A Circle of Friends

Flint, Michigan
1882-1887  
 

“Five O’clock Tea” by Charles Morgan McIlhenney (1887)

The American custom of having afternoon tea is often traced back to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, shortly after it opened in 1898, where high society in New York engaged in their version of the British ritual. However, well before that,  members of the middle class were using the term “five o’clock tea” to describe some of their get-togethers. This is illustrated by nine enigmatic menus from the mid-1880s that recently came to light—a surprising discovery, since menus were not often printed for such events in private homes. The only information about them was that they all came from the same source, apparently saved by a woman who belonged to a small social group; one of the menus was from a dinner dance that included a broader circle of friends. Although the menus include the names of the participants, the use of nicknames and initials made it difficult to determine where the menus originated. Nevertheless, through trial and error, I was able to identify the location as Flint, Michigan, then a small town of about 9,000 people. In addition to providing a glimpse of the foodways and social practices in the nation’s heartland, one of the menus also reveals the inherent optimism of the rising middle class, reflecting the confident spirit that would eventually set the country’s wheels into motion.

Longing for the Past

San Francisco, 
1923 

When menus are printed for a small get-together, they often reflect the underlying values of an individual or group, such as this charming menu from a dinner in June 1923 hosted by Camille Maihebuau, Jr., eldest son of the famed restaurateur. His father had recently returned to San Francisco, opening his eponymous eatery on Pine Street, shown in the previous essay “A Moment in Time.” Although Camille Jr. describes this event as the “first dinner given to my friends,” as if he were marking a rite of passage in his epicurean family, the party was probably organized by his parents to celebrate his twenty-first birthday. It appears that his father planned this bill of fare and arranged to have the menus printed; the illustration is surprisingly old-fashioned for a youthful gathering during the Jazz Age. The image suggests a longing for the past, harkening back to the joyful time before Prohibition, when Champagne could be legally served in American restaurants, or perhaps even sipped while flying your “aeroplane.”

A Moment in Time

San Francisco, 
1920-1923

When I first saw this photograph, there was something intriguing about the scene, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. The inscription in the lower right-hand corner provided some information—Camille and Eugenie Mailhebuau celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary at this dinner party on February 9, 1920. (Click the photograph to enlarge.) Camille was the French-born restaurateur who ran the Old Poodle Dog, one of the finest and most venerable eateries in San Francisco. Although the couple looks happy, seated in the middle of a long dining room table, just behind the pretty cake, some of guests look disturbed, as if something is bothering them. Of course, it was entirely possible that this underlying anxiety was simply a figment of my imagination. However, when I came across one of the menus a few years later, showing where the dinner had been held and who was there, I had an idea as to what may have been on their minds, for the photograph marked a significant moment in their lives and in the history of American restaurants. 

What Jackie Liked to Eat

The White House
1961-1963
 

On the night of the Pre-Inaugural Gala, flashbulbs popped when Jacqueline Kennedy emerged into the swirling snow from a townhouse in Georgetown, shimmering in a winter-white satin gown by the designer Oleg Cassini. It was the country’s first glimpse of Jackie in the role of First Lady, revealing the grace, elegance and unique style that she would bring to the White House.

The Princess

Mississippi River, 
1857 

This Currier & Ives print titled “Wooding up on the Mississippi” depicts the steamboat Princess taking on firewood for its steam engines. Pleasant and reassuring, such scenes were produced for the American masses, creating romantic images of the Old South that linger to this day. Of course, the reality of everyday life along the banks of lower Mississippi was far from idyllic. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were over 4,000 fatalities on the riverboats due to boiler explosions alone. In addition to such hazards, there was the pervading institution of slavery. All in all, it was an unpleasant and hellish society for many of those who lived it.1 With much still to discover about this period of the American past, ephemera can provide shreds of historical evidence, such as a menu from the Princess in 1857, a thought-provoking remnant of this legendary riverboat. 

Fresh Eggs in California

San Francisco, 
1853

In late 1852, the clipper Golden Eagle set sail from Boston on her maiden voyage, bound for California.1 Rounding Cape Horn during the supposed calm of the Antarctic summer, the ship encountered rough seas that split the bow, causing it to return to Rio for a month of repairs. By the time she arrived at the Golden Gate, it was the spring of 1853. Sailing past the new lighthouse on Alcatraz Island, which was still waiting for its revolving lantern to arrive from France, the great clipper finally docked at the wharf in San Francisco, a multinational city of 40,000 inhabitants who had come to seek their fortunes.

Dining at a Love Hotel in the Gilded Age

New York City
ca. 1892

Women were a popular motif on cigar boxes during the late nineteenth century. Dressed as goddesses, angels, or warriors, they were often depicted as voluptuous and seductive. Even so, it is rare to find a label like the one shown below with an illustration of a female nude, perhaps because such cigar boxes were intended for brothels, although nobody now seems to know for sure. The Victorians were adept at being discreet whenever they strayed from their strict moral code espousing sexual restraint. Not surprisingly, ephemera relating to this part of their private lives can be scarce. A menu from a little-known hotel called “The Palette” provides a case in point. Operating in New York during the Gilded Age, it was patronized by members of upper class who were leading double lives. Never mentioned in contemporary newspapers and magazines, this obscure hotel remains something of a mystery, despite the fact that the prices on its menu were in a league with high-society haunts like Sherry’s and Delmonico’s.