Above, from left to right: my new sterling salt spoon resting in a salt cellar, two demitasse spoons of different sizes, a standard teaspoon

Lightening isn’t right, but you get the idea. I did polish each piece before I took the picture. Really!

Our first stop after we made the decent into the Mississippi Delta was Russels’s Antique Store. What a place! Link goes to a post here from September 2020. Lots of photos of shiny things. They had some stunning crystal and silver punch bowls at that time. I asked the nice woman and she told me the punch bowls had all been sold. That’s most curious. I didn’t think to ask to whom they were sold. Sort of hard to believe private individuals would have need for a $3000+ punch bowl. (I know. I don’t need a $30 salt spoon, either. But I can justify $30 for a curiosity a lot easier than I can $3000.)

Salt spoons, punch bowls, the mother of pearl caviar spreader I bought when we were last at the antique store, all of the other shiny things used for entertaining and dining…

We have regressed.

I don’t know much of anything about the history of dining–or to put it in vulgar terms, the history of human food consumption and the rituals associated with it.

You will be stunned to learn, however, that I have a crappy old book about just that.

The Art of Dining: A History of Cooking and Eating. Sara Paston-Williams. The National Trust. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, London. 1993.

I wrote about the book in January 2020.

The title is a bit misleading. It’s a history of cooking and eating in England from medieval and early Tudor times through the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The last chapter, titled “The Well-Ordered Table,” has a lot of beautiful photographs of dining rooms and tables laid out as they would have been but taken contemporarily at various manors and grand houses. It’s aways fun to see a beautifully laid table. But there are also tidbits among illustrations I found interesting.

I continue later in the post:

The book’s author asserts that the Victorian era was a time of unprecedented prosperity (for some). The rising middle class was anxious to emulate the landed aristocracy and increasing number of wealthy industrialists and so forth, particularly with regard to dining customs and accouterment. Thus, we have the introduction of crappy old books which instruct them how to eat and dine like their “social superiors.”

The table was set very nicely at the B&B in Leland, but I still maintain that we’ve regressed as a civilized society. Time, effort, convenience–all offered as excuses. But there’s really no excuse for not taking the time, making an effort, being a bit inconvenienced and presenting a lovely meal.

There. I’ve convinced myself. Marica Cooks Wednesday. Mr. Big Food and I will enjoy our grilled cheese sandwiches in the air fryer and jiffy herbed tomato soup at the dining table.