Stephen Hales's Syllabub Machine

Dr Stephen Hales FRS (1677-1761)

Many years ago while working on a paper on the subject of syllabub, I came across a reference to an ingenious invention by a certain Dr Hayles for making this frothy, uniquely English dairy dish. I found the citation in Old English Glasses by Albert Hartshorne, who quoted an obscure eighteenth century reference whose source I could not track down, 

“Dr. Hayles hath actually published what has been for some time talked of, a tube of tin with a box of the same at the lower end of it...that is full of small holes. This engine, with the help of a pair of bellows, blows up cream into syllabub with great expedition. This complex machine has already procured the doctor the blessing of the housekeeper in this palace, and of all such as she in the present generation (who know the time and labour required to whip this sort of geer), and will cause his memory to be held in reverence by all housekeepers in the generations that are yet to come.” A. Hartshorne, Old English Glasses, (London and New York: 1897), p. 307.

In my ignorance, I did not know who Dr Hayles was, so I did not have a clue where to look for his publication. I searched for some time in the British Library, the Public Record Office and other archives, but gave up when I got no results. It seemed to me that the doctor had not lived up to the promise of being 'held in reverence by all housekeepers in the generations that are yet to come.' He and his eccentric machine had been entirely forgotten. Despite this I was pretty keen to have a go at rescuing his syllabub engine from oblivion. The brief description quoted by Hartshorne was clear enough, so following the instructions I made the instrument below. It indeed proved to be an excellent and labour saving way of making syllabub and was tremendous fun to use, bringing a smile to the face of anyone who watched it in action. I even demonstrated it on a couple of television programmes, including an episode on eighteenth century food in my own series Hungry for the Past. 

Syllabub engine Mark I

After a few years it eventually dawned on me who the mysterious Dr. Hayles was. The problem all along had been with the spelling of his name - Hayles rather than Hales. If I had had the wit to work this out in the first place I would have realised that the gentleman in question was none other than the great eighteenth century clergyman botanist and inventor Stephen Hales, noted mainly for his early experiments on the respiration of plants. After searching through Hale's books I noticed that in one work on the distillation of seawater, there was an additional essay at the end entitled An Account of the good Effect of blowing Showers of Air up through MILK, thereby to cure the ill Taste which is occasioned by some Kinds of Food of Cows. (London: 1761).

Dr Hales was very fond of blowing bubbles. The main essay in his book was about blowing air through seawater as it was being distilled to make freshwater for seamen. He also argued that the process of blowing air through milk which had been tainted through cows eating wild garlic or turnips, would get rid of the strong unwanted flavours, especially if the milk was heated during the process. 

The final essay in this book is where Hales published his design for blowing air through milk

In the essay he illustrates the mechanism for blowing the air through the milk. When I saw his engraved plate (below), I realised that it fitted the description in Hartshorne's quotation exactly. However, syllabub does not even get a mention in Hale's essay. Now that I knew the machine was the invention of a Dr Hales rather than a Dr Hayles, I decided to track down Hartshorne's source and found it very quickly. In 1905, Hartshorne edited the letters of the Rev. Edmund Pyle, chaplain in ordinary to King George II between 1729-1763,  in a book called Memoirs of a Royal Chaplain. In it I found a letter which Pyle had written to his friend Samuel Kerrich, a Norfolk vicar. When I read the text of the letter, I realised that Hartshorne had abridged it in Old English Glasses, leaving out a critical passage which indicated that the perforated box was in fact round ('like a box for a Great Seal').

Originally designed for ridding tainted milk of the unpleasant flavours of wild garlic and turnips, Hales's  engine was used in the kitchens of Kensington Palace for making whipped syllabub. A pair of bellows was inserted into the tube at the top.

When I made my machine, I assumed that the box at the lower end of the syllabub engine was cuboid. Although my engine worked perfectly, blowing up ' cream into syllabub, with great exhibition' it looked pretty different to Hales's device for blowing air through tainted milk. Here is the full text of Pyle's letter,

Dear Sir,                                              "Novr 21 1758.

" I have a favour of yours to acknowledge. There is a great dearth of literary news. The only articles, of that sort, that I know of, are: That Dr. Hales hath actually published; what has been some time talked of; a tube of tin, with a box, of the same, at the lower end of it, (like a box for a Great Seal,) that is full of very small holes. This engine, with the help of a pair of bellows, blows up cream into syllabub, with great expedition. This complex machine has already procured the Dr. the blessing of the housekeeper of this palace, and of all such as she is, in the present generation, (who know the time & labour required to whip this sort of geer: and will cause his memory to be had in reverence, all housekeepers, in the generations that are yet for to come."

The mention by Pyle of 'the housekeeper of this palace' is very interesting. This was Kensington Palace where Pyle was chaplain. Hales too had strong royal connections. By the middle of the eighteenth century he had become a well known public figure. So much so that Prince Frederick of Wales, the heir to the throne, frequently drove from his palace at Kew to observe the doctor's curious experiments at his laboratory in Teddington. Frederick's wife Princess Augusta often accompanied him on these excursions and became very fond of Dr Hales. When Frederick died in 1751, Hales was appointed Clerk of the Closet to the Princess Dowager. In the summer he frequently visited the princess at Kew and advised her on her gardens and greenhouses. He also thought up amusements for the princess and her children, including the Prince of Wales, who would eventually become King George III. One of these diversions was making pictures out of rare dried sea mosses (species of seaweed with a feathery appearance) sent to Hales by a fellow botanist. One day, probably in 1758, at Leicester House, the princess's winter residence, he amused the royal children by making syllabub with an 'ingenious machine'. This was the year which Pyle wrote his letter referring to the published design. So it looks like the Doctor brought his invention to Leicester House just to give the children a good laugh. But it must have been spotted by the housekeeper of Kensington Palace who put it to serious use.

Frederick Prince of Wales with his sisters in front of Kew Palace by Philip Mercier 1733.

Frederick's wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (1719-1772), oil on canvas by Charles Philips. In 1751 Dr Hales was appointed the princess's Clerk to the Closet.

The highly inventive Dr Hales was very fond of experimenting with air. He placed this windmill on the roof of Newgate prison to ventilate the airless cells below. It was a huge success. Hales's brother William had died of gaol fever in Newgate. He was also celebrated for designing ventilation systems for ships and advocated fumigating biscuit and other sea stores with sulphur dioxide to kill weevils and other insects. Another of Hale's remarkable inventions was a system of salting whole carcasses of meat by pumping saline solution through the animals' blood vessels. 

Kensington Palace where the royal housekeeper used Hales's syllabub engine.

Leicester House formerly on Leicester Square, the residence of Frederick Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta. It was here that Hales amused the royal children with his syllabub engine.

Now that I have found Hales's drawing, I am making a Mark II version of his syllabub engine which will be exactly like the original. Once it is completed I will post a video of it being used, which I hope you will find an amusing diversion. Despite the speed with which this device pumps up syllabub, it never seems to have caught on in England. However, at some time in the nineteenth century on the other side of the Atlantic in the Southern States, utensils which used a similar pumping action started to become popular for whipping up cream and syllabub. However, I suspect that these churns were invented without knowledge of Hales's device. Though strangely enough earlier in his career Hales was one of the original twenty-one trustees of Georgia in the early history of the colony. He also had strong connections with the Carolinas. And it was in the Southern States that these devices became popular. Coincidence? Almost certainly. 

A reproduction of  a nineteenth century American syllabub churn. Photo courtesy of John Chaney

Another view of the syllabub churn above. Photo courtesy of John Chaney

Tildens 1865 USA patent churn - with a turbine which whips up the cream when the cylinder is shaken

Whether making syllabub by milking a cow into a bowl, as in this romantic 19th century illustration, or by blowing air through the cream with an eccentric bellows operated engine, this bucolic activity seems to have entertained generations of children, including a few royal ones.

If you would like to know more about syllabub there are some other posts dealing with the subject on this blog -

Pumping up the Syllabub - 12 Feb 2012

Syllabub Revisited and Sugar Plumb Theories - 8 Feb 2012

Lady Rachel Fane's Syllabub -17 Dec 2011

A Forked Stick for the Cookold

'A bean for the kinge, a pease for the queen, a cloave for the knave, a forked stick for the cookold and a ragg for the slutt. ' All these objects were concealed in the twelfth cake which Henry Teonge ate on board HMS Assistance in 1675

In our last posting, we mentioned how a threepenny bit coin was included in the Empire Christmas Pudding recipe of 1926 'for luck'. The practice of concealing small objects in food as good luck charms, or for divination purposes, seems to be both ancient and international. In Scotland there was a tradition of hiding a glass ring in a bride pie - whoever got the ring in their portion would sure to be the next one to get married. And there was a very similar custom here in England where a ring would be tossed into a bridal posset. Sometimes gifts or messages were secreted in sugar walnut shells or sugar eggs. The Georgian confectioner Giuliamo Jarrin tells us how to make perfectly seamless hollow sugar eggs in a balancing pan. Hidden inside these 'egg comfits' were all sorts of goodies. Jarrin tells us that,
‘In Paris they put in a number of nicknacks, little almanacks, smelling bottles with essences, and even things of value, for presents.’

From very early times both a bean and a pea were concealed in cakes consumed during revels and celebrations on the feast of the Epiphany, a custom that was practiced in a number of European countries. Whosoever got the bean in their slice became the king of the revels and the pea signified his queen. The most celebrated of these cakes is the gallete des rois, which still survives in France and its former colonies. In nineteenth century France, beans (feves) made out of ceramic started to replace the real ones and a whole host of other small objects were made by the potteries for galletes des rois. There were white rabbits, four leafed clovers, kings, queens, infants, doves and a whole host of other objects, though these novelties continued to be called feves.

Two nineteenth ceramic French feves designed for hiding in galletes des rois - in this case the feves really are beans.

A small collection of nineteenth century French feves for galletes des rois. These now then to be made from plastic.

Two feves in the form of tiny bone playing cards for putting into galletes des rois (early twentieth century). These are French, but sets of cards illustrated with various characters, including a king and queen became very important in the English twelfth-day celebrations from the end of the eighteenth century into the early Victorian period. Though these were not put in the cakes of that period, but blindly picked from the pack by the Twelfth-nighters to indicate the role they had to play for the night.

In England the practice was already ancient when Robert Herrick wrote the following lines in the seventeenth century,

Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean's the king of the sport here;
Beside, we must know
The pea also
Must revel as queen in the court here.

Begin then to choose,
This night, as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here;
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelve-day queen for the night here!

From Twelfth Night; Or, King And Queen

HMS Assistance, the ship on which Henry Teonge and his fellow crew members celebrated Twelfth-day in 1676 with a 'great kake".

About a year after Herrick's death in 1674, a naval chaplain called Henry Teonge celebrated both Christmas and Twelfth Day on board a ship in the Eastern Mediterranean in stormy weather. In his diary he describes the twelfth cake made by the ship's cook, 

From The Diary of Henry Teonge. London: 1825

Though very brief, this is is one of the most detailed descriptions from the early modern period of the English version of the custom. Teonge's vivid account paints a marvellous picture of the hilarity of the occasion. My 'great kake' for Twelfth day this year will definitely have in it  'a bean for the kinge, a pease for the queen, a cloave for the knave, a forked stick for the cookold and a ragg for the slutt.' We will make it on my Taste of Christmas Past Cookery Course on November  24-25. I still have a few places left, so if you would like to join the fun please get in touch.

In the first half of the twentieth century manufactured silver charms for concealing in Christmas Puddings became popular, though the most commonly used item was a silver threepenny bit. These are the direct descendants of the bean, pea and other items originally hidden in twelfth cakes

In early modern period England twelfth cakes were also known as wassail cakes. In 1686, in his notes on customs and superstitions Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, the antiquarian John Aubrey tells us that at,

'Twelve-tyde at night they use in the Countrey to wassaile their Oxen and to have Wassaile-Cakes made.'

Instructions for preparing a Twelfth-day revel, including how to lay out wassail cakes, is given in a remarkable early Tudor manuscript in the Bodleian Library known as 'The Second Northumberland Household Book (Bod]. MS Eng. hist. b. 233. This set of household ordinances was compiled for Henry Algernon Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland (1478-1527) and was compiled between 1519 and 1527. Here is the section of the text that deals with the highly ritualised delivery of wassail cakes to the hall for the earl's table. I have left the English in its original form,

The pauntry to be brought in for the lorde ande the laidy as hereaftir followith with two yomen of the Chaumbre suche as the gentillmen vsshers shall appoint  Furst the yoman of the pauntry to bring in for the lord the Salt the kerving kniffes bread ande trenchers and aftir him a groim with a towell vpon his shulder bering the vassall caike and an outher to be appointed as yoman to bring in for the laidy with an outhir to follow him as groim with A towell vppon hs shulder bering the wassaill caike inlikefourme as the outhir did with two gentillmen vsshers befoir theim and two Marshalles befoir theim and a yoman vsher befoir theim and aftir the said pauntlers haue set the Saltes vppon the bourde and breade and takyn of the groim the wassaill caik and set it down Than the gentillmen vsshers and Marshallis with the yomen vsher to maik their obeisaunce and departe The said yomen pauntelers to stand still vnto the say be deliuerd theim by the kervers when they be comyn and haith takyn the sayes and so the pauntelers to departe when that is doon. 

From The Second Northumberland Household Book (Bod]. MS Eng. hist. b. 233.) 274-288

Wressle Castle in Yorkshire, where Henry Algernon Percy held his twelfth day revels in the early sixteenth century. The wassail cakes would have been baked in the castle bakehouse.

Twelfth night revels at this period, like those given by the Earl of Northumberland in his castle at Wressle, featured an entertainment known as a 'disguising', where the participants dressed up as characters. This tradition continued well into the first half of the nineteenth century, when twelfth-night partygoers would choose cards illustrated with the characters they were required to take on, rather than hunt for a bean, pea or forked stick in their portion of cake. In the later nineteenth century, the twelfth cake went out of fashion and similar novelty items started to find their way into the Christmas pudding.

A much romanticised Victorian depiction of a Twelfth-night revel

One Family and Empire Christmas Pudding

The King's Christmas Pudding made from the 1927 recipe published by the Empire Marketing Board

Towards the end of our previous post The Pudding King we touched on the subject of plum pudding as a potent emblem of British patriotism. We also explained how the dish was reinvented in the early decades of the twentieth century for a variety of political reasons, including the emergence of its role as an imperial symbol. The story about plum pudding which follows is from a time when Britains's vast empire included almost one fifth of the world's land surface and one quarter of its population. Its colonies provided the mother country with a remarkable range of raw materials, including many food items. It is ironic that a number of celebratory British food stuffs are made from ingredients that cannot be grown in the British Isles - plum cake, plum pudding, mince pies and marmalade all depend on exotics imported from warmer climates.

It is often said that plum pudding was first consumed at Christmas in the medieval period and then banned during the Commonwealth by Cromwell until revived by George I in the early eighteenth century. However, we have not found any contemporary sources which verify these claims. So far, the earliest reference we know that firmly associates plum pudding with Christmas is in the diary of Henry Teonge, a British naval chaplain who served on board a number of Charles II's ships. On Christmas Day 1675, somewhere off the west coast of Crete on board His Majesty's Ship Assistance, he wrote in his journal,

'Our Captaine had all his officers and gentlemen to dinner with him, where wee had excellent good fayre: a ribb of beife, plumb-puddings, minct pyes, &c. and plenty of good wines of severall sorts; dranke healths to the King, our wives and friends; and ended the day with much civill myrth.'*

Perhaps HMS Assistant's cook bought the dried fruit, sugar and spices to make the pudding in the market at the ship's last port of call, the Levantine town of Iskendarun. 

From at least the time of Henry Teonge until the Great War, roast beef and plum pudding were the British celebratory foods of choice for all sorts of festive occasions, not just Christmas. By the first half of the nineteenth century, cookery authors such as Elizabeth Hammond and Eliza Acton had started to call it Christmas Pudding rather than Plum Pudding, a process that Food History Jottings research assistant Plumcake has discovered had started back in the eighteenth century, or possibly earlier. We will say more about Plumcake's findings in another post.** Charles Dickens also played some part in fixing the pudding as a dish more specifically linked to Christmas. Despite this more specialised role during the Victorian period it continued to be served at occasions such as jubilee ox roasts and other junketings. During the First World War plum pudding took on a new patriotic role as a symbol of solidarity. Embroidered silk Christmas cards showing a pudding struck with allied flags became a popular souvenir, which soldiers sent from the trenches to their loved ones back home. 

No doubt these striking images of plum puddings spiked with the flags of the nations had some influence on the members of the British Women's Patriotic League, who in the decade after the Great War urged families to buy Empire goods. In 1922 they inaugurated the first Empire Shopping Week, during which they set up displays of food and produce from Empire countries and encouraged the big West End stores to follow suit. This was a period of unbridled free trade when Californian dried fruit was coming into Britain on the back of an aggressive advertising campaign. The American importers were aware that dried fruit sales in Britain were rather poor other than at Christmas time and attempted to boost the market by publishing advertising leaflets with raisin recipes for cakes and raisin loaves which could be eaten all year round. Australian vine fruit growers were horrified with the American competition, as were the rank and file of the British Women's Patriotic League, who recognised the debt that Britain owed to the Australians for their sacrifices during the war (though of course the Brits also owed a great deal to American troops!). In 1924 they urged the housewife to 'make your Christmas Pudding an Empire Pudding' and to boycott imports from non-Empire sources. They published a leaflet with a recipe which listed ingredients from various Empire countries. The concept of the Empire Christmas Pudding was born.

Spiked with both the Australian flag and the Union Jack this giant Christmas Pudding paraded in London in 1925 was sandwiched between a stuffed emu and a kangaroo. 

In 1925 when the Lord Mayor's Show explored the theme 'Imperial Trade', the Australian fruit growers paraded a huge Christmas Pudding pulled by a team of white horses. Emblazoned on the back of the pudding were the words 'make your pudding of Empire products'. None of these initiatives came directly from the British government, who in these difficult economic times wavered between unfulfilled whispers of protectionism and unregulated free trade. They could not formulate a firm policy on supporting Empire trade and at first were very quiet on the whole issue. However in 1926 they inaugurated a rather ineffective quango called the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), whose main purpose was to research the production, trade and use of goods throughout the British Empire and to promote the idea of 'Buying Empire'.

Taking their initiative from the British Women's Patriotic League, the EMB adopted the idea of the Empire Pudding. A short time before Christmas 1926 they issued a recipe in the form of a poster with an image of Britannia holding a flaming plum pudding surmounted by a union jack flag.

The Empire Marketing Board's first campaign poster. Only a few Empire countries are listed.  Courtesy of Public Record Office

The EMB's campaign was a little late in the day, but they did boost their publicity by asking the ruling monarch King George V if he and the Royal Family would eat the empire pudding on Christmas Day. He agreed and as a result the pudding also became known as the King's Christmas Pudding.

The last ingredient in the 1926 recipe above was a silver 3d. bit 'for luck!' 

Another body which promoted the pudding was the Empire Day Movement, led by the charismatic Irish peer Reginald Brabazon 12th Earl of Meath. Lord Meath masterminded a publicity stunt in which the pudding was made at Vernon House, the headquarters of the Overseas League in London. He ensured this event was filmed for a newsreel called Think and Eat Imperially, which was shown in cinemas all over the Empire, giving the campaign a tremendous amount of publicity. As early as 1909 Meath had realised the power of  the cinema as a promotional tool. In that year he commissioned a film of a vast Empire Day gathering in the town of Preston. This remarkable archive movie  has survived and I have supplied a link to it at the very end of this posting.

The chef adds Australian sultanas to the mix, while Lord Meath (on the right) looks on

Meath's vision of Empire saw Britain and its distant colonies as one large extended family. So at his publicity event, he invited representatives of the various empire countries to stir up the pudding. The various ingredients were also delivered to the chef by ushers from each producing nation. The 'pudding spice' from India was brought to the table by two Indian ushers in turbans.

The family tradition of stirring the pudding was adopted by Meath as an emblem of imperial unity

Meath stirs the 1926 Empire Pudding in the garden of Vernon House

The following year, the campaign took on an added dimension when George V's chef Monsieur Cédard provided a better recipe with a few more nations listed in the ingredients table. The campaign lasted well into the thirties, only fizzling out with the outbreak of World War II. In 1930 a propaganda film called One Family was released to promote the pudding and Empire Trade. In its day it was a complete flop. It was originally filmed as a silent movie in 1929, but to keep up with dramatic new developments in the cinema, a sound track was added to it. The film stars a London schoolboy who notices an Empire Christmas Pudding recipe in his father's newspaper. He lingers on his way to school to admire a display on the pudding in a grocery store and is late for his lessons. During one on the subject of empire geography, he falls asleep and dreams he goes to Buckingham Palace. He meets the king and is sent on a quest to collect the ingredients in the producing countries. It is sixty nine minutes long, but as a period piece is really worth watching. Much of it was actually filmed in Buckingham Palace and there is a tantalising glimpse of the palace kitchen in one scene. I have put a link to the full One Family film at the end of this posting.

Though suitable for a royal palace where puddings were made in vast numbers for distribution to staff as Christmas  presents, the large quantites in this recipe were not practical for modest family households. This is the recipe which the schoolboy sees in his father's newspaper in the 1930 movie One Family. Courtesy of Public Record Office.

A somewhat whittled down recipe, but with more Empire producing countries credited. Courtesy of Public Record Office

Courtesy of Public Record Office

Watch One Family, a 1930 British propaganda film on the King's Christmas Pudding

An Empire Day meeting in Preston in 1909. You will recognise Lord Meath to the left of the mayor

Watch an archive film of Empire Day in Preston, Lancashire in 1909

* Henry Teonge, The Diary of Henry Teonge, chaplain on board His Majesty's ships Assistance, Bristol, and Royal Oak, anno 1675 to 1679. Charles Knight. London 1825, pp. 127-28.

** Plumcake has pointed out to me that in A Voyage to Virginia, by Colonel Norwood, from A Collection of Voyages and Travels by Awnsham Churchill and John Churchill (1745) Vol. 6 p.153, there is the following diary account of an improvised shipboard Christmas dinner - and the pudding is called a Christmas Pudding,

'Many sorrowful days and nights we spun out in this manner, tille the blessed feast of Christmas came upon us, which we began with a very melancholy solemnity; and yet, to make some distinction of times, the scrapings of the meal-tubs were all amassed together to compose a pudding. Malaga sack, sea water, with fruit and spice, all well fryed in oyl, were the ingredients of this regale, which raised some envy in the spectators; but allowing some privilege to the captain's mess, we met no obstruction, but did peaceably enjoy our Christmas pudding.'

Norwood's voyage took place in 1649, so if Churchill's transcription of Norwood's diary is reliable, then this would mean that this is the earliest reference we have so far found to a Christmas pudding.

Food anthopologist Kaori O' Connor has written a marvellous paper on this subject. I would encourage you to read it. Here is the citation -

Kaori O’Connor, The King's Christmas pudding: globalization, recipes, and the commodities of empire,  in Journal of Global History. Volume 4, Issue 01. March 2009,  pp 127 -155.

Ivan was recently interviewed by Michael Mackenzie, the host of the excellent Australian ABC RN First Bite food programme. We chatted about the extraordinary phenomenon of Empire Christmas Pudding, the subject of which Ivan dealt with in a former posting on this blog. Click here to listen to the programme.

Watch a video of Ivan making and discussing the Empire Christmas Pudding.

Dining with Empresses, Cardinals (and Vermeer)

One of two sugar paste pavilions I made for an 'evocation' of Empress Maria Theresa's Feast of the Oath of Allegiance for the exhibition Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718–44, at the Metropollitan in New York

Over the past few decades I have attempted to recreate a considerable number of major period table layouts for museums and art collections in Britain, Europe and the US. These have usually been designed as vehicles for displaying important period tableware in the context of historically accurate meals. In 2009 I worked on a table at the Metropolitan Museum in New York based on the engraving below, which shows the Archduchess Maria Theresa enjoying an instalment feast in Vienna in 1740. I was invited to work on the installation by the exhibition curators Jeffrey Mungar and Meredith Chilton. Our version of the Archduchess's table was laid out with an extraordinary array of du Paquier porcelain from the period. It was dominated by two sugar paste baroque baldacchini, which I based on those depicted in the engraving. These were filled with pyramids of paper and sugar flowers as in the engraving. But it must be understood that even the Metropolitan Museum could not fully muster the resources to make an exact replica of a table from this lofty imperial level. To quote from Meredith Chilton, our version was more of an evocation than a recreation.

The Feast of the Oath of Allegiance, Vienna, November 22nd 1740. Engraved from a drawing by Andreas Felix Altomonte (1699-1780) in Kriegl, Georg Christina. Erb-Huldigung welche... Mariae Theresiae... Als Ertz-Herzogin zu Oesterreich von denen gesammten Nider-Oesterreichischen Ständen... abgeleget den 22 Novembris Anno 1740. Vienna: Johann Baptist Schilgen, [1742].

The Feast of the Oath of Allegiance, Vienna, November 22nd 1740. Engraved from a drawing by Andreas Felix Altomonte (1699-1780) in Kriegl, Georg Christina. Erb-Huldigung welche... Mariae Theresiae... Als Ertz-Herzogin zu Oesterreich von denen gesammten Nider-Oesterreichischen Ständen... abgeleget den 22 Novembris Anno 1740. Vienna: Johann Baptist Schilgen, [1742].

A few years earlier at the Bard Graduate Center, also in NYC, I was invited to set up another imperial table using Elizabeth Empress of Russia's 1745 Meissen St. Andrew's service, which was on loan from the Hermitage. The service was a gift to the Empress from Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and included a remarkable Parnassus centrepiece made up of figures of Apollo and the Muses modelled by J.J. Kandler. This animated table setting illustrated the vivacity and energy of baroque table art at this elevated social level. But again it was only possible to evoke the spirit of the age rather than stage a perfect reproduction of the Empress's table. For instance you will notice in the image below that there is no cutlery. This was because very little of that belonging to the service has survived. 

A table at the Bard Graduate Center laid with the St. Andrew's Service, a gift from Augustus III of Saxony to Elizabeth Petrovna Romanova, Empress of Russia 1741-1762.

Another exciting table I put together in 2011 at Hillwood Museum in Washington DC was designed to evoke a French dessert of the 1770s by using elements of the precious celestial blue service made at Sèvres for the Cardinal Louis de Rohan. At Hillwood we only had enough pieces of the service to construct a fairly modest table with a surtout dressed with chenille covered parterres. Rohan was famous for very large scale entertainments, especially when he was Louis XV's ambassador to Maria Theresa's court in Vienna. Our modest arrangement would have been dwarfed by Rohan's actual table settings, but again the aim was an evocation rather than an exact recreation. Rohan had a troubled relationship with Maria Theresa and her daughter Marie Antoinette. If you have heard about the remarkable 'affair of the diamond necklace' then you will know what I am talking about. If you don't, look it up, because it is an unbelievable story.

My table at Hillwood laid out with elements of Cardinal Rohan's Sèvres dessert service

All of the plates in Rohan's service are decorated with his monogram. You will notice that slightly to the right of the nearest place setting in the photograph above is an object ornamented with the same monogram. This was me having a bit of fun with history. The object is actually a sugar place name marker I made in the form of a rococo cartouche supported by gilded dolphins. In 2003 I made a number of these for an exhibition I curated at the Bowes Museum here in the UK called Royal Sugar Sculpture. I made them from two very important wooden sugar moulds which originally belonged to the office (confectionery kitchen) of the Princesse Lamballe de Savoie Carignan. The princess was a confidante and favourite of Marie Antoinette. The moulds, details of which are depicted below, are carved with motifs in the form of the ciphers of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. One that could also be used to make a small sugar basket.  

Sugar place markers ornamented with the cipher of Marie Antoinette and the arms of the Princesse de Lamballe. In the foreground is a sugar basket and in the background one of Marie Antoinette's actual Sèvres dessert plates, kindly lent by Lord Rothschild. Lamballe, who tended to ape Marie Antoinette in matters of fashion, ordered an identical service from Sèvres for her own use. 

These moulds were almost certainly carved to make sugar table ornaments for an entertainment in the Princess's palace in honour of the king and queen. Although they are tiny and fairly inconsequential, these stunning sugar objects tell us much more about the dining style of the ancien regime than the silly story about 'let them eat cake'. In fact, because they are authentic, they get us much closer to the excesses of Versailles court life than the grand slam displays of food in the recent movie Marie Antoinette, which though beautifully crafted were entirely wrong for the 1780s.

Sugar basket made from the confectioner's mould below

Motif for making the sugar basket and the ciphers of the king and queen of France- 1780s

The Princesse de Lamballe

Rococo sugar table marker ornamented with the arms of the Princesse

Carved motif on sugar mould to make the arms of the Princesse

Taking precious table objects out of the display case and arranging them with authentic period food in the manner for which they were designed can be a revelatory experience, but can only really be undertaken within a museum context. Period table settings in movies and television for instance, are in many cases spurious because the tableware - silver, porcelain, flatware etc is usually hired from prop companies and is rarely true to period. For instance, a few years ago I created the food and arranged a table for 100 guests for the Scorsese film The Young Victoria. The production designer organised the hire of the tableware, but what he provided me with on the set was a medley of late Victorian and early twentieth century middle class crockery, which was disappointingly inappropriate for a royal setting from the time of William IV.

At the king's original birthday party held at Windsor Castle in 1836, which the film was attempting to recreate, the table was actually dressed with brother George IV's extraordinary silver-gilt Grand Service, which is still in the Royal Collection. Of course it is highly unlikely that a film company would be allowed access to a precious royal service like this. So as glamorous as our table may have appeared on the big screen, it would have faded into insignificance next to the real one, which all goes to show that it is rather difficult for Hollywood to do royal.  Though loosely based on historical events, films like these are of course in reality fictional exercises. What is most important to the viewer is how well the stars perform their parts in the overall drama, not minutiae such as their knives and forks. So you might argue that it is a rather sad and obsessive of me to expect perfect historical accuracy in minor background details like table settings and food. However, a great deal of research often goes into other aspects of these productions, such as costume, hair styling, choreography of ballroom scenes etc., but only rarely does food and its service get truly expert attention. 

Let me give you an example. One film which I really enjoyed for the extraordinary effort that was made in recreating the atmosphere of place and period was the movie version of Tracey Chevalier's historical novel Girl with a Pearl Earring. This was set in seventeenth century Delft, mainly in the home of the artist Johannes Vermeer.  The almost miraculous lighting of the sets throughout the film was inspired by that mysterious soft diffused illumination for which the artist is celebrated. Art historians specialising in Vermeer must have been consulted because the rooms in the set were hung with paintings we know the artist actually owned. This attention to detail was tremendous and the film quite rightly won many awards for its remarkable cinematography. 

A still from Girl with a Pearl Earring showing the offending forks and spoons

However in the context of such a well researched film, one scene really disappointed me. This dealt with the preparation and service of food for a meal at which the artist entertains his patron. And I am afraid it was truly awful. There were many contemporaries of Vermeer who specialised in nothing but pictures of tables laden with food. As a result the Dutch table of this period is the most scrutinised in the history of art. Surprisingly this incredible wealth of evidence was entirely ignored by the filmmakers. At one point a servant cleans and lays out a ridiculous set of nineteenth century silver gilt forks and spoons. In 1665 most Dutch dinner guests turned up wearing their own cutlery at their belt or girdle. Sets like the one above of forks and spoons just did not exist. Because you carried it with you, your dining equipment was an expression of your status and each guest's was different. Some were extremely decorative and were probably used to show off, rather like the way that some people flaunt their mobile phones today. The kind of knives used by Vermeer's family and guests probably looked more like the Dutch seventeenth century examples below.

Left - knife and fork with ivory handles. The other two images are details of other ivory knife handles. All are Dutch and all were made during the lifetime of Vermeer. The example on the right depicts Bacchus. 

I have chosen these particular Dutch eating implements in order to illustrate another detail in the film that irritated me. This was the manner in which the actors held and drank from their glasses. Look at the knife handles above and you will note that all of them depict somebody drinking. Note how they are holding their glasses - in every case by the foot. Dutch paintings of this period are also full of images of drinkers holding glasses in this way. Compare those I have reproduced below with the still from the film. The actor Tom Wilkinson is drinking from his glass in an entirely modern way. Imbibers all over Europe at this period held their glasses by the foot. Despite the wealth of evidence illustrating this mannerism, I have never seen a single actor in any period film or drama drinking in the correct style.

Tom Wilkinson drinking. A still from Girl with a Pearl Earring

Note how this drinker in a painting by Frans Hals is holding his glass by the foot

Detail from a painting by Vermeer's Delft neighbour Peter de Hooch

Another detail from a painting by Vermeer's Delft neighbour Peter de Hooch

Woman drinking. Detail from a painting by Jan Steen

So if a number of Vermeer's contemporaries (not just painters, but also the cutlers of the day) clearly show us the correct way to hold a wine glass, what did he himself have to say on the matter? Well below are details from two of his paintings. I think they speak for themselves. The second one, The Girl with the Wine Glass is actually shown in the film and Tom Wilkinson explains that the lecherous male is the character he is playing. A pity that a little more attention wasn't paid to the lesson that could have been learnt from looking at the picture more carefully. 

Johannes Vermeer. The Drinking Glass. (Detail). 1658-60.

Johannes Vermeer. A Girl Drinking. (Detail). 1659-60.

Attempting to recreate the food and dining culture of the past, whether in museums, film or television is fraught with problems. Authenticity for its own sake can be rather dry and pointless, but when it enhances the narrative and makes for better cinematography it can be wonderful. I would have loved to have seen Vermeer's guests showing off their fancy custom-made knives and quaffing their wine in the highly mannered style of the period.