Chafing dishes are wonderfully simple bits of kit. Given that it’s one of the oldest forms of cookery, it’s not a surprise that they’re basic. It’s a container to hold a hot flame, a water bath to keep the food from burning and a dish for cooking and/or keeping food hot.
If you’re using a modern chafing dish the only real things to know are that you will want to assemble the dish with the heat source un-lit in place, pour hot water in the bath first, then place the food on. Next, you should light the flame in place. Never move Sterno or an alcohol burner when lit. Always use long fireplace matches or long butane lighters. That’s it.
Here is a series of photographs from The Lady’s Realm, 1906 showing you the right way to use your chafing dish. She looks thrilled, doesn’t she?
So what should my Chafing Dish meal look like?
“The table for an ordinary Chafing-Dish meal, whether luncheon, dinner or supper, such as might be cooked after a diligent study of the foregoing chapters, should be arranged as simply as possible. One end bears the Chafing Dish on its own little tray and cloth. The remaining three-quarters of the table may be laid for a smallish party, and, by all the canons of good taste, avoid decorating it with tulle or nun’s veiling, or chiffon, or whatever silly, flimsy, puffy stuff is called. You might as well put ostrich feathers and bombazine in the middle of the table. good simple glass and china, the older the better, as a rule, because the forms are more beautiful; and I see no need for uniformity in either service, so long as each individual piece is beautiful in itself. Pewter plates retain the heat splendidly, and some of the old ones are excellent in design. Wooden platters are affected by some people for meats, and I confess that the red juice of the meat on the well-scrubbed surface is very pleasing. Keep the centre ornament very low, so that one can see and talk across it. A big dish of almost any old blue and white ware, with a very few flowers, but each bloom perfect in itself, is my own ideal. Nothing is more trying than to talk to your opposite neighbor across a small table, through a mass of highly packed towering flowers, or a jungle of dense fern. It is not beautiful, but just annoying”
The Cult of the Chafing Dish by Frank Schlesser, (1904)
Now, I still think Frank needs a chill pill, but mostly I agree with the keeping it simple, and with letting people see each other over the flowers. And to be honest, I love how bitchy he gets. Like the afternoon tea, I think the charm of a chafing dish meals had to do with the lack of fuss and the simplicity associated with the food that is cooked in it. Keeping in that spirit seems to jibe with our own age. Chafing dishes are one of the rare old-timey traditions I’d like to see make a come back. Plus, as my husband learned last winter, it’s a good way to make dinner when the power goes out!
Next time, I hope to recreate a few of my favorite chafing dish recipes. I hope you’re well and happy and I’m sending you much love, Cheri
