Françoise de Graffigny at the table

In the 18th century, meals were not served in successive courses as today, but by "services": all dishes of a single service arrived together on the table, arranged symmetrically around the place setting. Guests helped themselves to whatever was within reach. In the modest household of a literary woman like Graffigny, there was no grand spread: a soup to open, one or two entremets, and then what was called the "fruit" (sweets and hot drinks) to close the meal and prolong conversation.

Graffigny's favorite beverage, hot frothy chocolate beaten with a molinillo was the ritual of Enlightenment salons: sipped while chatting, reading letters, or correcting a manuscript. It is the signature ingredient of the New World made Parisian.