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This episode of the History Extra podcast.
It's not quite true.
Amy Boyington, author of The Country House Dining Room.
A History of Georgian Feasting tells Lauren Good about what an event like this would really have been like from peculiar dishes to urinating with an audience.
Hello Amy, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's lovely to be here Lauren, I always love coming on here so it's wonderful to do it again.
Last time we spoke it was about your first book, Hidden Patrons, Women and Architectural Patronage in Georgian Britain.
What made you decide to home in on the dining room for this book?
Well, I think so many reasons.
So the dining room in a Georgian country house is spectacular.
It's the room where everyone really wanted to show off, because you were going to have all of your guests over.
And it was a place for you to really shine and basically show off your wealth, your taste and your learning, as well as like how good your French chef was in the kitchens.
And as a result of that, I just thought you know what we need to do a deep dive, because we don't think about that.
We don't think about what goes into creating the perfect Georgian dinner and the perfect dining room.
Was it only the upper classes, whose dining room was a public space, to impress, or was this view amongst the more middle classes too?
I think it went all the way down.
So yeah, I think middle classes also.
If they had the money, they'd put their best artworks in the dining room.
Maybe they wouldn't have so many gilded sort of ceilings, but they would have beautiful wallpaper.
They would have The few portraits that they did have of their ancestors on the wall.
And they would also bring out their best china, their best porcelain.
And maybe they could afford to have a pineapple.
And that would be pretty impressive during this period of time.
Sometimes they even rented out a pineapple so that they could show off and just have it in the middle of the table but not actually eat it.
It really struck me just how important looks are when it comes to this part of history.
I know, but has it really changed?
Like we all try and show off in some way.
And yeah, back then it was you choose your architectural style for your house, and then your dining room would fit in with that.
The 18th century is an amazing era of having lots of different changing architectural styles.
So at the beginning, we have the Baroque, which is very flamboyant.
You just have to think about Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
And it's all about basically overstating the classical elements.
And the dining room would be an absolute feast for the senses.
But then we go through the age, through the era, and people become less enamored with that.
They want something more streamlined.
They want it neoclassical, which is basically a refinement of the Baroque.
But then at the same time, we have some people who actually prefer to have the Gothic aesthetic.
You know, they were really into ancient architecture, ancient British architecture, that is.
And so they wanted to create an entire house and a dining room with a Gothic fireplace and a Gothic ceiling.
So we see this throughout this era, the transition.
And if you had built your dining room in the beginning of the century, it was now unfashionable by the end of the century.
So really, you had to keep on top of this.
Very expensive to keep up with these trends.
It is.
And they did bankrupt themselves.
So imagine if you inherited your ancestral pile at the beginning of the century.
You decided that the dining room from the preceding century was now no longer fashionable.
You redid that.
But then you died and your son inherited later on in the later 19th century.
He's probably going to redo it again just to keep up with the Joneses, essentially.
Otherwise, you were deemed unfashionable and that you had no taste.
I thought we could shape this conversation by imagining we are planning a feast for an important part in the Georgian period in one of these beautiful dining rooms.
Because, due to some portrayals, we might assume that The mistress of the house had quite a passive position.
But it struck me while reading your book that, along with keeping up with these trends, that there was a lot of skill and organisation that went into planning these events.
Huge occasions in a big house yeah, oh my goodness, absolutely.
The party planning aspect of this was enormous, and so you're quite right, the mistress of the house we often think didn't do that much, but she was in charge of the entire planning and execution of these lavish dinner parties.
So if we think about we're going to host a party, so you sent out the invitations.
You now need to discuss what you're going to be serving with your cook.
Preferably he's French, because French cuisine was all the rage during the 18th century.
And you also need to talk to your housekeeper, because she is the one who's actually going to sort out the servants and organise the nitty gritty, the nitty gritty.
So you have your deputy team and you go through the menu.
So what's in season, what's not in season?
Have you had a shoot recently?
Have you got things in the larder that can be eaten on anything particularly special?
Do we need to source oysters from London?
Do we need to go and shoot more rabbits outside?
So, you know, it was all part of the logistics.
Once you've done that, you need to figure out have you got a fashionable menu?
Because during the 18th century, it was all about what's called the French service.
So all dishes were put on the table at once for each course, and that could be as many as 50 dishes, depending on how big the party was.
And that is a lot of organization, because every single dish had the best ingredients in them and you had to make sure all of those ingredients were in your house and you had to make sure that you had enough staff at this time to actually create those dishes.
So that's just the beginning of it all.
We'll delve into all of these elements a little bit further.
But first of all, how much forward planning would an event like this take?
A country house was a well-oiled machine.
Everybody knew their place.
Doing this kind of dinner was a regular occurrence.
So they could have as many as seven lavish dinners in one week simultaneously.
So they knew precisely what they're doing, like a high class restaurant today.
You know, it was just part of the run of the mill thing to do.
Also seasonal.
So it depended whether the family were in the country or not, or were they in London for the parliamentary season and the social season.
So it does depend with that.
And then they would basically just transfer all of those dinners to London.
So you have the country house dining room and then you obviously have the townhouse dining room.
So the amount of planning it wouldn't actually take that long because they knew what they were doing.
It's incredible.
And it's such a public space in somebody's home.
It really is.
Yeah, you're right.
As I mentioned at the start, it really was about saying who you were and where you fitted into the hierarchy.
How long has your home been occupied by your ancestors?
Are you the most fashionable person in town?
Do you know what the latest architectural style is?
It really was a concoction of things to try and impress.
I mean, it must have been exhausting as well as really, really fun.
Going back to the decoration of the dining room, we've talked about keeping up with the trends and perhaps having a pineapple that you own or you've rented.
But were there any other really important elements that you'd have to ensure were present to really impress your guests?
Yes, of course.
So the actual design of your tables, not the physical table, although that would also be beautiful and mahogany and all of that but the design of the tablescape.
So that was a whole thing.
So the mistress of the house would be involved with that.
So first of all, you'd need to look at, have you got enough plates?
Have you got enough tableware, essentially?
And the most lavish would be a whole silver dinner set because...
Wealthy families had silver dinner sets.
That's what it was.
And this would include everything from water fountains down to the knives and forks.
And that was a way that you could show off your wealth, because every single plate might have your crest on it or your family motto on there.
And those were extremely expensive to commission.
But as we move through the 18th century, silver remains popular and expensive.
But we then move into the porcelain dinner services, particularly sevres.
So, you know, outside of Paris, we have the sevres and porcelain manufacturing.
And they are famous for their white and blue or green and white sort of beautiful floral designs.
And you could get everything from your plates to your egg cups.
And they cost an absolute fortune, to the point where different monarchs across Europe were competing to have the most expensive service ever commissioned.
And they would be 50 to 100 to 150 pieces.
Really is quite remarkable.
It is remarkable.
And if we picture that I've decorated my dining room beautifully, I've got all of these elements.
But now I need to make sure my household staff are up to scratch.
You did mention staff briefly earlier.
But you say in your book that Blenheim Palace in 1764 employed over 70 servants and the cost of livery and wages totaled about £460000 in today's money, which seems pretty extreme.
How important was it that staff were fit for purpose?
Oh, incredibly important because they were representing you and how well you can run your household, how fashionable you are and yeah, how wealthy you are.
So livery was incredibly important.
You know You see lots of period dramas with, you know, men in beautiful liveries and it's normally like silver and gold thread woven through.
Like these were expensive pieces of uniform which were given by the owners of the country houses to their staff to represent them.
And the more expensive they were.
You know, the higher up the social scale you were and the wealthier you were.
So it was all part of that.
Like display, always displaying and saying how great you are in comparison to other people.
Now, big country houses also need a chef.
You mentioned that ideally they would be French.
But were there any other considerations you'd have to bear in mind when hiring a chef in the Georgian period?
Usually they were always men.
The male chef was considered the superior cook, even though underneath him he would probably have a team of women.
And the French chef was considered the most elite, because French cuisine became very popular during the century, to the point where country house owners would try and poach chefs the French chef from each other by offering more and more money and more perks.
But other than that, you wanted to be able to trust your chef, because some chefs were known to be quite drunk during their cooking.
So you really had to make sure you could trust them and that they would listen to you.
So some French chefs were considered too self-important, To the point where you couldn't actually organize your menu.
They would say what their menu would be and you just had to go along with it, even though you're paying them and you're hosting your own friends.
So there was a fine line between, you know, excellence and I suppose obedience, I guess.
Would a chef have been paid far more than the other household staff?
Yes, absolutely.
So less than the butler, but more than every other member of staff.
They were the second highest paid staff. male staff in the whole house.
So yes, incredibly so.
And they often had their own team.
So they were sort of a micro team within a larger team and had quite a lot of autonomy because they were almost the most important member of staff underneath the well sort of equivalent to a housekeeper, but paid less than the butler.
So yeah, they were.
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Now, the food that the chef would cook would hopefully be beautiful, but were there any popular dishes that were a go-to to serve at a dinner party?
So in Britain we've always loved our roast beef and roast beef During the century was insanely popular and they had beef and almost like they loved it with mustard.
You know, we like mustard and horseradish sauce today, but they really, really loved that beef.
If you didn't produce beef on your table, I mean, who were you and what was wrong with you?
Because there's so many elements to this conversation actually?
Because at the time, during the Napoleonic Wars particularly, there were lots of caricatures produced that mocked French cuisine, saying that it was only just sort of soup and like tiny bits of food with a little bit of, I don't know, a little bit of salad or something.
And so they basically drew every sort of.
If it was Napoleon, he was very thin and you know, almost back to drop dead because he's malnourished.
But then you had John Bull, who was like a representation of England, and he is eating a hearty sort of roast beef dinner.
He's got a tummy, you know, he's big, but he's strong.
He's going to win that war.
So that was hugely important.
But then we need to move on and discuss the delicacies that today we might not enjoy quite so much.
So they love turtle soup.
So that's a great starter.
And turtles would be caught live in the Caribbean.
And then unfortunately, they were transferred across the sea in ships.
And then they'd be killed at the country house and chopped up, made into a lovely soup.
And people really loved that.
That was a delicacy because it was expensive because you're importing from far away.
But they also loved jugged hair.
And I didn't really know what jugged hairs were.
I mean, even now, I'm not entirely sure.
But essentially, a hair is chopped up, put into a jar, sort of cooked in its own blood.
So you get this rich metallic sauce inside.
That goes with that hair.
And my goodness, that was delicious, apparently.
But I don't think I'd like that.
How about you?
Would you like a bit of jogged hair?
That sounds awful.
But oh my God, another thing they loved, Asperg, like jelly.
So jelly that's made from the fats from an animal.
So gelatinous jelly, disgusting jelly, that they would put, for example, songbirds in.
They like to eat songbirds and you.
They'd sort of be suspended in the jelly, but the songbirds were intact and you were meant to sort of eat all of it, like eat the beak, eat just chop the like eat the head.
I guess I honestly can't imagine it.
I don't know if I could actually survive a Georgian dinner.
But yes, a whole host of interesting delicacies from the era.
Interesting indeed.
And it does strike me as well that these you know these big jellies on the table with these birds, It's very much there for spectacle and for the look of it.
Exactly right.
100%.
And that's why, when they were putting all these dishes on the table at the same time, it was an absolute amazing thing to see.
You can imagine the glassware, because glass was...
People were able to make thinner glasses then, so they were sparkling.
You've got all the silverware sparkling, all the amazing porcelain service on the table, plus flowers and all kinds of beautiful decorations just to make this absolutely transporting.
That part of it would have been quite fun.
And also the alcohol consumption.
I think you needed to have quite a strong stomach to keep up with them.
They loved to drink back then.
What sort of alcohol would they have served at a dinner party?
Yeah, great question.
All sorts.
This is an era of Porte.
So they absolutely love Porte.
Claret, another time.
So they switched between Claret and Porte, depending whether we're at war with France or not.
And Porte became a strong favourite to the point where you have Three bottle.
Men were drinking three bottles of a port is totally normal throughout the day.
But some people drank three bottles in a sitting because the glasses were much smaller.
So what basically happened was your glass would be filled up by the footman.
They were so small that you would drink it almost in one go, and then he would come back and top it up.
So you almost lost, I think, a total concept of where you were in your dinner and how much alcohol you drunk, because it just kept getting miraculously refilled.
They also loved Madeira as an after-dinner drink.
They drank champagne, of course, red and white wines, everything you could want.
The size of your cellar and your country house is also incredibly important, because if you could import all the best wines, it indicated that you really were wealthy and you are deserving of your place in society.
There's so much luxury here, isn't there?
It's just dripping with it.
Yeah.
Every aspect.
And that's why this book was fun to write, because, I mean, they really just had no breaks.
They went for it.
And that's something like the overconsumption.
There wasn't a flip side to it.
But it's also very fun to think, you know, attending one or two dinners might have been quite fun.
It does seem relentless from what you've described.
But I do wonder that would you alter the dishes you served based on the prestige of those attending?
For example, would you save your turtle soup for the very rich?
Yes, you would.
You would absolutely tailor your menu to your guest list, because If you're trying to entertain royalty, you would of course put your most expensive courses and dishes on that table.
There would be just no breaks at all.
But if you were just having a simple family dinner, Then yes, you would eat whatever is sort of seasonable and whatever the cook wants to whip up at the time.
So it really did depend.
Like they didn't eat like this every single day because they would have died at 30.
And some did.
But, you know, it wasn't an everyday occurrence if they could help it, I think.
You mentioned earlier that there were lots of dishes served at the same time, up to 50, I think you said.
Would people have helped themselves to these dishes or would household staff have aided with that?
Sort of a combination of the two.
It was meant to be that you could just help yourself.
You sort of, everybody just tucked in and then...
There are manuals and also letters that have been written to.
Lord Chesterfield writes to his son in France.
And he says you know, if you're at a dinner table, make sure that you pass some of the dishes to your left and to your right to ensure that everybody has access to all the food.
Not to do that was considered terrible manners.
So it's much like a family dinner today.
For example, if you were at one end of the table, you would hope that somebody would pass a jog chair down the table.
But of course, you had footmen who you could catch the eye of them.
And then they, of course, would come and help you as well.
The footman would be keeping an eye on everything.
They, of course, were making sure that your glass was top full.
So they would also be checking whether everybody has what they need, as would the hostess.
Her job during the meal was to make sure that the conversation was flowing and that no one was left out and that everybody had what they wanted during each course.
So everybody, there's many eyes ensuring that everyone was happy.
The mistress of the house does seem to be doing an awful lot here.
Would you always have to stand on such ceremony, even amongst close friends, for instance?
No, I don't think you would.
I think she would always be in charge, though, like that would be her job.
Like she, she's been brought up from a young girl to be able to run a household, run her staff and organise these types of meals.
And so even if it was just a family dinner, she would still be overseeing it, but it would be less pressure and she could enjoy herself a little more.
But I mean girls during this era as well as boys would have carving tutors, where a tutor would come to their houses and teach them how to carve up different pieces of meat, because that was part of the performance.
If you had, for example, like a huge roast beef meal, like a huge joint, she would be the one to carve it up and then the footman would take it around the table.
It's all part of that display.
There was an excerpt from your book that I found really funny, about a Lord Chesterfield worrying that his son couldn't carve meat very well.
I mean, there's so much worry here about how you're appearing to others that you're filling your role.
Absolutely.
It was embarrassing.
So it was all part of etiquette, social etiquette.
And then dinners were part of that performance, that social performance.
And you could really commit social suicide by not knowing how to conduct yourself at a lavish dinner.
If you couldn't carve meat, because one of the things during these dinners is that a person of honour might be chosen to carve meat in front of everybody.
So that sort of was important, because if you could do it well, you were considered a gentleman and you were therefore a part of that group.
You've made it kind of thing.
But also you know there were other rules that you really you shouldn't, you know, obviously spit around because some people ate horribly and you're not allowed to use your knife to bring your food to your mouth.
You need to use your napkin.
Don't get too drunk.
You know, don't leave the table without making sure you absolutely need to go and leave that table.
And so yeah, there were a whole host of almost invisible rules that you just knew what to do and what not to do.
Would people have missed out on invites to events like this because they couldn't conduct themselves properly?
Yeah, 100 percent, because you don't want a bad dinner guest just like today.
If somebody is just horrible at your table, you don't want them back.
So, yeah.
And then that would spread around society like, oh, this guy is a total bore at dinner.
You know, don't have him over.
And so they would be snubbed.
And this is a place where you could make huge advances in your social life, for example.
This is where networking occurs.
You know, if you want to become an MP, you need to get into politics, you need to meet the right people, and so yeah, if you just if you couldn't carve a piece of meat, or if you got too drunk every time you went, you're not going back.
We're very much focused on the role of the dining room as a place to entertain and impress, but I know you said some Georgian families could have entertained most days of the week but not every day.
How would the etiquettes of family dinners differ from these bigger parties?
They would just be more relaxed.
So they might not eat in the actual formal dining room, which are often extremely large and quite cold sometimes.
So you'd need lots of fires to keep them warm.
And so a different, smaller room, like it might be called, the summer dining room or the small dining room.
And that might be located closer to the kitchens, for example.
So the food would be warmer when it came to the table.
And during these tables, people could sit where they like.
So it's not necessarily a seating plan.
And the food would be less lavish, perhaps, but still plentiful.
Now, when your dining room is more full we've talked about, there's lots of people, perhaps even royalty, attending the dinner parties.
How would you go about creating a seating plan?
Oh, this is the hostess's jurisdiction again.
So there were different during the era.
It did change, but primarily the host and hostess would sit at either end of the table because traditionally they had the long mahogany tables.
And then the woman who is the highest ranking, so a duchess, would then be sat next to the host.
And the highest ranking man would be sat next to the hostess.
And then basically it should be male, female, male, female around the table.
And the highest ranking would be closest to the hosts on either end and the younger people and the people sort of down, lower down the social scale would sort of fill in in the middle.
And that was also to make sure that the younger people could also have more of a flirt and have more fun and be sort of less concerned about, you know, being strict next to your host or your your your scary hostess.
So yeah, seating plans are hugely important.
And to not acknowledge who the highest ranking member of that dinner was, was a huge faux pas.
You know, you might not get that guest back at your table.
Would you have been very aware as a person attending these events?
Oh, I'm sat here because I'm not as higher ranking as that person over there.
Yeah, 100%.
And you also wouldn't mind that because you knew your place in society from birth.
So it was just another aspect of that.
You knew where you were and they wouldn't have expected to have been any place anywhere else.
But if you were entertaining.
So even if you were not titled or if you were young, but entertaining, you could elevate your social status, because the host or hostess might very well want you to be sat close to them so they have a more interesting and exciting evening.
Now we've talked about some strange food that was served or some etiquettes that might seem odd, but are there any other practices that would seem totally unfamiliar to us now?
Well, yes.
One of the most obvious ones is where and how they peed during the dinner.
So you were not meant to leave the dinner table.
That was a considered a faux pas, so keep on to it, hold on for as long as you can, even though these dinners lasted for hours, like three hours max or more, no minimum actually.
And for the ladies, if they had to go they were expected to leave the room.
And then they were given, it's called a borderloo, but it's essentially looked like a gravy boat.
And they would have to lift up their skirts, do their business and then pass it on to a maid and then return to the table.
But once the ladies left the dinner table, which was the way it happened.
So you eat your dinner.
The ladies then were drawn to the drawing room.
The men then drink and talk politics and toast a thousand different people.
So they drank loads and got they really, really did need drinks to go to the loo, at which point they were allowed to get up.
There's lots of furniture in the room and they could open up the cupboards and there would be a chamber pots within and they could take out the chamber pots and pee within the room.
So everybody was aware of that and that seemed quite normal, unless if it, if it went on for too long, you might get a funny side eye.
For example, there's this amazing tourist, a French tourist, who comes to the UK and he comments on this.
And he says that there's an old admiral dressed up in his dress uniform and he goes over after the dinner and he has a pee into a chamber pot.
And they say that it lasts for 10 minutes and that it takes so long that everyone at the dinner table is now listening because it sounds like the last few drops going down a drainpipe after a thunderstorm.
So I would say that's a very different type of etiquette that we have to today.
They also ate at interesting times.
So breakfast, I would say, was quite similar to now.
It would be, you know, before 11 o'clock.
So these people didn't have day jobs.
You know they were.
They were rich enough that they didn't have to worry about going out and do their nine to five job.
And so they would get up leisurely and have their breakfast.
But then the main meal of the day, the dinner, was actually at lunchtime today.
So it used to be around midday, but then it got pushed back later and later and later, so that it was maybe mid-afternoon.
And so, for example, there's this amazing Reverend James Woodford.
He was amazing. a parson up in Norfolk.
And he was part of like the lower gentry.
He's a very charming man.
He loved food and he maintained a diary for years and years.
This is around the 1780s.
And his I would say patron.
The man who was the local squire would regularly have him over for dinner.
And they would go over for dinner about three o'clock.
And then he would explain that they first have a drink.
Then they'd have a dinner that lasted like three hours, a really long time.
That would then go into the evening where they retire to the drawing room and they have dinner.
Some drinks, play some whist, and it's going into the evening now.
And then sort of they would have syllabubs, so sort of sweet things would be brought out.
And then supper.
So then supper could be as late as 11 o'clock.
And so sometimes he wasn't getting home until the early hours of the morning and he had to ride home or walk home.
So to me that's simply extraordinary.
This day was basically eating, that's the whole thing, and he loved it.
He wrote about every single meal he had that was of consequence and interest.
What a life of luxury.
So, and he wasn't really that wealthy.
Like he he had a cook.
He had a man, a lad, as he describes them.
And I think a couple of maids.
But he still hosted people at his house and they were sort of a group of them all.
And they would go around each other's houses every week.
And it just sounds really fun.
And he at one point.
He called it a prodigious pike.
And the pike was so massive that when it was served on the table, it had to be served on a shutter.
So, you know, shutters that sort of cover a window.
It had to be taken off its hinges.
The pike was laid on top of it and then taken in.
And then he explains in his diaries how everybody was so amazed because this pike was so huge.
But it wasn't just a pike.
It had a pudding within it.
Oh, I can't even imagine it.
It sounds so gross.
But I think it must have been some kind of suet pudding.
And then you open up the pike and wow, there's a pudding within.
So, yeah, I don't know.
In so many ways the Georgians are similar to us, but in so many other ways they're just a little bit different.
Well that brings me beautifully onto my final question Amy.
Which is do you think there are any etiquettes or practices that we might see or do today that come from the Georgian dining room?
Oh, yes.
Like I think when we when we go and have a nice dinner, we're expected to behave ourselves.
You know manners are incredibly important and you don't want to eat with your mouth open, speak with your mouth full and all those types of things.
Don't get too drunk at a dinner, especially if you don't really know your company.
And also I think we do.
If we're hosting a dinner, we do like to impress the people who are coming around.
So we will maybe crack out the best bottle of wine or start with a bottle of champagne.
And we like to show off just as we did then.
And also, the taste of the food was very important back then.
And it is today.
So I think there are many things we've borrowed from them and will continue to enjoy for time immemorial.
That was Amy Boyington, the author of The Country House Dining Room.
A History of Georgian Feasting in conversation with Lauren Good.
And you can hear more from Amy and Lauren in another episode of the History Extra podcast.
Georgian Grand Houses The Forgotten Women Who Built Them.
A link to that is in the description to this episode.
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