Of course, all this close and familiar intercourse was an important agent in the wonderful unanimity of the entire country when the hour of conflict had come. At these balls and dinners something was done besides dancing and card-playing—some hint or word from eloquent lips to keep alive the spark soon to burst forth in resistless, all-conquering flame. Historians speak of the period as "the lull before the storm." It was not by any means a "lull"—rather a carnival!
CHAPTER XXII
DINNERS, DRESS, DANCES, HORSE-RACES
If the grave New Jersey Presbyterian tutor—who has given us so faithful a picture of domestic life in the Northern Neck—saw fit to burn his candles at night while he described the dresses, dinners, and dances of his day, surely it is worth our while to pause in our history to consider them.
The planter's daily life began betimes with an early breakfast. The planter was an early riser. He had retired early. The myrtle-berry candle—the costly spermaceti—were not brilliant enough to tempt late hours. Often before daybreak in the winter, when the nights were long, he might be found at his secretary arranging the work of the day. Washington at Mount Vernon would light his own fire and read by candle-light, then breakfast on tea and Indian-meal cakes at eight o'clock. But to all rules he and his mother were exceptions! The usual life of the planter admitted more luxury. His breakfast was a good one! But first, having risen early, he mixed with his own hands the great beaker of crushed ice, peach-brandy, and mint to be sent around to all the rooms as an appetizer. Even the children were admitted to this morning loving-cup. Virginians believed in it!
Luckily the breakfast is not left to a twentieth-century imagination—which would probably suggest an orange, coffee, and roll. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby, Vicar of Greenwich, London, had the pleasure of eating a Virginia breakfast in 1759: "The ancient custom of eating meat for breakfast still continues. At the top of the table where the lady of the house presides, there is constantly tea and coffee, but the rest of the table is garnished out with roasted fowls, ham, venison, game and other dainties. There is scarcely a Virginia lady who breakfasts without ham!"
Dinner at home or abroad was served not later than three, and was preceded by at least one mint julep all around. At one home dinner we read of four kinds of fish, "Sheeps-head, Bass, Perch, Picked Crab: Ham, Mutton, vegetables, pudding, fruits, cheese, old Madeira," which to be presentable must have crossed the ocean more than once. A dinner included three courses,—soup, then the whole dinner placed on the table at once, then dessert. Ducks were served at the fish feasts. The delicious canvasback duck was by no means so highly appreciated as it is now. They were left in comparative peace to feed upon the tender wild celery of the Potomac marshes. The diamond-backed terrapin was much too abundant to be considered a dainty. To save the scarcer and costlier pork, terrapin was fed to the negroes. Laws were enacted in Maryland forbidding the slaves' rations to be exclusively of terrapin!
At one of General Washington's ceremonious dinners there was soup, fish roasted and boiled, "gammon of bacon" and fowl. The middle of the table was decorated with artificial flowers and small images. The dessert was a pudding and apple pie, ice-cream, jellies, melons, apples, peaches, nuts. This dinner was recorded as "a great dinner." Today it would be considered "a good enough dinner, to be sure, but not a dinner to ask a man to!" Some of the receipts for these old Virginia dinners have been preserved in the Randolph family—notably the receipts for English plum pudding, and for the Christmas mince pie.