33, 70, 83, 94, 98, 102, 104, 143, 156, 160, 165, 168, 193–5 quantity 2, 4, 17, 45–9, 70, 77, 100, 107, 156, 160, 168–9, 193–5 reception 8, 96, 107, 11–13, 115, 120–121, 135–6, 143, 148–150, 152, 154, 169, 198 refined/refinement 3, 7, 11, 17, 19, 156–7, 162–4, 166, 168–9, 191, 193–4, 196 Reformation 21, 117, 135 region/regional 6, 25, 27–8, 31–2, 35, 42–4, 62, 161, 167, 192–3, 197 republican(s) 18–19, 22, 106 restaurant 8, 11, 15–16, 24–5, 28–9, 87, 143, 160–164, 166, 168–9, 197 revolution/revolutionary 8, 18, 55, 72, 92, 98, 99, 153, 155, 161 French Revolution 21, 55, 86, 143, 156, 158–160, 171, 178, 188–190 ritual 21, 24, 42, 51, 55, 95, 97, 100, 108, 148, 154, 173, 178, 197, 198 Roederer 165, 167, 168 Romanov 88–9, 96, 98, 107 Rothschild, James de 164, 166 royal(s)/royalty 2, 8, 10–12, 24, 26, 36–7, 41, 49, 57, 59–61, 65, 68–9, 71, 73,

Index 77–80, 82–6, 121, 144, 146, 149, 155, 158, 162–3, 172, 175, 178–81, 184–91, 194–6, 198 Russianness 88, 103 Savoy/Savoia 10, 31–2, 35–3, 41, 43, 44, 47–53, 55, 194 dukes of 34, 36–8, 46, 50, 55 princes of 32, 37 Second Empire 143, 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, 155 servant see staff service à la française/French service101, 103–4 service à la russe/Russian service26, 89, 93, 99, 103–5, 133, 136, 158 sherbet 111, 116, 119 silver(ware) see also tableware 11, 93, 97, 111, 113, 115, 119–21, 145–6, 152–3, 155 snobbery 4, 20 sobriety/temperance 62, 66–8, 72, 76–7, 80–81 sociology 4, 172–3, 199 slavery 1, 27, 78 SNA (Social Network Analysis) 11, 177–9, 184–5, 190 staff 16, 38, 51, 79, 84, 101, 124–5, 144, 157, 168, 181 status 1–3, 5, 8, 59, 62, 80, 91, 96, 98, 100–101, 113, 143, 145, 147, 162, 200 sugar 1, 14, 27–8, 123 symbol(ism) 5, 13, 40–41, 51, 59, 63, 65, 68, 70, 76, 80, 82, 85, 113, 127, 130, 148, 154, 165, 173, 197, 200 table 2, 8, 10–11, 14–15, 20, 22, 26, 67–8, 81, 84, 92, 94–107, 112–13, 115, 117–21, 124, 126–7, 130, 135, 137, 143–6, 150, 154–6, 158, 160, 162, 168–9, 177–9, 184, 187, 188

231

manners 11, 116, 120, 126, 135, 143, 169 open table 10, 92, 101–5, 109, 196 royal 146 settings 14, 156 tableware (fork, knife, spoon) 10, 22, 93, 97, 103, 111–12, 114, 115, 118–21, 124, 126, 146 Tanzimat 117, 120 tartufomania see also truffle 40, 43, 55 taste 2, 5, 6, 10, 13, 15–20, 23–5, 28–9, 58–60, 63, 69–71, 73–4, 77, 79, 82–3, 85–86, 97, 117–18, 121, 133–4, 147, 156–8, 160–161, 163, 166, 169, 195–8 tea 28, 57, 100, 103, 105, 108 tobacco 27, 35, 112 tradition(al) 2, 10, 13, 16, 21, 65, 70–72, 87–8, 92, 96, 100, 109, 119, 121, 127, 148–9, 154, 163, 196–9 truffle/tartufi 10, 26, 31–2, 34–5, 39–49, 51–5, 125, 138–41, 163, 166, 194 Turin 32, 37–9, 42–5, 48–9, 51–2, 54 urbanization 176 Victoria, Queen 26, 57, 59, 63–5, 68, 79–86, 171, 195, 198 war Franco-Prussian War 26 Napoleonic 62, 67, 75–6 Polish succession 37–8, 50 Spanish succession 37 Westernization 117, 135 Wilhelm I, emperor 156, 164, 168 wine 4, 10, 17, 25–6, 35, 41, 51, 57, 59–60, 63, 65, 67–71, 73–4, 76–86, 97, 105, 118–21, 124, 136, 144, 155–6, 160, 162, 166–8, 196 workers/working class 3, 7