Whatzit: 19th Century "mottos"?

We are trying to recreate (with faux foods) a supper that was served at a New Year’s party in our historic home in Troy, NY in January of 1850. Any references to illustrations of events like this, details on how the foods were served, or illustrations of the similar flower arrangements would be much appreciated. Here is a diary account of the party:

“The supper table was elegant. A superb pyramid of natural flowers occupied the center of the table – mostly japonicas.* Everything was superb and costly on the table… Libby & myself went in the side room after looking at the supper table & eat our supper there. We had a bottle of Champagne – game and oysters there – a fine time.”

(*We have the bill for these flowers – they were furnished by a grower with extensive greenhouses, and cost $20)

Here is the list of items from the catering bills:
<snip>
2 pair roast grouse***,
4 # satin ribbon mottos****
1 # French mottos coronets (?)
1 # French mottos victorias (?)
<snip>

*** Would these have been served whole or carved?

**** What were “mottos”? How would they have been used?

We are trying to recreate (with faux foods) a supper that was served at a New Year’s party in our historic home in Troy, NY in January of 1850. Any references to illustrations of events like this, details on how the foods were served, or illustrations of the similar flower arrangements would be much appreciated. Here is a diary account of the party:

“The supper table was elegant. A superb pyramid of natural flowers occupied the center of the table – mostly japonicas. Everything was superb and costly on the table… Libby & myself went in the side room after looking at the supper table & eat our supper there. We had a bottle of Champagne – game and oysters there – a fine time.”

Here is the list of items from the catering bills:

300 0ysters

1 basket champagne,

4 dolphins of ice cream,

2 forms strawberry ice,

2 quart forms Rum Jelly,

1 quart form Jellee de Russe,

2 quart forms wine jelly,

2 baskets meringues

2 charlotte russes

2 nugat vases

2 gallons champagne punch,

2 pair roast grouse

1200 stewed oysters,

2 doz quails, larded

8 roast partridges, larded

4 # satin ribbon mottos

1 # French mottos coronets (?)

1 # French mottos victorias (?)

2 # Crystalized fruit

2 # Crystalized candies

6 # assorted cakes and meringues

8 dishes sandwiches,

4 large dishes chicken salads,

100 fancy fruit ices,

2 dozen French flower mottos

1 bottle plums preserves

as well as services: making lemonade etc, stewing oysters etc, one half express team etc

{dag}4. U.S. A sweet wrapped in fancy paper together with a saying or short piece of verse. See also motto candy n., motto kiss n. at Compounds 2. Cf. COCKLE n.2 4. Obs.
1835 Southern Lit. Messenger 1 358, I only ate..a few macaronies and mottoes. 1856 F. S. COZZENS Sparrowgrass Papers iv. 42 And that lady..went home with her pocket well stuffed with mottoes. 1860 North-West (Port Townsend, Washington) 5 July 3/3 Candies, Gum drops, Mottoes.

The Food Timeline wrote:Conversation hearts
Converation Hearts, as we Americans know them today, descended from British Conversation Lozenges and Motto Rocks. These have been popular confections from the mid-19th century forwards. In older times words were sometimes imprinted by molds or inserted (paper) into the confection. About Conversation Hearts (c. 1902).

"Kissing comfits , as detailed by Robert May in 1685, were sugar paste containg musk, civet, ambergris, and orris powder. These were printed in moulds or rolled into little pellets and then squeezed flat with a seal...The combination of sugar and mottoes continued, Hannah Glasse gave instructions 'to make little things of sugar, with devices in them. These were made from the pieces of sugar paste, tinted whatever colour was preferred, 'in what shapes you like...in the middle of them have little pieces of paper, with some pretty smart sentences wrote on them; they will in company make much mirth.' But the writing migrated from paper to the sweet itself with the Victorian fashion for 'conversation lozenges'. Those who were tongue-tied could always offer their companion a little piece of sugar paste printed with some suitable inscription. 'How do you flirt?' "Can you polka?' and 'Love me' were amongst those available from Terry's in York; for those wanting to make a really positive response, a large medallion moulded with a heart and the words 'I will' was available. Another novelty was reminiscent of Hannah Glasse's little things with devices in them. As advertised by the firm of Thomas Handisyde in the East End of London, these were 'Handisydes Secret Charms suck carefully and the secret message will appear'. Handisyde produced various shapes and sizes of conversation lozenges, the larger ones cut in hearts, circles, and elegant oblongs with ogee edges. The temperance movement used the idea of motto lozenges to promote their message. 'Drink is the ruin of man'...The inscriptions were added to the sweets by printing the tops with stamps dipped in dyes."
---Sugar Plums and Sherbet: The Preshistory of Sweets, Laura Mason [Prospect Books:Devon] 2004 (p. 146-147)

The Food Timeline wrote:Wrappers, although treated as so much waste paper, account for much of the colour perceived in confectionery by the modern observer. This is a phenonemnon of the last hundred years. Before, a scrap of paper wrapped round a sugar stick or twisted into a cone (the origin of the triangular paper bag) was the most one could expect when buying sweets in the street. These wrappers were themselves waste paper. Henry Mayhew recorded how one street-seller of sweet stuff bought paper from stationers or secondhand book shops, including the Acts of Parliament, 'a pile of these a foot or more deep, lay on the shelf. They are used to wrap rock &c. sold.' Smarter confectioners used paper wrappers with cut or fringed ends twisted around sweets. A French custom of making these up as packets of bonbons for presents at New Year is metioned by Jarrin. The London confectionery Tom Smith is said to have commercialized the idea in Britain. His bonbons consisted of several sweets wrapped together in tissue paper, with mottoes enclosed. They were first introduced as a Christmas novelty in the late 1840s. Shortly afterwards, Smith added a 'bang', evolving the modern Christmas Cracker. The theory is that the idea was provided by a spark leaping out of the fire one night. However, exploding 'cracker bonbons' were apparently known some years earlier."