Chafing Dish

In 1720 a wealthy American ordered six small brass chafing dishes to be sent from England for his daughter’s wedding gift, but it is likely that the implement, common in Europe, had been brought to American shores long before that date. By the early 1800s the chafing dish had taken its modern form of an elegant silver-plated dish set over a spirit lamp. It went through a period of great popularity during the 1890s, when the renowned Waldorf-Astoria hotel served after-theater chafing dish suppers to such celebrities as J. P. Morgan and Lillian Russell. The Gay Nineties chafing dish fad was so strong that special sets of tablecloths and matching napkins became popular, and a great number of American cookbooks were written on the subject.