MARK TWAIN THREW A RAGER

HERE’S WHAT KIND of an event Mark Twain’s 70thbirthday party, on December 5 at Delmonico’s, was: Before it even happened, the New York Times ran not one but two stories about the invitations. The guests ultimately numbered 170, and it was a true A-plus list of literary, powerful, and just plain rich New Yorkers. On the night of the dinner, Andrew Carnegie spoke. So did William Dean Howells, the novelist and Atlantic Monthly editor routinely called “the Dean of American Letters.” President Theodore Roosevelt couldn’t make it, but he sent a message to be read. George Harvey, the editor of Harper’s Weekly, hosted. Delmonico’s was almost 80 years old by that time and still the omphalos of American fine dining. Everyone received a foothigh bust of the guest of honor.

The former Samuel Clemens was by then one of the most famous men alive. He’d made a fortune, lost it in a series of bad business moves, and gone on lecture tours and published his memoirs to earn some money. By 1905, he was on his feet again, and the party was meant to celebrate what was, at the time, the extraordinarily advanced age of 70. He joked about that in his speech, bringing up his skepticism about the medical treatments of the era and his diet, which he said he’d finally moderated after many decades of indifference. He also, it appears, was an intermittent faster before its time. “For 30 years,” he noted, “I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, and no bite nor sup until 7:30 in the evening. Eleven hours.”

What did Twain and his guests eat that evening, presumably after 7:30 p.m.? Delmonico’s served heavy food without a lot of inclination to seasonality, and it showed. Even though it was December, there were stuffed tomatoes. Oysters, of course—every New York meal of consequence in those years probably included them. There was turtle soup, then a staple of affluence, and fried Baltimore terrapin and quail and saddle of lamb. Parsleyed potatoes and creamed mushrooms on toast rounded it all out. c.b.