Estate & family history
Faux food looks good enough to eat!
Posted 2/28/19
Updated 7/22/26
Please enjoy this archived content from A Vanderbilt House Party – The Gilded Age exhibition, which ended in 2019.
With all the glamorous details for A Vanderbilt House Party – The Gilded Age, including clothing reproduced from the Vanderbilt family’s photos and portraits, the stunning array of crystal and china place settings on the Banquet Hall table, and a new custom Audio Guided Tour, you may have overlooked one of the most fascinating aspects of the exhibition: the food!
A Vanderbilt House Party – The Gilded Age
“In keeping with the house party theme, we wanted the foods we featured to be visually interesting and representative of a “typical” dinner at Biltmore. We also wanted to showcase some of the Vanderbilts’ favorite foods, and some that are unfamiliar to most of our palates today,” said Lauren Henry, Associate Curator.
“We chose the dinner menu from November 12, 1904, because we have a detailed record of what was served on that date from the archival 1904 Menu Book, kept by Biltmore cook Esther Anderson.”
Too pretty to eat
Lauren discovered New Jersey artist Sandy Levins who researches, designs, and creates historic faux foods and room settings for museums and exhibitions. She crafts beautiful reproductions of everything edible from spices to smoked sausages using materials such as Crayola Model Magic, papier maché, plaster, antique molds, and non-toxic acrylic paints.
“Sandy’s work is not only unbelievably realistic,” noted Lauren, “but it’s also designed to be museum-safe so that it doesn’t release any harsh chemicals that might damage our collection. Each piece is a true work of art on many levels.”
To create the replica of a roast turkey—one of George Vanderbilt’s favorite dishes—Sandy Levins applied a silicone mold over a real turkey, then filled the mold with plaster. The beautifully detailed faux turkey was then painted to complete its appetizing appearance.
Among the dishes Sandy created for A Vanderbilt House Party is a white fish mousse that she cast in a fish-shaped copper mold, very similar to the way the real item would have been prepared during the Vanderbilt era. The mousse is displayed with star-shaped crackers and very realistic lobster claw garnishes.
“We’ve staged it in the dumbwaiter,” said Lauren, “as if was ready to go upstairs to the Banquet Hall table.”
Full-course menu
Because Lauren wanted to show some of the dinner courses in different stages of completion, the Main Kitchen featured a raw beef tongue on a butcher’s block.
“While the beef tongue would have been cooked before it was served, Sandy did a spectacular job on the raw version and that helps us show how much work went into a grand dinner party,” said Lauren. “Everything had to be made from scratch, and much of the food served at Biltmore during the Vanderbilt era came from farms on the estate—a tradition we continue today in our restaurants and through our Biltmore® Grown products.”
Another delicacy of that day and time was braised calves’ brains served on toast rounds; you’d also find that dish in the Main Kitchen during A Vanderbilt House Party.
Faux food favorites
According to Lauren, other faux food highlights include a stunning Bavarian cream Charlotte Russe dessert in the Pastry Kitchen and two 20-pound roast turkeys.
“The turkey in the Rotisserie Kitchen was missing a leg,” notes Lauren. “You found out that the culprit was one of the housekeeper’s dogs by listening to the exhibition audio tour!”
