Delight in the Unexpected: Dinner Parties and Costume Balls with Mary McFadden
In coherence with her fashion designs and interiors, Mary McFadden’s dinners and parties took on a similarly imaginative tone. The menus, the tablescapes, the entertainment, the themes—all exuberantly creative, drawing on varied cultures and epochs, blended with an unerring eye for balance, proportion and chic. If one were to want to entertain like Mary McFadden, as described in this earlier newsletter, she luckily shared three menus (with recipes) and their accompanying after-dinner entertainment with Vogue for their December 1977 issue.
The menus are a product of their time (I can’t imagine most anyone today reprising her fresh turtle soup with floating turtle egg) while also pushing the boundaries of taste trends of that period—leaning heavily into the fad for Chinese cuisine while incorporating flavours, techniques and ingredients from a diverse array of places. Add a little chamber music or harp—and a sensational spread of dishware—and you have yourself one of Mary’s “highly original dinner parties.”
Mary’s mention of a masked ball in the introduction to her menus reminded me of a party given for her by her mother in 1966, while still married to Philip Harari. “Come As Your Favorite Dream” was a costume party, described by Women’s Wear Daily as “the big fashion turn-on.” Halston decided to go as a cheetah and made himself a cheetah mask, cheetah bowtie and cheetah handkerchief. Minnie Cushing too decided a cheetah was her dream and wore Rudi Gernreich’s cheetah suit. According to Halston, “Mary Harari is going as the girl from the year 2200. I made her steel-by-the-yard coils. They are pink, green and silver—and she is wearing a body stocking to the waist underneath —with bright pink tights and bright pink shoes. I made her a coiled headdress, and she has a big cylinder over one eye. Mary’s husband is going as an Eastern potentate with a Beatle hairdo.” He continued: “I have done an Edwardian catbird mask for Toni Frissell—and a gold turban for Anne Ford to wear with her Galitzine pajamas and some of her fabulous jewels.” Vogue’s Margaret Case told Women’s Wear Daily, “I’m coming as a bride. A girl can dream, can’t she? My paper dress with the silver yoke just arrived from Paco Rabanne, and I bought a tulle veil at Bergdorf’s, and I’m carrying a bouquet of white paper flowers.”
“Dinner plans from Mary McFadden: Delight in the unexpected,” Vogue, December 1977
Everything that Mary McFadden does might be said to be entertaining; certainly all of her activities are imaginative or, to use Mary's own word, experimental. The highly original dinner parties she gives at home are no exception to this unflagging creativity; Mary floods out ideas for what to serve, how to entertain guests once dinner is over. Just two of her current notions: "I'd like to give a masked ball," Mary said, "a fantastic bal de têtes. Or, at a seated dinner for ten, I'd have a famous chef and invite all the guests to help with the cooking under the direction of the chef; that, of course, would be a ten-course meal." Here, three shorter Mary menus, complete with her choices of after-dinner entertainment; recipes follow for starred dishes.
MENU I
Frozen melon soup*
Swordfish Stamboul*
Long-grained white rice
Zucchini cut in flower petals
Celery and truffle salad
Hot caramel soufflé*
with rum sauce*
New Orleans French Market coffee
Wines: Cold young Beaujolais (Château Domaine des Tours 1976) with the soup and dessert, Château Loudenne 1971 with the swordfish
Entertainment: Modern chamber music: Morton Feldman or David Tudor
MENU II
Fresh turtle soup with turtle eggs floating (eggs may be found in cans in Oriental grocery shops; turtle in fish market)
Partridge stuffed with chestnuts
Wild Rice Beets and endive salad
Peach sherbet
Wines: With the soup, Dry Sack sherry; a red Burgundy, Beaune Les Greves 1971 with the partridge; Château d'Yquem for the sherbet
Entertainment: Classical harp or flute
MENU III
Timbale of mussels in white wine
Chicken loaf with roast mushrooms and Chinese man tou
Persimmons, quartered, with chocolate-coated walnuts
Wines: With the mussels, Blanc de blancs Comte de Provence Domaine Ott 1974; a red Bordeaux, Château Gruaud-Larose St.-Julien 1969 or 1971 with the chicken loaf. Serve Armanac instead of wine with the fruit and nuts.
■ FROZEN MELON SOUP (eight servings)
2 2 1/2 pound melons, seeded, peeled, cut in cubes
12 plums, seeded and peeled
2 apples, peeled, cored, cut in slices
4 scoops vanilla ice cream
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
Blend fruit to a pulp, then add ice cream and puree. Freeze in old-fashioned freezer or electric freezer machine in refrigerator. Before serving, stir in Grand Marnier.
■ SWORDFISH STAMBOUL (eight servings)
4 swordfish steaks, cut into 32 1-inch-square cubes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
Salt and pepper
Bay leaves
8 tablespoons butter, melted
Soak swordfish cubes in lemon and water 45 minutes; add salt and pepper to taste. Put 4 cubes on each skewer with bay leaf between each pair; pour 1 tablespoon butter over each skewer. Broil 6 to 8 minutes, serve.
■ SOUFFLE CARAMEL eight servings
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups milk, heated
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
5 eggs, separated
Melt sugar in a heavy skillet till light brown. Stir in slowly 1/2 cup heated milk, then cool the syrup. Sift together flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt; stir in cool syrup till mixture is smooth. Scald remaining 2 cups milk in saucepan. Stir caramel-flour mixture into scalded milk and cook, stirring over low heat till thick. Remove from heat; stir in butter and egg yolks; cool.
Whip egg whites till stiff. Fold gently into batter. Bake in 350° oven 25 minutes in buttered soufflé dish dusted with powdered sugar. Serve with rum sauce.
■ RUM SAUCE (two and one-half cups sauce)
2 egg yolks
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup heavy cream
6 tablespoons rum
Beat egg yolks with confectioners' sugar until mixture is light and fluffy. Whip cream until stiff; fold into egg mixture. Add rum and chill. Serve with hot soufflé.
