Rude Competitive Eating

Due to Covid concerns, we have not been able to reopen yet for Traditions and Teas, though we have been trying to for the past few months. As soon as we are able to schedule our next dates, we will be making announcements via email, social media and newspapers. 

Until then, here’s an entertaining article on a contest for a skill that drove those who cared about good table manners, absolutely nuts back in the 1920’s… A contest to see who was best at eating peas with one’s knife!!

Move over, Nathan’s! It wasn’t those New York famous hot dogs which were being eaten competitively in the early 20th century. Bad manners were also on display, with a twist (or should I say, ‘a slit’?) in this competition. In 1929, on the West Coast, one Ruth Keller was the winner of a competition of eating peas with a knife! The knives all had a special slit down the middle to help speed things along. 

 

Why Peas Leave Pod

Why they leave their plate via the knife route was demonstrated by Ruth Keller, who is the champion of California when it comes to consuming the little vegetables with only a knife as a weapon. She won the state title in competition with other girls.– A. P. photo.

Girl Proves Champion at Eating Peas With Knife

LA CRESCENTA, Dec. 28.– Eating peas with a knife, like drinking coffee with a spoon in the cup, is admittedly poor table manners. But because Ruth Keller of this town excelled at the first-named social ban, she is wearing a medal today as the fastest green pea eater in California. In competition with other pretty maidens, Miss Keller sat down to a festive board here recently with a huge bowl of the elusive little vegetables in front of her, and only a knife as a weapon. Everybody started off at a given signal. 

The only advantage possessed by the contestants over the ordinary individual who likes his peas on a knife, was that the blades used by the girls had a slit down the center. The theory of this stroke of mechanical genius, displayed by one of the contest managers, was that the peas would stick in the slit and slide down easier into the mouth. Miss Keller consumed her peas in amazingly short time. True, they skipped and staggered and skidded about on the knife, but even the most unruly pea finally succumbed to the girl's sense of balance and followed its more tractable predecessors, until all had disappeared. - Oakland Tribune, 1929

A safety pea knife with a slit down the middle, as advertised in the late 1920’s 

New Holiday Talks with Teas

A full afternoon tea with delicious scones, finger sandwiches, desserts and more, is served at most all of our seminars, presentations and youth manners lessons and adult etiquette classes. 

We’ll be talking Tea Etiquette, Table Setting Etiquette, Dining History, Antiques for the Table and More 

as we celebrate 125 years of 

Graber Olives this year. 

Beginning Nov. 30th, we have several unique presentations scheduled throughout the holidays in La Casita for 

Traditions and Tea at Georgia Belle et Cie 

We still have open seats at the first two seatings, currently scheduled for Saturday Nov. 30th 

and Sunday Dec. 1st, from 2:30-4:30. 

Each talk is just $32.00 and full afternoon tea is served. 

Seating is limited! 

Call the Graber Olive House 

at 909-983-1761 to reserve your spot at one of our seminars.

For more information 

or to schedule a private group or class, 

call Maura Graber at 909-923-5650. 

“Tea: It’s History and Meaning”

“The story of tea is as strange and as fascinating as any that one can read. A prehistoric event dating back some 5,000 years is bound to be shrouded in many mysteries, but the exceptional qualities of tea are such that many legends developed concerning its beginnings. A highly civilized people like the Chinese considered it a special gift from heaven. In India, too, it was much the same. In Japan, a special ceremony grew around it. The habit of drinking tea is the only purely Asian custom which commands universal interest. Through it, the East and West have met — in a teacup!

Its introduction had a charming influence on our Western culture, even though a great deal of smuggling and piracy helped to bring it about. Discriminating Chinese taste insisted that tea should be drunk from porcelain; and this subsequently had a tremendous effect on world trade and the voyages of clipper ships. Art, politics, and religion were all involved. 

All this mystery and adventure stirred up many superstitions. Even today, some tea companies attach a little saying to each tea bag, such as: "to stir tea in the pot is to stir up strife."

"Floating tea leaves mean 'watch for strangers coming.' To tell the gender and the day of arrival, put them on the back of one hand and tap the hand with the other until they adhere — each tap is one day — and if they are soft leaves, it is a woman; if hard, a man."Fortune-telling from tea leaves is not solely a gypsy custom. Many people have read meanings into the shapes and groups of leaves that form in the bottom of the cup — how accurately is, of course, another matter...’’ - from Table Settings, Entertaining and Etiquette; A History and Guide

Planning Our 125th Celebrations

Yes we are, Violet! We took some time off, while we’re planning the Graber Olive House’s 125th anniversary celebrations , but we’ll soon be back. Our newest Traditions and Tea schedule (including some Downton Abbey themed teas) will be up later this month on the blog. We have some great talks planned for our 125th year, so check back with us to reserve a spot!

Celebrating Independence Day

Wishing you a happy 4th of July! 

Vintage holiday card from the early 1900’s

1920’s Advertising for Mothers

I love to see what life was like for women during Georgia Belle Graber’s days as a mother of young children. I wonder if she used Lydia’s E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. The adverts for the elixir were found in all of the local and larger newspapers.

Boyabus Kissabus

Boyabus Kissabus a sweet girlorrum

Girlabus cryabus— “Wants some morum!”

Boyabus Kissabus — Walked old mamorum;

Boyabus kickedbus out the back doorum;

Girlabus cryabus, “Kisses no morum!”

By the author,

Ruth Martin

I found this charming verse when researching the women of the Graber Olive House family for a 4 month long exhibit at the Ontario Museum of History and Art in 2017.  

Ruth Martin was not a Graber, but her daughter, Betty, became one when she married Bob Graber in 1936. The paper was signed “By the author, Ruth Martin.” 

This style of speaking was called “hog Latin” and was all the rage with schoolgirls in the late-1800’s, and made comebacks several times in the early 1900’s.

Attend one of our popular “Talk with Tea” events and learn more about young women in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.