The Tax-Eaters Banquet.

Once the Easter season is well and truly over here in Oz, our thoughts inevitably and frequently unhappily are forced to turn towards the End of Financial Year ‘stuff’ – the crucial final date being May 31st. I don’t know how this little Aussie factoid is related to today’s post, except that when I decided it was time to give you a historic menu, the one I chose was tax-related.

In 1891, on this very date of April 29, the American Protective Tariff League held their first annual banquet. The good men (they were all men – but the ladies were allowed to watch from the balcony) made some concessions to their principles when it came to the actual function, as can be seen from the following newspaper report.

THE TAX EATERS’ BANQUET

FIRST ANNUAL DINNER OF THE AMERICAN

PROTECTIVE TARIFF LEAGUE –

IMPORTED BROADCLOTH AND AMERICAN CROCKERY.

There was not a vestige of homespun in the garments worn by the participants in the banquet of the American Protective Tariff League last night. The 500 good American protectionists who assembled in the banquet hall of the Madison Square Garden were shamelessly clad in imported broadcloth and fine linen. Their hearts were warmed and quickened by American wines, however, and, encircled by the smoke of domestic cigars, they listened contentedly to high-tariff speeches.

…. The dinner was served on crockery made in Trenton, N.J, with silver-plated ware and cutlery made in this country, and glassware also of American manufacture.

…. Most of the experienced banqueters, it was noticed, smoked cigars which they had brought with them.

… A few of the tables were spread, sad to relate, with English and German tablecloths on which a duty of 5 per cent was paid, that has since been increased by the McKinley bill to 50 per cent. But in the main, the tablecloths were of pure white “Georgia wool.” Linen napkins of German and English manufacture were neatly folded at each plate. Upon these a duty of 35 per cent, since increased to 50 per cent, was paid.

But it was upon the banquet itself rather than upon the apparel of the banqueters that the American Protective Tariff League and its supporting spellbinders and protected manufacturers expended their patriotic endeavors. All the furnishings of the hall, and all the wine and eatables were to be “the genuine American article” – and the cigars! The idea was grandly sentimental, but it involved sacrifices of which many of the pampered pets of protection were incapable. This accounts largely for the many conspicuous absentees. There was nothing threatening in the bill of fare (it was considered unpatriotic to call it a menu) as far as the food courses were concerned.

Oysters , (free;) green turtle soup (free;) mushroom patties (2 cents per pound;) salmon (¾ cents per pound;) tenderloin of beef (2 cents per pound;) chicken, (3 to 5 cents per pound;) asparagus (25 per cent if fresh, 45 per cent if canned;) snipe (10 per cent) on toast; frozen pudding (free;) cheese (6 cents per pound;) strawberries (free;) and coffee (if genuine, free,) had not terrors for them, although their palatability was imperiled by the exaction from Sherry, the caterer, that they must be prepared by American cooks and served by American waiters. Sherry is said to have filled this part of the contract and to have saved the dinner from complete disaster by seeing that his help was Americanized from the French, German, and Italian.

… Thus everything on the table, as well as every article of wearing apparel worn by the banqueters, was from a third to over twice as expensive as it would have been but for the McKinley tariff. Even the national emblem, the silken American flag, was protected from foreign cheap labor by a duty of 60 per cent.

Recipe for the Day.

From Charles Ranhofer’s The Epicurean (1894), I give you a classic, but labour-intensive chicken dish. For the subsidiary recipes, you must go yourself to the source, which you can find at the marvellous Historic American Cookbook Project.


CAPON à LA FINANCIèRE (Chapon à la Financière)
This relevé is dressed on an oval wooden bottom having in the center a four-sided tin support made hollow so that it be lighter. This wooden bottom and support must both be covered with a cooked paste or else of noodle paste (No. 142) dried in the air. Fasten a string of noodle paste of about three-eighths of an inch in diameter on the edge of the socle; this is intended for upholding the capons and garnishing. On the edge of the bowl of the plate, place a noodle paste border (No. 10). Prepare the capons as for an entrée (No. 178) having them stuffed with a stuffing made of cooked chicken livers, grated fresh lard, truffle parings, bread-crumbs, salt and cayenne pepper. Cover over with bards of fat pork placed in a narrow braziere (Fig. 134) moisten with sufficient stock (No. 194a) to cover the capons, add aromatic herbs and lemon pulp free of seeds and peel, then cook on a good fire, having the liquid reduce to one-third, at the last moment drain off the capons, untie and dress one on each side of the support inserting a garnished skewer on top; fill in the sides between the capons with a varied garnishing composed of mushrooms, cocks'-combs and quenelles; cover over either with a velouté sauce (No. 415) if needed for white or a financiére sauce (No. 464) if for brown; surround the base with a row of peeled truffles cooked in wine and glazed over with a brush, and serve apart a velouté sauce reduced with mushroom broth if for the white or else a brown financière sauce with Madeira.

Quotation for the Day.

Banquet: an affair where you eat a lot of food you don’t want before talking about something you don’t understand to a crowd of people who don’t want to hear.
Unknown.

A Legal Feast.

Eleven ‘gentlemen of the law’ gave a five-day ‘grand entertainment’ at Ely House in Holborn, London in 1532. The event was a celebration of their ‘assuming the dignity of the serjeant’s coif’ – in other words, their swearing-in as serjeants of the law at the annual ceremony. It seems that the law was a lucrative profession back then, if the cost of the bill of fare for the feasting is any guide. I don’t know how many guests were invited to attend the feasting, but the quantity of meat purchased was enormous: [formatting options are not particularly flexible here, so in case of confusion - the figures listed are in ₤  s  d ]

                                                                 ₤  s  d
Twenty-four large oxen, each at                 1  6  8
The carcass if a large ox                            1  4  0
One hundred sheep, each                          0  2 10
Fifty-one calves, each at                            0  4  8
Thirty-four hogs, each at                            0  3  8
Ninety-one pigs, each at                            0  0  6
Ten dozen capons of Greece, each
dozen at                                                    0  1  8
Nine dozen and a half of Kentish
capons, each at                                         0  1  3
Nineteen dozen of common capons,
each at                                                      0  0  6
Seven dozen and nine of grouse or
heath cocks, each at                                  0  0  8
Fourteen dozen and eight common
cocks, each at                                           0  0  3
The best pullets at                                     0  0  2 ½
Common ditto, at                                      0  0  2
Thirty-seven dozen of pigeons, each
dozen at                                                   0  0  10
Three hundred and forty dozen of
larks, each dozen at                                  0  0  5

I am now unable to shake the mental image of the job of plucking and dressing of over four thousand larks.

From Epulario: or, The Italian Banquet (‘translated out of the Italian into English’, edition published in 1598), I give you the instructions for making any meat elegantly pale when cooked.


To make all kind of meat to rost fair and white.
To make all kind of foule, Capons, kid, or any other flesh to rost faire and white, specially Beefe, Mutton, Veale, or Lambe. First parboile it, and then larde it, if it be Capon, fesant, or any other foule: first wash it cleane, that done, dip it in hote water, but take it presently out againe, and laye it in cold water, and it will be the fairer and rost better: then lard it and sticke it with cloves, or other things as you think good, or as he that oweth it doth most fancy it: if you will you may stuffe them with sweet hearbes, dry proines, soure grapes, cherries, and such like things, and so spit it, and first make a soft fire that it may rost sokingly and not bee scorched or burnt, and when you think it almost rosted, grate white bread, and cast salt into it, where with you shall crumme it, then make a hot fire, and turne it round, so it will be faire and white, which done, send it presently to table.

Quotation for the Day.

I pray thee let me and my fellows have
A hair of the dog that bit us last night.
John Heywood (1497-1580)