VIA FASHIONABLE FUNCTION IN 1842
It is hard to realize while we are surrounded by so many housekeeping conveniences what an amount of time, energy, and, above all, knowledge of the craft were necessary to the giving of a reception seventy years ago, when every preparation had to be made in the house and under the watchful supervision of the chatelaine.
There were no chefs to be hired, nor caterers to be summoned, not even a postman to deliver invitations. All that was done “by hand.” A darky was sent forth with a basket of nicely “tied up with white ribbons” notes of invitation, and he went from house to house, sending the basket to the occupant, where she not only subtracted her special note, but had the privilege of seeing “who else was invited.” And if the darky was bewildered as to his next stopping-place she could enlighten him. This complicated mode of delivering invitations prevailed into the fifties.
The preparations for the supper involved so muchlabor that many hosts offered onlyeau sucréeor gumbo. There was no cut nor granulated nor pulverized sugar, to be turned from the grocer’s bag onto the scales. All sugar except the crude brown, direct from plantations, was in cone-shaped loaves as hard as a stone and weighing several pounds each. These well-wrapped loaves were kept hung (like hams in a smokehouse) from the closet ceiling. They had to be cut into chips by aid of carving knife and hammer, then pounded and rolled until reduced to powder, before that necessary ingredient was ready for use.
There were no fruit extracts, no essences for seasoning, no baking powder to make a half-beaten cake rise, no ground spices, no seedless raisins, no washed (?) currants, no isinglass or gelatine, and to wind up this imperfect list, no egg-beater! Still the thrifty housewife made and served cakes fit for the gods, with only Miss Leslie’s cook book to refer to, and that was published in the twenties. Ice cream was seasoned by boiling a whole vanilla bean in the milk; it was frozen in a huge cylinder without any inside fixtures to stir the mixture; it was whirled in the ice tub by hand—and a stout one at that—and required at least one hour, constant labor, to freeze the cream.
For jelly, calves’ feet were secured days inadvance, and Madame superintended the making of gelatine. Pink jelly was colored with a drop or two of cochineal, yellow, doctored with lemon, and a beautiful pale green, colored with the strained juice of scalded spinach. These varieties were served in various attractive shapes; and all, even the green, were delicious. These preparations were also complicated by the necessity of procuring all supplies from the early morning market often a mile or more away, and which, besides, closed at 10 o’clock. No stepping to the corner grocery for eggs or butter in an unforeseen emergency, and to the credit of the community the “borrowing habit” was entirely unknown.
I remember a Mrs. Swiler, chiefly because when I went to see her, with an older sister, she “passed around” bananas. Cuban fruits were scarce in those days, and highly prized.
There were no awnings to be used in bad weather; no camp chairs for the invited guests if all came, and all wanted to sit down at the same time; no waterproofs for them to come in; no rubbers to protect feet from rain-soaked sidewalks; no street cars; no public conveyances that people ever hired for such occasions; no private carriages to bump you over rough cobblestones. So, there you are!
Courtyard on Carondelet Street
Courtyard on Carondelet Street
Courtyard on Carondelet Street
Arrived after all these tiresome preparations and your own discomfort at my father’s house, on Canal Street, to a reception given almost seventy years ago, in honor of Commodore Moore of the Texas navy, who brought to my father letters of introduction from President Mirabeau B. Lamar, of the Republic of Texas, and Gen. Sam Houston of the Texas army!
I have reason to think at this late date, not hearing to the contrary at the time, that the commodore’s visit was quite amicable and friendly. If he was escorted by Texas warships! or even arrived in his own flagship! I never knew. With his imposing uniform and a huge gilt star on his breast, a sword at his side, and a rather fierce mustache (mustaches were little worn then), he looked as if he were capable of doing mighty deeds of daring, for the enterprising new republic on our border. He was accompanied by his aide, a callow youth, also in resplendent attire, a sword so long and unwieldy he was continually tripping, and therefore too embarrassingly incommoded to circulate among the ladies. I met that “aide,” a real fighter in Texas during the late war. He proudly wore a lone star under the lapel of his coat of Confederate gray, and we had a merry laugh over his naval début. He was Lieut. Fairfax Grey. His sister was thewife of Temple Doswell, and many of her descendants are identified with New Orleans to-day.
Mr. Clay, grand, serene, homely and affable; also Gen. Gaines in his inevitable uniform. The two military and naval officers commanded my admiration, as I sat quietly and unobtrusively in a corner in a way “becoming to a child of nine”—“a chiel amang ye, takin’ notes”—but no one took note of the chiel. We had also a jolly itinerant Irish preacher, I think of the Methodist persuasion, whom my father had met at country camp meetings. His call was to travel, and incidentally preach where the harvest was ripe. I remember how, laughingly, he remarked to my father, anent the commodore’s visit, that the chief inhabitants of Western Texas were mesquite grass and buffaloes. He was father of John L. Moffitt of Confederate fame, and a very attractive daughter became the wife of President Lamar.
There was dance music—a piano only—but the room was too crowded for more than one attempt at a quadrille. The notabilities, army, navy and State, did not indulge in such frivolity. Life was too serious with them.
These functions generally began at 8 and terminated before the proverbial small hours. So by midnight the last petticoat had fluttered away; andthen there followed the clearing up, and, as the old lady said, the “reinstating of affairs,” which kept the hostess and her sleepy helpers busy long after the rest of the family had fluttered away also—to the land of Nod.