Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
I saw a swan-shaped wrapping around my leftovers in the last couple of years--Buffleheads restaurant, Biddeford, Maine. :) Ann in CT --- Carol Kocian wrote: Posh restaurants (with the cloth napkins) would wrap the leftovers in foil, and if you were lucky in the shape of a swan. I saw that on TV. :-) -Carol ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
Indeed, but that does not mean a woman would want to put greasy and wet foods in them to stain her undergarments and dress. Fran On 6/8/2010 11:11 PM, Aylwen Gardiner-Garden wrote: The pockets used in the 18th century were still used well into the Victorian period. They are quite substantial in size, and tied around the waist under the skirt. I have a regency-era pocket, and have seen victorian ones when I went to England last year. Bye for now, Aylwen On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Lavolta Pressf...@lavoltapress.com wrote: I suspect the story is a tall tale/joke as regards everything that was put into the pocket and then the wine poured into it. Fran Lavolta Press www.lavoltapress.com On 6/8/2010 10:39 PM, otsisto wrote: Is it possible that in this case the pocket is actually a purse or pouch and not what we consider a pocket? Example: pocketbook. 18th century pocketbooks http://tinyurl.com/2ehf9ud ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
I'd agree with that. Firstly, even though a pocket may have been sizable enough to accomodate the items referred to, it wouldn't be waterproof. Secondly, who in their right mind would put them all in there together??? My coat has poachers pockets - designed for the transportation of freshly shot game birds and therefore waterproof (not that I use it for such) - I still wouldn't be putting cake and wine and chicken in there all at once... I'd suspect it's some sort of sarcy joke about the size of women's pockets, and the amount that they carry round in them - in the same way as you get jokes today about women with the kitchen sink in their handbags. In a message dated 09/06/2010 19:00:39 GMT Daylight Time, h-costume-requ...@indra.com writes: Indeed, but that does not mean a woman would want to put greasy and wet foods in them to stain her undergarments and dress. Fran On 6/8/2010 11:11 PM, Aylwen Gardiner-Garden wrote: The pockets used in the 18th century were still used well into the Victorian period. They are quite substantial in size, and tied around the waist under the skirt. I have a regency-era pocket, and have seen victorian ones when I went to England last year. Bye for now, Aylwen ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
There are people even today that go to buffets and will stick food into their pockets. I think when you reach the point of hoarding/stealing food as such, the mess it will make on the inside of the pocket is beside the point. And through out history there have been court cases against people who have stolen food and other items by stuffing the ill gotten gains into a pocket or otherwise in their clothes. ISTR a 16th case of a man charged with steal a LOT of food stuff by stuffing it into his padded rolled pants. alex On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 1:06 PM, debloughcostu...@aol.com wrote: I'd agree with that. Firstly, even though a pocket may have been sizable enough to accomodate the items referred to, it wouldn't be waterproof. Secondly, who in their right mind would put them all in there together??? My coat has poachers pockets - designed for the transportation of freshly shot game birds and therefore waterproof (not that I use it for such) - I still wouldn't be putting cake and wine and chicken in there all at once... I'd suspect it's some sort of sarcy joke about the size of women's pockets, and the amount that they carry round in them - in the same way as you get jokes today about women with the kitchen sink in their handbags. -- So much to do and so little attention span to get it done with… ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
There are a couple of issues here, one being that the desperately poor may stoop to things the affluent attending a ball would not stoop to. The other is that middle- and upper-class Victorian women were determined that their clothes should look clean and tidy at all times, without the benefit of modern dry cleaning and laundry methods and with smaller wardrobes than we have. Fran Lavolta Press www.lavoltapress.com On 6/9/2010 11:20 AM, Alexandria Doyle wrote: There are people even today that go to buffets and will stick food into their pockets. I think when you reach the point of hoarding/stealing food as such, the mess it will make on the inside of the pocket is beside the point. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
debloughcostu...@aol.com wrote: Firstly, even though a pocket may have been sizable enough to accomodate the items referred to, it wouldn't be waterproof. Secondly, who in their right mind would put them all in there together??? My coat has poachers pockets - designed for the transportation of freshly shot game birds and therefore waterproof (not that I use it for such) - I still wouldn't be putting cake and wine and chicken in there all at once... Ah, but she didn't put in wine, not intentionally. She put in cold chicken and sweet cakes, not the jellies, creams, and ices that were also being served. The mischievous observer clearly thought this greedy behavior was inappropriate, and, tempted by the opportunity, he dumped in his custard (I think that's what was in the glass he described, not wine) when she wasn't looking, fully aware she'd find an unexpected mess later, when she got home. The cold chicken and sweet cakes sound as though they were set out as finger foods -- maybe greasy, but certainly self-contained and maybe not that large. The sweet cakes may have been something equivalent to cookies or brownies; the chicken and meats may even have been pastry-wrapped but might have been chunks or slices. Wrap them in a handkerchief and it's no messier than tucking an unfinished few things from your plate into a napkin in your purse when you're leaving a restaurant. (I should note that taking home food you've paid for as part of a meal is quite unobjectionable, and not parallel to the situation in the quotation. Lifting food off the buffet-at-the-ball as described is more like pocketing extras off an all-you-can-eat buffet after you've eaten your fill, as someone else mentioned in this thread. That's probably what caught the writer's attention, who makes the point that the women in question had already eaten as much as they could.) The quotation again: The supper was at a buffet in another room and there was plenty of cold chicken and cold meat, with jellies, creams and ices, which was done justice to, especially by the ladies who crowded up to the buffet and, after eating as much as they could, pocketed many of the good things. One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice mixture she must have found when she got home. --Robin ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
Wrap them in a handkerchief and it's no messier than tucking an unfinished few things from your plate into a napkin in your purse when you're leaving a restaurant. (I should note that taking home food you've paid for as part of a meal is quite unobjectionable, and not parallel to the situation in the quotation. And in fact, most modern restaurants will give you a special bag or container to take leftover food home in if you ask. I have had elderly relatives who did this routinely. Not for economic reasons but because it was physically very difficult to cook for themselves at home, and the value was in not having to prepare a home meal. I've never seen anyone tuck restaurant food into their handbag or pocket. Because ladies were supposed to be dainty eaters in public, the writer may also have been lambasting a woman for eating more than he thought women should. Fran Lavolta Press Books on historic clothing www.lavoltapress.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
Spot on, Robin! Also I remember the days before styrofoam was prevalent, and we would take home the extra bread in a napkin in mom's purse. Posh restaurants (with the cloth napkins) would wrap the leftovers in foil, and if you were lucky in the shape of a swan. I saw that on TV. :-) -Carol On Jun 9, 2010, at 4:19 PM, Robin Netherton wrote: debloughcostu...@aol.com wrote: Firstly, even though a pocket may have been sizable enough to accomodate the items referred to, it wouldn't be waterproof. Secondly, who in their right mind would put them all in there together??? My coat has poachers pockets - designed for the transportation of freshly shot game birds and therefore waterproof (not that I use it for such) - I still wouldn't be putting cake and wine and chicken in there all at once... Ah, but she didn't put in wine, not intentionally. She put in cold chicken and sweet cakes, not the jellies, creams, and ices that were also being served. The mischievous observer clearly thought this greedy behavior was inappropriate, and, tempted by the opportunity, he dumped in his custard (I think that's what was in the glass he described, not wine) when she wasn't looking, fully aware she'd find an unexpected mess later, when she got home. The cold chicken and sweet cakes sound as though they were set out as finger foods -- maybe greasy, but certainly self-contained and maybe not that large. The sweet cakes may have been something equivalent to cookies or brownies; the chicken and meats may even have been pastry-wrapped but might have been chunks or slices. Wrap them in a handkerchief and it's no messier than tucking an unfinished few things from your plate into a napkin in your purse when you're leaving a restaurant. (I should note that taking home food you've paid for as part of a meal is quite unobjectionable, and not parallel to the situation in the quotation. Lifting food off the buffet-at-the-ball as described is more like pocketing extras off an all-you-can-eat buffet after you've eaten your fill, as someone else mentioned in this thread. That's probably what caught the writer's attention, who makes the point that the women in question had already eaten as much as they could.) The quotation again: The supper was at a buffet in another room and there was plenty of cold chicken and cold meat, with jellies, creams and ices, which was done justice to, especially by the ladies who crowded up to the buffet and, after eating as much as they could, pocketed many of the good things. One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice mixture she must have found when she got home. --Robin ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
Lavolta Press wrote: And in fact, most modern restaurants will give you a special bag or container to take leftover food home in if you ask. I have had elderly relatives who did this routinely. Not for economic reasons but because it was physically very difficult to cook for themselves at home, and the value was in not having to prepare a home meal. I've never seen anyone tuck restaurant food into their handbag or pocket. Maybe it's a mom thing. I have done this most often with the cookies/brownies typically served to my kids as part of their children's meals. Often they didn't want to eat the treat right away, and it's much faster (and greener) to wrap something that small in a paper napkin than to trouble the server for a (usually bulky) take-out container (and then wait for them to bring it). My own mom does the same thing with the almond cookies served at the end of the meal at her favorite Chinese restaurant -- she's watching her sugars, so often doesn't want to eat them after her meal, but she tucks them in her bag and gives them to my kids, or has them as a snack later. For anything messy or sizable, I do request a container. My point was only that putting finger foods like sweet cakes into one's pocket was not an action without modern parallel, and doesn't have to mean a mess. Don't think I've ever done it with cold chicken, though! Because ladies were supposed to be dainty eaters in public, the writer may also have been lambasting a woman for eating more than he thought women should. Yeah, there definitely seemed to be an element of that in the description, too. --Robin ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
My former mother-in-law would take everything that wasn't nailed down at a restaurant visit. One time she slipped several of those little containers of half-and-half that they give you with your coffee in her coat pocket. They got smashed before she got home and she had to pay to have the coat dry cleaned. A lesson for greedy economizers! Janet ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
The wine was not the woman choice. You will have to consider the types of cakes that they had during that period and she may have wrapped the chicken in a kerchief or something to separate the chicken from the cakes. De -Original Message- Secondly, who in their right mind would put them all in there together??? (snip) - I still wouldn't be putting cake and wine and chicken in there all at once... ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
You also need to consider that at that time in some countries a woman of upper class had to give the illusion of delicacy and was expected to eat tiny portions (I believe Q. Victoria told women to eat small portions, among other advise she gave) and therefore would have secreted food for later consumption especially if one was not married. There is also the dish(es) that one chef knows how to make and he is not your chef, so you horde the treat for later. De -Original Message- There are a couple of issues here, one being that the desperately poor may stoop to things the affluent attending a ball would not stoop to. The other is that middle- and upper-class Victorian women were determined that their clothes should look clean and tidy at all times, without the benefit of modern dry cleaning and laundry methods and with smaller wardrobes than we have. Fran Lavolta Press www.lavoltapress.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
[h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
While this tale occurs a good bit before the ACW not in the US, there's nothing quite so wonderful as fashion documentation in their own words. The following is heavily excerpted from Edward Cree's “Naval Surgeon – The Voyages of Dr Edward Cree, Royal navy as Related in His Private Journals 1837-1856”. You'll find that a lady's pocket is featured. Swedish Consul’s Ball, Alexandria, 1838 We received an invitation to a ball at the Swedish Consul’s in honour of the Swedish squadron here. We landed at 8:30pm and found a crowd with torches outside the house and a guard of Swedish marines from their ships. About 700 people were present – Swedes, Norwegians, French, Russians, Dutch, Spanish, Italians, Greeks and Turks in their various costumes. Not that many English, as it was a Sunday. There were lots of pretty girls, especially the daughter of the Spanish Consul, with whom I had the pleasure of waltzing, although we could not understand one another’s speech. There was also a lovely Greek girl in the costume of her country. Many Turkish and Egyptian officers in gaudy uniforms of scarlet and gold. There were plenty of partners, though non of them that I met could speak English. I was introduced to a pretty Italian girl, whose name I forget, but we were so well pleased with each other that we danced together for the remainder of the evening. Sweetmeats were plentiful; 300 pounds, I hear, were ordered from one confectioner alone in Alexandria; and there was plenty of negus and lemonade, and claret and water. The supper was at a buffet in another room and there was plenty of cold chicken and cold meat, with jellies, creams and ices, which was done justice to, especially by the ladies who crowded up to the buffet and, after eating as much as they could, pocketed many of the good things. One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice mixture she must have found when she got home. --cin Cynthia Barnes cinbar...@gmail.com 2010/6/8 Käthe Barrows kay...@gmail.com: 2. What about pockets? I cannot find any references or photos that show skirts had pockets--were they still using a little pouch tied at the waist under the dress? Is it reasonable to design a watch pocket in the skirt? Yes pocket, in the waistband seam. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice mixture she must have found when she got home. That... is one LARGE pocket. I can't imagine putting chicken and cakes and more into the little pockets of my modern clothing. Kimiko ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
I cant imagine why she'd put chicken cake in the *same* pocket. --cin Cynthia Barnes cinbar...@gmail.com On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Kimiko Small sstormwa...@yahoo.com wrote: One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice mixture she must have found when she got home. That... is one LARGE pocket. I can't imagine putting chicken and cakes and more into the little pockets of my modern clothing. Kimiko ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
Yes, one does not imagine that the caterer provided little plastic take-out boxes with lids. Fran Lavolta Press Books on making historic clothing www.lavoltapress.com On 6/8/2010 3:47 PM, Cin wrote: I cant imagine why she'd put chicken cake in the *same* pocket. --cin Cynthia Barnes cinbar...@gmail.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
Is it possible that in this case the pocket is actually a purse or pouch and not what we consider a pocket? Example: pocketbook. 18th century pocketbooks http://tinyurl.com/2ehf9ud http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:18th_century_purses 19th http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:19th_century_purses waist pocket http://tinyurl.com/2c89n3b De -Original Message- I cant imagine why she'd put chicken cake in the *same* pocket. --cin Cynthia Barnes cinbar...@gmail.com On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Kimiko Small sstormwa...@yahoo.com wrote: One stout middle-aged French woman was engaged in filling her pockets which were stuffed out with cold chicken and sweet cakes as she stood before me. I was eating a custard – the opportunity was tempting – so I emptied my glass into her open pocket, and a nice mixture she must have found when she got home. That... is one LARGE pocket. I can't imagine putting chicken and cakes and more into the little pockets of my modern clothing. Kimiko ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 19th c women's dress - pockets
I suspect the story is a tall tale/joke as regards everything that was put into the pocket and then the wine poured into it. Fran Lavolta Press www.lavoltapress.com On 6/8/2010 10:39 PM, otsisto wrote: Is it possible that in this case the pocket is actually a purse or pouch and not what we consider a pocket? Example: pocketbook. 18th century pocketbooks http://tinyurl.com/2ehf9ud ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
