October 2024
A Tasting History River Cruise
Hello Tastorians!
This month's newsletter includes a few extras from last month's episodes, including the full and wonderful 1792 article describing what a Rout is, but first I want to announce an opportunity to travel with me next year in Europe!
Travel with Tasting History
I've been working with AmaWaterways to set up a Tasting History themed river cruise down the Danube next year (October 26 - November 2, 2025) from Vilshofen, Germany to Budapest, Hungary. It will include stops in several cities and towns along the way including Salzburg, Bratislava, and Vienna where we can try the original Sacher Torte. It'll be 7 days of food and history.
It's a small ship which means there is limited space and, while it's over a year out, before I announce it on the channel, I wanted to give you the opportunity to book a room if you're interested. Visit https://www.amawaterways.com/MaxMiller for more information. The "Reserve Now" button will allow you to book online but only works on desktop. (Balcony staterooms start at $5,679 per person, double occupancy.)
Tasting History Leftovers
In last month's video on the history of pet food I read one of the more touching epitaphs that the Ancient Romans wrote for their pet dogs but there were several others I felt were worth sharing that just didn't make it into the video:
1. Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most faithful guardian of Eumelus; Bull they called him while he was yet alive; but now his voice is imprisoned in the silent pathways of night.
2. Surely even as thou liest dead in this tomb I deem the wild beasts yet fear thy white bones, huntress Lycas.
3. [Myia] never barked without reason, but now he is silent.
While researching the video on the homefront cuisine of the Soviet Union during World War 2, I learned that on August 9, 1942, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich dedicated his Symphony No. 7 to the besieged citizens of Leningrad which, at that time, had been surrounded by Axis forces for nearly a year. It had premiered some months earlier, but wasn't dedicated to Leningrad, earning it the title The Leningrad Symphony, until August. Here is a link to the full symphony conducted by someone who looks shockingly like Shostakovich himself. Seriously, look him up.
Schostakowitsch: 7. Sinfonie (»Leningrader«) ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Klaus Mäkelä
Finally, in the video on Rout Cakes and the wild parties of Georgian England, I promised you the full article from the Waterford Herald (November 20, 1792) which laid out the extended description of a Rout. These 18th century folk were absolutely wild!
Picture Of A Rout.
A Rout is an assemblage of people of fashion at the private house of one of them. The manner of making a Rout is this:--
Lady A, or Lady B, or Lady C, or any other capital in the alphabet of fashion, chooses a distant night, which may not interfere with any other Rout, but which, if possible, may clash with some public amusement, and make a noise in the world. She issues cards, intimating that on the night specified, "she sees company." These cards are sent to several hundred people; not because they are relations, or friends, or acquaintances, but because she has seen them, or because their presence will give an eclat to the thing.
Before eleven o'clock at night, which is high tide, the house is crouded with a company of both sexes and all ranks. Card tables are placed in every room in the house: and as many in each room as barely leave interstices for the players to sit or move about. Coffee, tea, and lemonade are handed out.
Confusion is the very essence of a rout, and every lady who gives a rout takes measurement of the fashion, and not of her house; many more persons are invited than the place can hold, and she enjoys the inconvenience, the fatigue, the heat, and other circumstances peculiar to a rout, with as much heart felt pleasure as a player who hears the screams and noise of an immense croud flocking to his benefit. The blunders of servants, the missing of articles of dress, or the tearing them, the repeated exclamations of Good G--d how hot it is! Bless me! Lady Betty I am ready to faint! Dear me! O la! Good me! &c. &c. these afford exquisite satisfaction to the Lady of the house; whose happiness may be deemed perfect, if she hear that the street has been in an uproar, that some of the nobiliy's servants have been fighting, some of the carriages broke, or some of the company robbed by the pickpockets at the door.
Pharo-tables are indispensable at routs; and these as well as the cards and other implements of gaming are provided by a set of gentlemen in the other end of the town, who make a comfortable livelihood by lending out their furniture per night.
At a rout, it is not necessary to take much notice of the Lady of the house, either at entrance or exit -- but you must provide a seat at some table, win, if you can, but all at events lose something. Very considerable losses exalt a rout much, and if you have the credit of a young heir being done over at your rout, it establishes the credit of your house for ever.
Such is a rout; and of such routs it is not uncommon to hear that there are no less than six on one night -- a circumstance extremely encouraging to those who, upon the faith of people of fashion, embark their property in the establishment of Operas or Theatres.
You Might Like…
And now, a link I've come across which you might find interesting.
If you're looking for a rabbit hole to fall down, might I suggest browsing this copy of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue which I used in the video on the history of Brownies. It's a window into the world of our great-great grandparents.
