Drinking and Dining à la Russe in the Long Nineteenth Century

From the late 1850s until the eve of World War 1, the dominant British habit amongst the ‘dinner-giving grades’ was to dine ‘à la Russe’. In the words of cookery writer Phyllis Browne in 1885, the ‘difference between the old-fashioned dinner and the dinner à la Russe is that in the first all the dishes are put upon the table and carved by the host or his representative, and in the latter the food is not put on the table at all, but is handed round by servants’ (Newcastle Courant, 26 June 1885, p.6). Though this style was relatively formalised it was nonetheless invented and reinvented with each succeeding generation during the nineteenth century and with each re-invention came changes to the style and service of wine— the subject of this paper.