The Secret Lives of Wasps

Dining and drinking à la Wasp
 
Nancy Grace, writing in Vogue, April 1st, 1957, “Entertaining in Philadelphia”: “Mr. and Mrs. Robert Montgomery Scott live in one of the big houses at Ardrossan Farms, the Scott family place at Ithan, Pennsylvania. … Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Scott have another house on the same land. The younger Scotts, who live in a house once staffed by eight starched and sparkling servants, have never, since their marriage five years ago, had more than a half-time cleaning woman who comes in three times a week. Mrs. Scott, however, has concluded that a big house is considerably easier to maintain than a very small one. When they entertain, usually over the weekend, two experienced Irish maids who have lived on the place for more than 20 years come in to lend a hand and do the washing-up. Mr. Scott cooks, quite often choosing the following menu:

    Consommé Julienne
    Roast Goose with Stuffing
    Zucchini Baked in Foil
    String Beans with Carrots Vichy
    Burgundy
    Fruit with Kirsch, Sponge Cake

Mrs. Scott does the shopping, and Mr. Scott doubles as cook and butler. In the latter role, he attained brief professional status last winter when a friend of his mother’s found, on the night of a big dinner party, that she was short one footman; Mr. Scott filled in. The professionals, he reported later, eyed him with a certain controlled distrust during the passing of the hors d’oeuvres, but accepted him completely by the time they finished cleaning up for the evening.”

Martha Baltzell, second wife of William Baltzell: It’s fun to go to the big parties. Although it can get quite boring.

Nancy Grace: Colonel Montgomery was proud of his herd of Ayrshire cows, and sometimes when entertaining guests for lunch, he had it driven to a spot outside the dining room, to create a Gainsborough-like effect.

Thacher Longstreth, Main Line Wasp: “In the mid-to-late 1930s, I found myself plunged into an awesome — and, in retrospect, ludicrous — round of debutante parties. … During the year that a girl ‘came out,’ she and her friends might be invited to a hundred parties. That’s no exaggeration: A single wealthy debutante like Frances Pew, the daughter of Sun Oil’s chairman, J. Howard Pew, might be the guest of honor at four or five different parties. If you lived on the Main Line in the 1930s … you were sent to the Wednesday Afternoon Dancing Class at the Merion Cricket Club. … If you lived in Chestnut Hill, of course, you attended the Tuesday Afternoon Dancing Class, which was conducted at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.”

Nancy Grace: For a dinner party there was no question as to what to wear: Ladies donned long dresses; men, black tie or a velvet smoking jacket. The first course was often terrapin. These diamondback turtles, an endangered species now, were kept in the cellars of the Philadelphia Club, where members could place an order to be picked up in the afternoon before returning home from work.

Martha Baltzell: The Putnams always had tea. She laid it out once a month, and it was a wonderful way to meet people. And you weren’t drinking, and it was only about an hour and a half.

Virginia Baltzell: Uncle Digby wanted to institute tea bars downtown. I had to explain to him that most people are working at teatime. We do tea here every day. With a little honey and rum in it.

William Baltzell: On Fridays at college, we’d get the white meal. Fish, creamed onions and creamed potatoes. So we formed the Gracious Living Society: Each week, we’d have a different cocktail — manhattans, sometimes gin and Dubonnet.

Nathaniel Burt, The Perennial Philadelphians, writing about the State in Schuylkill men’s fishing club, founded in 1732: “The most famous product of the State in Schuylkill club is its punch. Fish House Punch has by now become part of the national culture, and hosts are felling their guests all over the country with the soothing but deadly recipe. Few are aware, as they gently slip to the floor, of the background of what’s hitting them. Around 1900, it was unwarily released to the ‘public’ at a debutante tea. The ladies, never permitted in those days into the castle, of course, dropped like flies, and the night was hideous with dowagers roaring and hiccupping.”

Tony Biddle: State in Schuylkill? Charlie Biddle, Jimmy’s father, said, “Let’s move it, board by board, onto my property” when they built the Schuylkill Expressway. [Which explains why the exclusive club — members are basically born into it — is now located on the banks of the Delaware River.]

Nathaniel Burt, The Perennial Philadelphians: “[The Philadelphia Club] sits in a fine high handsome red-brick building, early Victorian but still classic, on the corner of 13th and Walnut streets, in a district of shabby businesses and dubious real estate values. … The club is a very handsome affair, and full of handsome members; but it lacks the Gemütlichkeit associated with most Philadelphia enterprises. … Crotchety, however, it and its members are and have been. Metaphorically, at least, bits of broken hearts litter the pavement in front of the chaste fanlit door on Walnut Street, memorial to those who tried to get in and couldn’t.”

Nancy Grace: In the 1930s the Pews, who hadn’t yet created their huge charitable trust, gave parties at which no alcohol was served. Guests spent much of the night outside, where they kept bottles in their cars. At Ardrossan on Sunday nights, the old Montgomerys always had the family and some old friends for supper — scrambled eggs, what Hope called vomit salad. Auntie somebody would be there, an elderly Miss Scott; when coffee came, Auntie would say, “No, thank you.” And they would say, “It’s Sanka, Auntie,” and she’d look at the butler and say, “Hello, Sanka!”

Benjamin Hammond, retired professor and Ardrossan resident: At the parties at Orchard Lodge, Hope Scott’s house at Ardrossan, the food was so stylishly served. Each napkin looked like it had been ironed all day; they were the best Irish linen. They had a gizmo on the wall when you walked in, a leather tablet that mapped out where you sat at the table. It must have sat 20. Orchard Lodge had two Augustus John paintings of Hope, and a Mary Cassatt. For the seafood, they would always serve vintage meursault, and they always had French champagne for the dessert course. The Annenbergs were always there.

Hope Montgomery Scott, early 1970s, to an Evening Bulletin reporter at an Ardrossan brunch: “We all have beautiful hangovers!”

Paul Fussell, Class: “The middle class eats at 7:00 or 7:30, the upper middle at 8:00 or 8:30. Some upper-middles, uppers and top out-of-sights dine at 9:00 or even later, after nightly protracted cocktail sessions lasting at least two hours. Sometimes they forget to eat at all.”

Virginia Baltzell: How many Wasps does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two. One to call the electrician, and one to make the martinis.

Tony Biddle: My favorite speech that Jimmy Biddle gave was when he addressed the crew of the USS Biddle; it was being refitted at the Naval Yard, and he had the whole crew out at Andalusia. There was a little question-and-answer period, and a guy said, “Mr. Biddle, you look like you’re in wonderful shape.” Jimmy said, “Well, for lunch every day, I have a lettuce leaf and a glass of champagne!”