ANTHONY TROLLOPE ON THE EATING HABITS OF YOUNG AMERICAN CHILDREN (1864)

Abstract

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), the English novelist, like his mother had thirty years earlier, wrote a travel book describing his impressions of American life and costumes during his visit to North America between 1861 and 1862. His description of the eating habits of three- or four-year-old American children in the 1860s will surprise parents of the 1980s. And then the children—babies I should say, if I were speaking of English bairns of their age; but, seeing that they are Americans, I hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these perfectly civilized and highly educated beings may be from three to four. One will often see five or six such seated at the long dinner table of the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their elders, and going through the ceremony with all the gravity and more than all the decorum of their grandfathers. When I was three years old, I had not yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of my own, wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery; and I feel assured that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as I gobbled up my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy. But at hotel life in the States, the adult infant lisps to the waiter for everything at table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is choice in his selection of pickles, very particular that his beefsteak at breakfast shall be hot, and is instant in his demand for fresh ice in his water.