Food rituals in the nineteenth century

As She Ate My Salad, She Quite Opened Her Heart to Me”: Food as Gilded Age Culinary Code
Elizabeth DeWolfe (University of New England)

In 1894, undercover detective Jane Tucker befriended Madeleine Pollard, who had sued her lover, a U.S. congressman, when he reneged on marriage. Tucker became Pollard’s confidant and, in their nightly meals, elicited information that might help the congressman’s case. Tucker had no detective training, but she made a good tomato salad. Food was sustenance, a bonding ritual, and coded communication as Tucker gently pried and Pollard delivered a carefully constructed narrative centered on food.


Tucker spent ten weeks with Pollard. In conversation, private letters, and public writings, Tucker and Pollard each highlighted specific food items to position themselves within ideals of social class, gender, and respectability. Tucker carefully selected food offerings to appeal to Pollard’s sense of self, stimulating her desire to talk. Pollard also played a culinary game, using food in conversation and court to reiterate her claim that she was a victim, not a vixen. This culinary code was particularly gendered. Tucker’s portrayal of domestic food rituals softened public perceptions of her “unladylike” detective work. Pollard’s food stories provided evidence of her place in leisure-class society. Her mention, for example, of Welsh rarebit signaled higher education, as women who had enjoyed the college girl’s favorite midnight snack would know. Lobster Newburgh, green salad, and French dressing also offered coded insight. In this court battle, this decidedly female communication style (which also included commentary on hairstyles and hem lengths) ran alongside masculine legal discourse providing a powerful and effective meta-narrative communicating women’s unique knowledge.


Opening a Can of Worms: Drink and Diet on Victorian and Edwardian Maritime Polar Expeditions
Ed Armston-Sheret (Institute of Historical Research/Royal Geographical Society)


Polar expeditions put food to the test. Some explorers tried to live off modern preserved supplies, such as canned meats and protein powders. Other explorers learned from Indigenous Arctic communities, hunting locally caught polar animals. I examine how polar expeditions became places in which the relative value of these different diets could be tests.  In doing so, I show how European explorers, medics, and scientists appropriated Indigenous knowledge about diet, often publishing it (without acknowledgement) upon their return.