After Party Munchies

You return home after the best party of your life. What is the first thing that you do? That's it; you raid the fridge for something that will satisfy your cravings.

Unlike us, or maybe just me, the Victorians had a bit more class. The After Party Supper was filled elaborately with sweet treats such as Fruited Jelly and Trifle.

After a recent visit to the British Library, I looked further into the obsession with the sweet course of the Victorian dinner party. In Ivan Day's essay "Sculpture of the Eighteenth Century Garden Dessert" he suggests "as well as being an occasion for enjoying confectionery and fruit, the elaborate dessert course of the eighteenth century was a muti-media work of art which included elements of performance, sculpture and design." (qtd.Walker:57). This notion of 'performance' follows on from the dinner party and illustrates how the table was artistically decorated with food. 

  

The Supper Table filled with fabulous colours and decorations.
Google Image

In Household Management, Beeton finishes her table plans perfectly with the feast set out above. The table was a work of art and confirms Gilly Lehmann's idea that "it was the eighteenth-century cooks who developed the argument of the cook as artist" (qtd.Walker:127) because Beeton has artistic ideas as the table is colourful and symmetrical (shown left and above).  Both pictures express how some food was for visual purposes, for example the ornamented trifle. The notion that the trifle in ornamented shows that it has decorative purposes. 

Ornamented Trifle
Google Image

In fiction, the After Ball Supper is illustrated in Chapter 3 of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1880):




















This supper is shown to be a casual affair. The food here of 'bonbons' and 'mottoes' show how this was more like ‘party’ food as we know it rather than formal sit down dinner. This part of the party is obsessed with the sweet delights rather than the savoury. It is also expressed that it was enjoyable like a party because they had a 'merry' time.

Strawberry Bon-Bons
Google Image

It is clear that the sweet delights and ‘party’ food was something which made up the supper table. Overall, the food in this post has artistic qualities because it is colourful and decorative which is illustrated by the trifle.

Works Cited

Alcott, L.A. Little Women. New York: Oxford University Press. (1994)

Beeton, I. Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. New York: Oxford University Press Inc. (2008)

Google Image “Beeton’s Supper Table” Accessed 02/03/2015

Google Image “Beeton’s Ornamented Trifle” Accessed 02/03/2015

Google Image “Strawberry Bon-Bons” Accessed 02/03/2015

Walker, H (ed.). Food in the Arts. Devon, England: Prospect Books (1999)