The Cakes Served at Tea in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Around 1800 two new sit-down meals called “tea” came to the United States from England, both of which, like the fancy-dress evening tea party (which remained in vogue), called for cake. One of these teas was served as a convenient replacement for the usual meat-and-potatoes supper and was even referred to as supper, especially in the homes of farm families and working people. This tea consisted of leftovers from the noonday dinner (then the main meal of the day), perhaps a simple hot dish like eggs and sausages, great platters of thickly buttered bread slices, one or more “warm cakes” (that is, hot breads and griddle cakes), and, if a housewife could muster them, one or more “sweet cakes,” typically simple ones like gingerbread or cider cake, all washed down with tea and coffee. The other new tea was a company entertainment that was sometimes staged for ladies during the day and sometimes for couples or families in the early evening. This tea generally featured only breads and cakes, particularly the latter, along with their usual accompaniments, including butter—even pound cake was commonly eaten with butter at tea, though cookbook author Sarah Hale, in 1841, denounced this practice as a “a sin”—cheese, jelly, jam, preserved fruits, lemon jelly (or curd), and quince cheese (or paste). In the homes of ordinary Americans, where dinner parties, evening tea parties, and supper parties were unknown, these two teas, particularly the second, were the most common means of entertaining company.