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The breakfast table was piled with substantials. Coffee of excellent flavor, toast, hot rolls, cold ham, fried perch and rock, spring chicken, also fried and the sweetest and freshest butter comprised the bill of fare.
— , Chronicler of Maryland Plantation Life, 1859.
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December 2, 2008
In the nineteenth century, wealthy Southern plantation owners were quite fond of entertaining. When travel often took days, guests frequently stayed for several days at a time, if not weeks.
Lavish dinners were served, designed to show off the hosts’ hospitality as well as the abundance of the plantation.
Margaret Devereux was mistress of many large plantations owned by the Devereux family on the Roanoke River in eastern North Carolina.
In Plantation Sketches (1906), she detailed the elegance and opulence of a typical meal.
“For a dinner of ten or twelve persons, including ourselves, there would be a ham at the head, a large roast turkey at the foot, a quarter of boiled mutton, a round of beef a la mode, and a boiled turkey stuffed with oysters,” she wrote. “In the middle of the table would be celery in tall cut-glass stands, on the sides cranberries in moulds and various kinds of pickles. With these would be served either four or six dishes of vegetables and scalloped oysters, handed hot from the plate-warmer. The dessert would be a plum pudding, clear stewed apples with cream, with a waiter in the centre filled with calf’s-foot jelly, syllabub in glasses, and cocoanut or cheese-cake puddings at the corners. The first cloth was removed with the meats. For a larger entertainment, a roast pig would be added; ice-cream would take the place of stewed apples. The dessert cloth would be removed with the dessert, and the decanters and fruit set upon the bare mahogany, with the decanters in coasters; cigars would follow, after the ladies had left, of course.”
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Hi HushPuppy,
Must say you have a very informative blog. Got u thru Foodie blog roll…most recent 5 blogs..m one of them!
Cheers!
Comment by Navita — December 7, 2008 @ 3:43 am
Southern heritage recipes and historical recipes in general are two of my favorite things - I’m SO delighted to have discovered your blog! Bravo to you for preserving Southern heritage!
Comment by Astra Libris — December 8, 2008 @ 6:17 am
[...] Antebellum Plantation Dinner Hushpuppy Nation Posted by root 2 hours 41 minutes ago (http://hushpuppynation.com) In the middle of the table would be celery in tall cut glass stands on the sides cranberries in moulds and various comment by astra libris december 8 2008 6 17 am powered by wordpress and lucky themes wordpress themes Discuss | Bury | News | Antebellum Plantation Dinner Hushpuppy Nation [...]
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