So what would have been on the menu?
First courses:
Brocoli &c
Sweet Breads Ala Royal
Sheep Rumps & Kidneys in Rice
Larded Oysters
Ducks Alamode
Florendine of Rabbits
Hare Soup
Second courses:
Pheasant
Marbl’d Veal
Pea Chick with Asparagus
Roast Woodcocks
Stew’d Mushroomd
Macaroni
Roasted Hare
Burnt Cream (maybe a creme brulée?)
Floating Island (oeuf a la neige)
It was customary to serve the
food before the guests were seated and then they would informally serve
themselves rather than waiting to be served. Men and women sat together and
socialised with each other throughout the evening. It was commonplace to
decorate the table with flowers, arranged side dishes of vegetables such as
olives and to set the table much as today with beautifully arranged napkins and
wineglasses[iii].
Who would have attended her salons?
Through her family and marriage
shepherd enjoyed a wide range of contacts and friendships which included
intellectuals from various professions such as philosophers, literary figures,
politicians, economists, mathematicians, publishers and scientists. Among the
likely guests were the philosophers Dugald Stewart and James Mill, the female
mathematician and science writer Mary Somerville, economist David Ricardo as
well as literary greats such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth[iv].
Although these are illustrious
names, it was an important feature and social principle of salons during this
period both in the UK and abroad that gatherings were egalitarian and not
elitist. People from different classes and social backgrounds mixed together
and gender roles were less demarcated and Shepherd’s salon was no exception to
this. It was very common for the host of a salon to be a woman and the hostess
would often run it and set the rules, tone, manners which would govern the
salon’s social gatherings for both sexes! The hostess was often regarded as
highly influential and many tried to stay on the right side of her! It was a
highly skilled role which required a combination of a great intellect with
quick thinking, a sense of humour and complex social skills. Shepherd was
incredibly good at this[v]:
“Lady Mary Shepherd was
remembered, through her brother and her nephew, as a hostess of unusually sharp
wit and logical ability:
I should like to hear more about
the gifted Lady Mary Shepherd — and her ‘Salon,’ which my mother has often
assured me was a very interesting and agreeable one. My father seems to have
been often there, and Lady Mary’s humour seems to have been as well-known as
her logical powers, and occasional causticity [Brandreth, 1888, p. 4].”
What was the purpose of salons?
An important feature of salons
was that everyone felt free to express and debate their views, to disagree with
each other and to mix with people from opposing views e.g. radicals and conservatives.
Nevertheless, the tone of the conversation remained respectful and
non-confrontational whilst retaining a quick-witted and candid approach. Salons
developed into an effective social space for thinkers to freely
exchange and develop their controversial, creative ideas, ranging from
inventions to ideas for positive social change.
I’ll go into greater detail in my
next post.
[i] Jennifer McRobert, “Mary Shepherd and the
Causal Relation” February 2002, revised 2014 https://philpapers.org/archive/MCRMSA.pdf. 18
[ii] Geerte de Jong, “A Menu from the Early
19th Century,” Wordpress, The Victorian Era (blog), August 11, 2012,
https://19thct.com/2012/08/11/a-menu-from-the-early-19th-century/.
This is a fascinating blog about the Victorian era and
it is well worth taking a look at the full menu of ideas gathered together in
this post.
[iii] Geerte de Jong, “American, Old English or
a La Russe: Dinner Styles in the 19th Century,” Wordpress, The Victorian Era
(blog), December 26, 2012,
https://19thct.com/2012/12/26/american-old-english-or-a-la-russe-dinner-styles-in-the-19th-century/. Information and citations for
this post on the blog ‘The Victorian Era’
are from “A la Russe, à la Pell-Mell, or à la Practical: Ideology and
Compromise at the Late Nineteenth-Century Dinner Table” by Michael T. Lucas,
which appeared in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1994.
[iv] McRobert, “Mary Shepherd and the Causal
Relation,” 49–53.
[v] McRobert, 48–49.
