Survival of the Fittest

New York City, 
1882

As his three-month visit to the United States in 1882 was coming to an end, British philosopher Herbert Spencer dreaded having to attend a dinner being held in his honor. Spencer was an insomniac who could get irritable and grumpy, especially when something threatened to encroach on his privacy. Nevertheless, for the two hundred distinguished gentlemen who planned to attend the farewell banquet, there was a growing sense of excitment about finally getting to meet the great man before he returned to England.1 After dinner was concluded and the tables cleared, they could look forward to lighting their cigars and settling in for a long evening of speeches that promised to touch on “intelligent design, the proper role of government, America’s place in the world, and God’s existence,” all burning issues of the Victorian era.2

Spencer was considered one of the most intelligent men of his generation, especially by influential Americans of the Gilded Age. Comforted by his ideas adapting the theory of evolution to human society, the defining figures in many fields, such as industrialist Andrew Carnegie and the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, embraced Spencer as a prophet. It was Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase the “survival of the fittest,” a concept more related to laissez-faire capitalism than biological natural selection. In a sense, it was a concept that could even be applied to a menu that survived from the banquet.

Delmonico's at Madison Square

The dinner was held in the third-floor banquet room of Delmonico’s at Madison Square. Despite the lavish surroundings, there was an effort by the organizers to tone things down a bit. The New York Times reported, “In deference to the simple tastes of Mr. Spencer, who has a natural repugnance to any great display, no attempt at decorating the large hall was made, and the table presented the usual pièces montées, no special designs being prepared for the occasion.” Despite this report, the purely decorative centerpieces of confectionery made for this occasion probably were still sculptural masterworks.

Delmonico's chef Charles Ranhofer certainly did not create a dinner with someone of simple tastes in mind. For example, one of the three entrees on the menu shown below is mignons de chevreuil à la Berthier, a dish named after Napoleon's great chief of staff. Utilizing a recipe normally employed for beef tenderloin, fillets of venison were flattened lightly and trimmed into rounds, before being marinated in an earthen dish for three hours in oil and vinegar, seasoned with thyme, bay leaf, parsley, and onions. Subsequently wiped dry and sauteed in butter on a hot fire, the fillets were dressed over a tomato sauce with horseradish and some lightly fried shallots, each accompanied by a few Spanish olives that had been stuffed with anchovies and warmed within buttered sheets in a slow oven.3

Composed of an engraved card tatted on a satin backing, this lavish menu was made in various colors, each with a matching silk bow. The costly design reflected the importance of the event.4 Old menus often have small marks left by drips of gravy and other spots from mishaps from when they were used. However, the large stain on this menu has the flair of a real splash, an accident that made its survival all the more improbable. And yet, despite this flaw, someone still saved it as a memento. By Spencerian logic, its continued existence is prima facie evidence of its superiority.


Notes
1. Delmonico’s probably charged about $2,400 for this banquet. Spencer’s friends and colleagues who organized the dinner recouped this expense by selling tickets for $12 each, not an insignificant sum given that some of the eminent professors in attendance earned about $250 per month. The organizers bore some of the expenses themselves, such as the cost of preparing the menus. The speakers were given tickets free of charge in consideration of their services.
2. Barry Werth, Banquet at Delmonico’s: Great Minds, the Gilded Age and the Triumph of Evolution in America, New York, 2009.
3. Charles Ranhofer, The Epicurean, New York, 1893.
4. The same menu design was used for the banquet honoring Count Ferdinand de Lesseps when he came to New York in 1880 to promote his plan to build a Panama Canal.