The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-01-19
OLD AND NEW DINNER CUSTOMS.
Charge Made by che French Against
Mary Tudor.
New York Press.

Mary Tudor.
New York Press.
A noted and fashionable physician has
just published his official opinion that
7:30 is the best hour for dinner. If the
present tendency to make the dinner hour
later and later goes on, where will it end?
\ few years ago 6 o'clock was supposed
TO be late enough; now s is become a pop
plar dinner hour. AS the years have gone
on the dinner hour has receeded from 8
o'clock in the morning until it is nearly
arrived at the same hour at night. AT the
beginning of the last century noon was the
customary hour for dinner in this country,
and it was only in the latter half of the
century that the custom of dining in the
evening attained its present vogue. In
rural districts and in small towns the mid
day dinner still fingers and there is a
rumor that Boston people dine-of all
hours of the twenty-four-at 4 o'clock in
the afternoon. But the evening dinner may
be said to be now almost universal.
An old French proverb of the sixteenth
century says. Rise at 5, dinner at 9, sup
per at 5, bed at 8; so shall you live to be
ninety and nine" Mary Tudor, the be-
loved of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suf-
1CAAJ NGD 49, ~ 10 ~ OAAS ~
caused the death Of her husband, Louis
XII, by setting the royal dinner hour at
the unconscionable late hour of noon.
Poor Louis, before he married his fashion
able English wife, had been accustomed
to dine at s o'clock in the morning and go
TO bed at 8 in the evening. But Mary in
troduced all the latest and most extreme
fashions into the court and made her lord
dine at midday, eat his supper at 6 and fire.
quently Kept him up until Midnight. But
Louis was not cut out for a fashionable
existence and so died six weeks after his
wife took charge of the court-all loving
subjects declared that it was late dinners
that killed him. Montaigne used to dine at
IL o'clock in the morning, which he ad-
mits to be an unduly late hour.
BY the beginning of the seventeenth CEN
fury the practice of dining at noon had
become pretty well established and noon
continued the almost universal hour for
dinner until the present custom of dining
In the evening came in. The evening
dinner is the logical result of experience.
One cannot eat heartily in the middle of
the day and then be tit for arduouS work;
one cannot dine at midday in these days
of rush without being beset all the time
with the cares of the business of the day
and generally skimping himself in time
for the meal. When the business of the
day is over, the cares of the day put
aside, then one can dine in comfort and
take his time about it, which cannot fail
in being good for his digestion.
How in the world did they use to eat at
noon those enormous dinners of which we
I0du, anu lIGn III dHN DuSll6SS dlltIMdIuS.
And drink! Lord! how those old fellows
did drink! They had ale in the morning
and at dinner they put away such vast
quantities of wine as make us weaklingS
OF a later day fill with establishment and
envy at their capacity. At supper they
were at 1t again and had their sleeping
potion" before they went to bed. And as
they drank they gorged themselves with
great quantities of meat. Samuel Pepys, a
clerk Of the acts of the navy under Charles
II, having a few friends to his humble
table, did give them oysters at first course,
a hash of rabbits and lamb and a rare
chine of beef Next a great dish of roast
fowl and a tart and then fruit and cheese"
This was only the simple dinner of an
humble clerk, mind you; no feast in a rich
mans house, and after that meal Mr..
Pepys had to go to his work again.
1t seems that while the practice of dining
later than the noon hour never did come
into general favor before the nineteenth
the middle of the eighteenth century, III
the days when Colonel Washington was a
young Virginia squire, and Swift, Addison
ana Steele were grazing English literature,
had begun to dine at 3 o'clock, at which it
was said of them that they kept court
hours" T~hackeray cites a curious docu-
ment' in which is given an account of one
of these 3-O'clOck dinners at the home of a
man of fashion at that time. The dinner
was begun with a sirloin of beef, fish, a
shoulder Of veal and a tongue. They made
great inrOads upon these things, all except
one Sir John, who, having eaten a beef
steak and drunk two mugs of ale. besides
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to dinner. complained that his appetite
was falling. After the beef, the fish, the
veal and the tongue came almond pud-
ding and ~fritters as a second course They
drank cOpiOuSly of wine during the first
course and Of wine and beer during the
second. For a third course they had BLACK
pudding chicken and soup. The chief dish
OF the third course was a hot VenisOn
pastry Chat is, highly spiced meat pie), a
hare, a rabbit, pigeons, a goose, partridgeS
n a ham, ending up with cheese. All this
time they drank wine and beer and after
dinner being over, the ladies left the room
and the men stayed behind to drink Bur-
gundy for an hour.
That was considered a fairly substantial
dinner for eight persons in fashionable
circles in the days when George Washing
the company you may be sure they laid it
to dining at such a late hour as , in the
afternoon.
DIR. YOrke-Davies, who is an authority on
such matters, gave his expert opinion about
society dinners" the other day as follows:
Il must say that / think the best time for
dinner is 7:3O, and as two hours would be
consumed at dinner, dessert and wine after,
the digestion would not begin before about
$3.50, and the stomach would then be fairly
empty-as it should be-before the diner
goes to bed. OF course, if we stay up as
Il andwich with any particular liquid the
individual cares for may be taken. That
will be four or five hours after dinner and
without harm, but the gorge and guZzle'
of the present day at the fashionable res
taurantS, after returning from the theater
round, and certainly is not conducive to
length of life. l may conclude by saying
that dinners are not quite so long this
season as they were last"