Other 19th C. Serving items

While the “Serving 19th C. Style” article looks at serving trays, slavers and waiters, there were many other serving dishes and utensils used in the mid-century. This is a partial list of the many dishes used to serve during meals and in the parlor including:

Basins
Braziers and chaffing dishes
Butter dishes
Cake baskets
Castors
Cheese scoops
Chocolate pots
Coffee pots
Fruit baskets
Irish dish rings
Knife rests
Mustard pots
Pepper pots
Salt Cellars
Sauce boats
Sauce tureens
Soup tureens & ladles
Sugar sifters
Sugar chests
Sugar dishes
Strawberry trays
Tea pots
Vegetable dishes
Wassail or Punch Bowls

Many of us will find a use for some or many of these items at some point in our reencating. There are a few factors to keep in mind when choosing which pieces to use for a particular occasion. You will want to ask yourself what type of serving pieces the person you are portraying would have chosen. Or in servant’s cases, what types of pieces would the person you work for would have chosen. You will find when looking into the details of some pieces the early and mid-Victorian years were a transition from simpler lines of the early century to ostentatious ornamentation of the last quarter of the century. You will also want to consider your comfortable investment point. Likely, these pieces are ones you will be transporting from site to site for events rather then just from kitchen to dinning room or parlor as originally intended. The regular packing, transporting, and varied use of reenacting could be detrimental to an original piece or a significant investment piece. Besides physical damage, a piece could be misplaced or accidentally left behind. I have managed to loose the lid to a serving dish, one of a pair of large monogrammed silver trays, and two smaller silver trays belonging to a set over the years. Luckily, with this possibility in mind I have limited my purchases to a price I could afford to loose.

I will add to the following list any notes or tid-bits of information that may be helpful in selecting pieces.

Soup Tureen

Fish and Meat Platters

Vegetable Dishes

Two vegetable dishes should fit on the waiters serving tray.

Sauce Boats

Castors, Salt Cellars, Sugars, and Cream Jugs

[Leslie p 252 “257” Leslie discusses two different castors or cruets, one for dry and one for vinegar. She discusses pepper, cayenne, mustard, vinegar, pickles, salad oil, salt (in cellars), and powdered loaf-sugar (found in some castors) in her section on castors. She also covers separate castors for anchovy, soy, catchup and fish-sauces.

“We see no very reasonable objection to having the castors on the dining table. If there are two sets of castors, place in the middle of the table the salad bowl or the celery glass; unless there is company to dinner, and the centre, perhaps, is occupied by a plateau, an epergne, a vase of flowers, or some other ornament.” (Leslie)

Tea and Coffee pots

Another tea related piece is the hot-water urn. While frequently written about and illustrated in period literature and art, I am not certain how extensively urns are practically used in a living history interpretation setting. Originals, should not be used, while reproductions may or may not exist at an affordable price. Urns kept water hot with a cylinder heated in the fire and placed inside the urn. A more affordable option used in the era was a tea kettle kept hot on top of a chafing-dish. The chafing dish holds hot coals to keep the water hot.

Cold Drink Containers – Decanters, pitchers, etc.

“The decanters are to stand neat the corners. It is now usual at many tables to have a smaller water bottle (holding about a pint) placed by the side of every place that each person may pour out water for himself. Nevertheless, there should always be water-pitchers on the side-table, to replenish the bottles when necessary, whether large or small ones are used on the table. In summer, when filling the pitchers, put two or three lumps of ice into each.” (Leslie)

Fruit Dishes

Fruit dishes and sweetmeat dishes can be covered prior to dinner with fine black wire net covers.

Dessert Dishes