'The Greatest Ordeal': Using Biography to Explore the Victorian Dinner

Abstract

An analysis of the material and social implications of the change of dining style from à la Française to à la Russe seen through the perspective of a documented individual, the Countess of Harewood, Diana Elizabeth Smyth, who is making preparations for a formal dinner at Harewood, West Yorkshire. Combining documentary evidence with the surviving material culture, imagined monologues are presented as they might have been delivered by the Countess in 1871, followed by explanatory commentary. The counterpoint texts create a dialogue which allows us to explain, analyse and consider the attitudes, behaviours and meanings of the dining choices made in the past, and how we create our understanding in the present.