What did Charles Dickens think about American food & dining habits?
Mr. Dickens visited the USA in 1842. Our young nation was slowly defining its culinary self. He described the folks he met
as unhealthy and ill-mannered. Savages of sorts. Food historians confirm these observations made perfect sense in this particular
historic context. We were (and are still?) a nation of efficient diners who didn't dally at table.
"The most illustrious foreign visitor to the United States before the Civil War--Charles Dickens, whose first trip to America occurred in 1842,
when he was thirty--has been represented as anti-American...and it has been suggested that he was prejudiced against the United
States even before he landed because its copyright laws permitted publishers to pirate his books...Dickens did not devote very much
space to food in his American Notes. Perhaps he did not spend enough time in the right places. He showed everywhere an almost
morbid interest in visiting the local poorhouses, insane asylums and jails, none of which are noted for culinary finesse. When he does
report on American cheese, he is hardly sacrificing. He was entertained at private houses in Boston, where 'the usual dinner-hour is two-o'clock.
A dinner-party takes place at five; and at an evening party they seldom sup later than eleven, so that it goes hard but one gets home, even from a rout,
by midnight. I could never find out any difference between a party at Boston and a party at London, saving that at the former place all
assemblies are held at more rational hours; that the conversation may possibly be a little louder and more cheerful; that a guest is
usually expected to ascend to the very top of the house to take his cloak off; that he is certain to see at every dinner an
unusual amount of poultry on the table, and at every supper at least two mighty bowls of hot stewed oysters...A public table is laid in a
very handsome hall for breakfast, and for diner, and for supper. The party sitting down together to these meals will vary in number from one
to two hundred--sometimes more. The advent of each of these epochs in the day is proclaimed by an awful gong...In our private room the
cloth could not, for any earthly consideration, have been laid for dinner without a huge glass dish of cranberries in the middle
of the tables; and breakfast would have been no breakfast unless the principal dish were a deformed beefsteak with a great flat bone in the centre
[the T-bone steak was a cut unknown in Europe] swimming in hot butter, and sprinkled with the very blackest of all possible pepper.'
Dickens seems to have the greater part of his American traveling by boat; after all, canals and streams in those days were more
dependable than the roads. It may well have been true that the food served on board to captive audiences was not the best the country
afforded...[from] passages in Martin Chusslewit...There was...a canal boat in Pennsylvania: 'At about six o'clock all the small
tables were put together to form one long table, and everybody sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak,
potatoes, ham, chops, black-puddings and sausages...the gentlemen thrust the broad-bladed knives and the two-pronged forks farther
down their throats that I ever saw the same weapons go before except in the hands of skilfil juggler. [The next morning, at
eight o'clock breakfast] everybody sat down to tea, coffee, bread, butter, salmon, shad, liver, steak, potatoes, pickles, ham,
chops, black-puddings, and sausages all over again...Dinner was breakfast again without the tea and coffee; and supper and breakfast were
identical.'...Dickens' suspicion that the American diet was unhealthy echoed the opinion of the County of Volney, who had written that
Americans deserved first prize for a diet sure to destroy teeth, stomach, and health, and advised the government, for the good of
the country, to undertake an educational program to teach Americans how to eat."
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root and Richard de Rochemont [William Morrow:New York] 1976 (p. 123-125)
"Dickens made Martin Chuzzlewit's journey from New York to the western development 'Eden' a travelogue of ill-health. Leaving a
company of 'spare men with lank and rigid cheeks,' dyspeptic individuals who 'bolted their food in wedges' and fed not themselves by
'broods of nightmares,' Martin had as train companions a 'very lank' man and a 'languid and listless gentleman with hollow
cheeks.'...The steamboat passengers were as 'flat, as dull, and stagnant as the vegetation that oppressed their eyes.'."
---The American and His Food: A History of Food Habits in the United States, Richard Osborn Cummings [University of Chicago
Press:Chicago IL] 1940(p. 10-11)
What Mr. Dickens failed to share about his first visit is that he was wined & dined by America's elite. Not all
Americans were rude, crude or sported nasty attitude.
The Dickens Dinner, City Hotel (NYC) February 18, 1842
"In 1841-42, Charles Dickens toured America giving readings from his works. He was then twenty-nine years old, and already famous as the author of Pickwick
Papers, Barnaby Rudge, Nicholas Nickelby, Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop, all of which had appeared within five years. Everywhere on the tour he was
lionized by American admirers...and all but smothered under social attentions...a committee of prominent New Yorkers tendered him a banquet. The date was
February 18, 1842, the place was the City Hotel, and Washington Irving presided...The occasion demanded the best on the part of the caterer, and what was
served exactly reflected the ruling taste of the time. in fact, the 'Dickens dinner' was spoken of for years afterwards as a model of gastronomy. Selection of the City
Hotel for the festivity was almost automatic, for it enjoyed semi-official status as the most suitable setting in New York for civic celebrations...The dining room...
was spacious, airy, and well lighted, and was much used for balls and concerts...Lafayette was entertained there in 1824...its wine cellars were noted, its cuisine
was considered unexcelled, and its eminent propriety in every respect was unquestioned. The Dickens dinner in 1842,...was the finest that civic pride could provide,
and the bill of fare reflected the best taste of cultivated New Yorkers...Journalist style in 1842 tended to be as effluent as the diet of the day was diffuse, and the
New York newspapers reporting the grand doings at the City Hotel on February 18 conformed to the conventions and language of the time; in accordance with the
custom devoting only a few lines...to the dinner, although printing the text of the after-dinner speeches in three and four columns of fine type. All accounts agreed,
however succinctly, that the banquet was 'in a style not surpassed by any ever partaken in this city'..."
---Delmonico's: A Century of Splendor, Lately Thomas [Houghton Mifflin Company:Boston] 1967 (p. 105-106)
[NOTE: This banquet cost $2,500.]
Dickens Dinner, Delmonico's (NYC) April 18, 1868
"Twenty six years after he had feasted at the City Hotel, Charles Dickens returned to America on a second reading tour. The time was 1868...At the close of his
tour, he made one exception to the rule of no entertainments. This was in favor of the New York Press Club, which was eager to do honor to one member of the
craft who had gone on to fame and fortune. So on April 18, 1868, Dickens was the guest of the press of New York at a gala banquet. The place chosen was the
only place by that date deemed proper for such and occasion--Delmonico's at Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. Lorenzo Delmonico regarded that dinner with
particular pride. Although it was neither the largest, nor the costliest, nor the most striking its composition, it game him special satisfaction...The banquet cost about
$3,000, and the tickets sold for $15 apiece. Horace Greeley presided...The dining room exuded luxury. Deep-pile carpet muted the footfall of the waiters, damask
draperies framed the windows, the gas light in the chandeliers were softly shaded, the tables flashed with crystal and silver on snowy linen and were bright with
flowers...The New York World's reporter [stated] 'Confections were converted into---tempting pictures of the most familiar characters of the great novelist. Sugar
was not ashamed to imitate him, and even ice cream had frozen into solid obeisance...Tiny Tim was discovered in pate de foie gras...Not only did [Delmonico]
make it a Dickens dinner, he made it dinner of Dickens.'...the proof of the banquet lies in its elements and in their interrelation; and this gastronomical-literary
celebration of 1868 furnishes material for a direct comparison with the banquet tastes of cultivated New York in 1842."
---Delmonico's: A Century of Splendor, Lately Thomas [Houghton Mifflin Company:Boston] 1967 (p. 112-115)
world hunger
Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger, Food and
Agriculture Organization, lessons for all grades
World hunger, grades 9-12,
Utah Education Network
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