Supper Time, or the Art of Fine Dining in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Unlike lunch and dinner, whose shared etymology – derived from the Late Latin disjejunare – refers to the breaking of the fast, supper is the only meal of the day whose name derives directly from the dish – albeit a frugal one – that was traditionally served: suppa, a word of Germanic origin that was in common use by the end of the 12th century, which consisted simply of a slice of bread sprinkled with broth or hot milk.
Presented in the museum’s permanent collections, within the 18th-century salons of the Hôtel de Lalande, this exhibition also reflects the museum’s commitment to expanding its research and activities around the theme of the arts of the table, from the 17th century to the present day, and in the various meanings of this concept: objects used for preparing meals, those reserved for serving and consumption, and the different types of objects according to period, country, etc.
From the 14th century onwards, by metonymy, the word came to refer to the evening meal as a whole. Although of humble origins, the ‘souper’ gained prestige by finding its way into the homes of the wealthy and becoming part of court protocol, as it became the official meal – the one to which distinguished guests were invited, the one for which people dressed up and served dishes designed to delight and impress their guests. It even took on different forms: at times lavish and ostentatious, as in the ‘Grand souper’, and at other times intimate and unrestrained, as in the ‘Petit souper’.
As early as the first quarter of the 17th century, dictionaries recorded the distribution of the day’s three main meals: breakfast in the morning, lunch at midday and supper in the evening. Their respective timings, however, varied according to social class and the geographical area under consideration. Thus, at court and amongst high society, hunting parties that dragged on throughout the morning increasingly pushed back the time of ‘dîner’, which, around 1730, was taken at around 3 pm, then from 5.00 pm by the end of the 18th century, eventually replacing supper in the 19th century, which in turn became a late-night snack: ‘since people in Paris have been dining at eight o’clock in the evening […] they no longer have supper there’, as we read in 1806 in *Le Journal des Gourmands et des Belles de l’épicurien français* by Grimod de la Reynière. By the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, supper was abandoned by the elite and once again became a meal for the working classes and those in the countryside.
The history of the evening meal is, therefore, a fleeting and original one. It is closely linked to changing social customs and a new way of managing domestic time and space in the modern era, notably including the changes brought about by the emergence of a room dedicated to dining – the dining room – and the widespread adoption of ‘French-style service’. It is also a history of taste, marked by the discovery of new produce and exotic flavours, and the emergence of a new cuisine that became increasingly refined and systematised (in 1651, La Varenne’s *Le cuisinier françois* was published, followed in 1691 by Massialot’s *Le cuisinier royal et bourgeois*). Tableware bears witness to all of this: some objects evoke the intimacy of a romantic supper or an ‘ambigu’, whilst others allow us to imagine the luxury of a multi-course reception. Some have disappeared, whilst others continue to amaze us. From pewter ewers and earthenware ice buckets to crystal salt cellars and silver oille pots, this exhibition aims to trace, through the museum’s collections, the evolution of table manners, culinary fashions and dining behaviours in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Opening :Thursday 19 Febuary 2015
Practical informations
Visitor’s guide available on request from documentation.madd@mairie-bordeaux.fr
#madd_bordeaux
Exhibition curator
Caroline Fillon, Museum of Decorative Arts and Design
The Museum of Decorative Arts and Design would like to thank:
Château Haut-Bailly
honorary patron
Fraysse & Associés
long-standing partner
Les Amis de l’hôtel de Lalande
Habitat at the Village du Meuble in Mérignac
Air France
Le Chapon Fin
Château de Launay
Château Nairac
Grand Hôtel de Bordeaux & Spa
Samsung
Les Crus Bourgeois du Médoc
Station Ausone, media partne