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Cakes & Ale, A Dissertation on Banquets Interspersed with Various Recipes, More or Less Original, and anecdotes, mainly veracious

<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> <h3>GASTRONOMY IN FICTION AND DRAMA</h3> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="stanza"> “Let me not burst in ignorance.” </div> ———— <div class="stanza"> “A chiel’s amang ye, taking notes.” </div> </div> <blockquote> Thomas Carlyle—Thackeray—Harrison Ainsworth—Sir Walter Scott—Miss Braddon—Marie Corelli—F. C. Philips—Blackmore—Charles Dickens—Pickwick reeking with alcohol—Brandy and oysters—Little Dorrit—Great Expectations—Micawber as a punch-maker—David Copperfield—“Practicable” food on the stage—“Johnny” Toole’s story of Tiny Tim and the goose. </blockquote> Considering the number of books which have been published during the nineteenth century, it is astonishing how few of them deal with eating and drinking. We read of a banquet or two, certainly, in the works of the divine William, but no particulars as to the cuisine are entered into. “Cold Banquo” hardly sounds appetising. Thomas Carlyle was a notorious dyspeptic, so it is no cause for wonderment that he did not bequeath to posterity the recipes for a dainty dish or two, or a good Derby Day “Cup.” Thackeray understood but little about cookery,[Pg 247] nor was Whyte Melville much better versed in the mysteries of the kitchen. Harrison Ainsworth touched lightly on gastronomy occasionally, whilst Charles Lamb, Sydney Smith, and others (blessings light on the man who invented the phrase “and others”) delighted therein. Miss Braddon has slurred it over hitherto, and Marie Corelli scorns all mention of any refreshment but absinthe—a weird liquid which is altogether absent from these pages. In the lighter novels of Mr. F. C. Philips, there is but little mention of solid food except devilled caviare, which sounds nasty; but most of Mr. Philips’s men, and all his women, drink to excess—principally champagne, brandy, and green chartreuse. And one of his heroines is a firm believer in the merits of cognac as a “settler” of champagne. According to Mr. R. D. Blackmore, the natives of Exmoor did themselves particularly well, in the seventeenth century. In that most delightful romance Lorna Doone is a description of a meal set before Tom Faggus, the celebrated highwayman, by the Ridd family, at Plover’s Barrows:— <blockquote> “A few oysters first, and then dried salmon, and then ham and eggs, done in small curled rashers, and then a few collops of venison toasted, and next a little cold roast pig, and a woodcock on toast to finish with.” </blockquote> This meal was washed down with home-brewed ale, followed by Schiedam and hot water. One man, and one man alone, who has left his name printed deep on the sands of time as a writer, thoroughly revelled in the mighty[Pg 248] subjects of eating and drinking. Need his name be mentioned? What is, after all, the great secret of the popularity of <h4>Charles Dickens</h4> as a novelist? His broad, generous views on the subject of meals, as expressed through the mouths of most of the characters in his works; as also the homely nature of such meals, and the good and great deeds to which they led. I once laid myself out to count the number of times that alcoholic refreshment is mentioned in some of the principal works of the great author; and the record, for Pickwick alone, was sufficient to sweep from the surface of the earth, with its fiery breath, the entire Blue Ribbon Army. Mr. Pickwick was what would be called nowadays a “moderate drinker.” That is to say, he seldom neglected an “excuse for a lotion,” nor did he despise the “daylight drink.” But we only read of his being overcome by his potations on two occasions; after the cricket dinner at Muggleton, and after the shooting luncheon on Captain Boldwig’s ground. And upon the latter occasion I am convinced that the hot sun had far more to do with his temporary obfuscation than the cold punch. Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen were by no means exaggerated types of the medical students of the time. The “deputy sawbones” of to-day writes pamphlets, drinks coffee, and pays his landlady every Saturday. And it was a happy touch of Dickens to make Sawyer and Allen eat oysters, and wash them down with neat brandy, before breakfast.[Pg 249] I have known medical students, aye! and full-blown surgeons too, who would commit equally daring acts; although I doubt much if they would have shone at the breakfast-table afterwards, or on the ice later in the day. For the effect exercised by brandy on oysters is pretty well known to science. Breathes there a man with soul so dead as not to appreciate the delights of Dingley Dell? Free trade and other horrors have combined to crush the British yeoman of to-day; but we none the less delight to read of him as he was, and I do not know a better cure for an attack of “blue devils”—or should it be “black dog?”—than a good dose of Dingley Dell. The wholesale manner in which Mr. Wardle takes possession of the Pickwickians—only one of whom he knows intimately—for purposes of entertainment, is especially delightful, and worthy of imitation; and I can only regret the absence of a good, cunningly-mixed “cup” at the picnic after the Chatham review. The wine drunk at this picnic would seem to have been sherry; as there was not such a glut of “the sparkling” in those good old times. And the prompt way in which “Emma” is commanded to “bring out the cherry brandy,” before his guests have been two minutes in the house, bespeaks the character of dear old Wardle in once. “The Leathern Bottle,” a charming old-world hostelry in that picturesque country lying between Rochester and Cobham, would hardly have been in existence now, let alone doing a roaring trade, but for the publication of Pickwick;[Pg 250] and the notion of the obese Tupman solacing himself for blighted hopes and taking his leave of the world on a diet of roast fowl bacon, ale, etc., is unique. The bill-of-fare at the aforementioned shooting luncheon might not, perhaps, satisfy the aspirations of Sir Mota Kerr, or some other nouveau riche of to-day, but there was plenty to eat and drink. Here is the list, in Mr. Samuel Weller’s own words: “Weal pie, tongue: a wery good thing when it ain’t a woman’s: bread, knuckle o’ ham, reg’lar picter, cold beef in slices; wery good. What’s in them stone jars, young touch-and-go?” “Beer in this one,” replied the boy, taking from his shoulder a couple of large stone bottles, fastened together by a leathern strap, “cold punch in t’other.” “And a wery good notion of a lunch it is, take it altogether,” said Mr. Weller. Possibly; though cold beef in slices would be apt to get rather dryer than was desirable on a warm day. And milk punch hardly seems the sort of tipple to encourage accuracy of aim. Mrs. Bardell’s notion of a nice little supper we gather from the same immortal work, was “a couple of sets of pettitoes and some toasted cheese.” The pettitoes were presumably simmered in milk, and the cheese was, undoubtedly, “browning away most delightfully in a little Dutch oven in front of the fire.” Most of us will smack our lips after this description; though details are lacking as to the contents of the “black bottle” which was produced from “a small closet.” But amongst students of Pickwick, “Old Tom” is a hot favourite. [Pg 251] The Deputy Shepherd’s particular “vanity” appears to have been buttered toast and reeking hot pine-apple rum and water, which sounds like swimming-in-the-head; and going straight through the book, we next pause at the description of the supper given by the medical students, at their lodgings in the Borough, to the Pickwickians. “The man to whom the order for the oysters had been sent had not been told to open them; it is a very difficult thing to open an oyster with a limp knife or a two-pronged fork; and very little was done in this way. Very little of the beef was done either; and the ham (which was from the German-sausage shop round the corner) was in a similar predicament. However, there was plenty of porter in a tin can; and the cheese went a great way, for it was very strong.” Probably the oysters had not been paid for in advance, and the man imagined that they would be returned upon his hands none the worse. For at that time—as has been remarked before, in this volume on gastronomy—the knowledge that an oyster baked in his own shells, in the middle of a clear fire, is an appetising dish, does not appear to have been universal. It is questionable if a supper consisting of a boiled leg of mutton “with the usual trimmings” would have satisfied the taste of the “gentleman’s gentleman” of to-day, who is a hypercritic, if anything; but let that supper be taken as read. Also let it be noted that the appetite of the redoubtable Pickwick never seems to have failed him, even in the sponging-house—five to one[Pg 252] can be betted that those chops were fried—or in the Fleet Prison itself. And mention of this establishment recalls the extravagant folly of Job Trotter (who of all men ought to have known better) in purchasing “a small piece of raw loin of mutton” for the refection of himself and ruined master; when for the same money he could surely have obtained a sufficiency of bullock’s cheek or liver, potatoes, and onions, to provide dinner for three days. Vide the “Kent Road Cookery,” in one of my earlier chapters. The description of the journeys from Bristol to Birmingham, and back to London, absolutely reeks with food and alcohol; and it has always smacked of the mysterious to myself how Sam Weller, a pure Cockney, could have known so much of the capacities of the various hostelries on the road. Evidently his knowledge of other places besides London was “peculiar.” Last scene of all in Pickwick requiring mention here, is the refection given to Mr. Solomon Pell in honour of the proving of the late Dame Weller’s last will and testament. “Porter, cold beef, and oysters,” were some of the incidents of that meal, and we read that “the coachman with the hoarse voice took an imperial pint of vinegar with his oysters, without betraying the least emotion.” It is also set down that brandy and water, as usual in this history, followed the oysters; but we are not told if any of those coachmen ever handled the ribbons again, or if Mr. Solomon Pell spent his declining days in the infirmary. In fact, there are not many chapters in Charles Dickens’ works in which the knife and fork do[Pg 253] not play prominent parts. The food is, for the most part, simple and homely; the seed sown in England by the fairy Ala had hardly begun to germinate at the time the novels were written. Still there is, naturally, a suspicion of Ala at the very commencement of Little Dorrit, the scene being laid in the Marseilles prison, where Monsieur Rigaud feasts off Lyons sausage, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good claret, the while his humble companion, Signor John Baptist, has to content himself with stale bread, through reverses at gambling with his fellow prisoner. After that, there is no mention of a “square meal” until we get to Mr. Casby’s, the “Patriarch.” “Everything about the patriarchal household,” we are told, “promoted quiet digestion”; and the dinner mentioned began with “some soup, some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes.” Rare old Casby! “Mutton, a steak, and an apple pie”—and presumably cheese—furnished the more solid portion of the banquet, which appears to have been washed down with porter and sherry wine, and enlivened by the inconsequent remarks of “Mr. F.’s Aunt.” In Great Expectations occurs the celebrated banquet at the Chateau Gargery on Christmas Day, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and greens, a pair of roast stuffed fowls, a handsome mince pie, and a plum-pudding. The absence of the savoury pork-pie, and the presence of tar-water in the brandy are incidents at that banquet familiar enough to Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., and other close students of Dickens,[Pg 254] whose favourite dinner-dish would appear to have been a fowl, stuffed or otherwise, roast or boiled. In Oliver Twist we get casual mention of oysters, sheep’s heads, and a rabbit pie, with plenty of alcohol; but the bill of fare, on the whole, is not an appetising one. The meat and drink at the Maypole Hotel, in Barnaby Rudge, would appear to have been deservedly popular; and the description of Gabriel Varden’s breakfast is calculated to bring water to the most callous mouth: “Over and above the ordinary tea equipage the board creaked beneath the weight of a jolly round of beef, a ham of the first magnitude, and sundry towers of buttered Yorkshire cake, piled slice upon slice in most alluring order. There was also a goodly jug of well-browned clay, fashioned into the form of an old gentleman not by any means unlike the locksmith, atop of whose bald head was a fine white froth answering to his wig, indicative, beyond dispute, of sparkling home brewed ale. But better than fair home-brewed, or Yorkshire cake, or ham, or beef, or anything to eat or drink that earth or air or water can supply, there sat, presiding over all, the locksmith’s rosy daughter, before whose dark eyes even beef grew insignificant, and malt became as nothing.” Ah-h-h! There is not much eating in A Tale of Two Cities; but an intolerable amount of assorted “sack.” In Sketches by Boz we learn that Dickens had no great opinion of public dinners, and that oysters were, at that period, occasionally opened by the fair sex. There is a nice flavour[Pg 255] of fowl and old Madeira about Dombey and Son, and the description of the dinner at Doctor Blimber’s establishment for young gentlemen is worth requoting: “There was some nice soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese.” [Cheese at a small boys’ school!] “Every young gentleman had a massive silver fork and a napkin; and all the arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular there was a butler in a blue coat and bright buttons” [surely this was a footman?] “who gave quite a winey flavour to the table beer, he poured it out so superbly.” Dinner at Mrs. Jellyby’s in Bleak House is one of the funniest and most delightful incidents in the book, especially the attendance. “The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and dropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never moved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen in pattens (who I suppose to have been the cook) frequently came and skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill-will between them.” The dinner given by Mr. Guppy at the “Slap Bang” dining house is another feature of this book—veal and ham, and French beans, summer cabbage, pots of half-and-half, marrow puddings, “three Cheshires” and “three small rums.” Of the items in this list, the marrow pudding seems to be as extinct—in London, at all events—as the dodo. It appears to be a mixture of bread, pounded almonds, cream, eggs, lemon peel, sugar, nutmeg, and marrow; and sounds nice. [Pg 256] David Copperfield’s dinner in his Buckingham Street chambers was an event with a disastrous termination. “It was a remarkable want of forethought on the part of the ironmonger who had made Mrs. Crupp’s kitchen fireplace, that it was capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes. As to a fish-kettle, Mrs. Crupp said ‘Well! would I only come and look at the range? She couldn’t say fairer than that. Would I come and look at it?’ As I should not have been much the wiser if I had looked at it I said never mind fish. But Mrs. Crupp said, ‘Don’t say that; oysters was in, and why not them?’ So that was settled. Mrs. Crupp then said ‘What she would recommend would be this. A pair of hot roast fowls—from the pastry cook’s; a dish of stewed beef, with vegetables—from the pastry cook’s; two little corner things, as a raised pie and a dish of kidneys—from the pastry cook’s; a tart, and (if I liked) a shape of jelly—from the pastry cook’s. This,’ Mrs. Crupp said, ‘would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes, and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done.’” Then blessings on thee, Micawber, most charming of characters in fiction, mightiest of punch-brewers! The only fault I have to find with the novel of David Copperfield is that we don’t get enough of Micawber. The same fault, however, could hardly be said to lie in the play; for if ever there was a “fat” part, it is Wilkins Micawber. Martin Chuzzlewit bubbles over with eating and drinking; and “Todgers” has become as[Pg 257] proverbial as Hamlet. In Nicholas Nickleby, too, we find plenty of mention of solids and liquids; and as a poor stroller myself at one time, it has always struck me that “business” could not have been so very bad, after all, in the Crummles Combination; for the manager, at all events, seems to have fared particularly well. Last on the list comes The Old Curiosity Shop, with the celebrated stew at the “Jolly Sandboys,” the ingredients in which have already been quoted by the present writer. With regard to this stew all that I have to remark is that I should have substituted an ox-kidney for the tripe, and left out the “sparrowgrass,” the flavour of which would be quite lost in the crowd of ingredients. But there! who can cavil at such a feast? “Fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don’t let nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time arrives.” Codlin may not have been “the friend”; but he was certainly the judge of the “Punch” party. In this realistic age, meals on the stage have to be provided from high-class hotels or restaurants; and this is, probably, the chief reason why there is so little eating and drinking introduced into the modern drama. Gone are the nights of the banquet of pasteboard poultry, “property” pine-apples, and gilded flagons containing nothing more sustaining than the atmosphere of coal-gas. Not much faith is placed in the comic scenes of a pantomime nowadays; or it is probable that the clown would purloin real York hams, and stuff Wall’s sausages into the pockets of his ample pants. Champagne is champagne under[Pg 258] the present regime of raised prices, raised salaries, raised everything; and it is not so long since I overheard an actor-manager chide a waiter from a fashionable restaurant, for forgetting the Soubise sauce, when he brought the cutlets. In my acting days we usually had canvas fowls, stuffed with sawdust, when we revelled on the stage; or, if business had been particularly good, the poultry was made from breakfast rolls, with pieces skewered on, to represent the limbs. And the potables—Gadzooks! What horrible concoctions have found their way down this unsuspecting throttle! Sherry was invariably represented by cold tea, which is palatable enough if home-made, under careful superintendence, but, drawn in the property-master’s den, usually tasted of glue. Ginger beer, at three-farthings for two bottles, poured into tumblers containing portions of a seidlitz-powder, always did duty for champagne; and as for port or claret—well, I quite thought I had swallowed the deadliest of poisons one night, until assured it was only the cold leavings of the stage-door-keeper’s coffee! The story of Tiny Tim who ate the goose is a pretty familiar one in stage circles. When playing Bob Cratchit, in The Christmas Carol at the Adelphi, under Mr. Benjamin Webster’s management, Mr. J. L. Toole had to carve a real goose and a “practicable” plum-pudding during the run of that piece, forty nights. And the little girl who played Tiny Tim used to finish her portions of goose and pudding with such amazing celerity that Mr. Toole became quite alarmed on her account. [Pg 259] “‘I don’t like it,’ I said,” writes dear friend “Johnny,” in his Reminiscences; “‘I can’t conceive where a poor, delicate little thing like that puts the food. Besides, although I like the children to enjoy a treat’—and how they kept on enjoying it for forty nights was a mystery, for I got into such a condition that if I dined at a friend’s house, and goose was on the table, I regarded it as a personal affront—I said, referring to Tiny Tim, ‘I don’t like greediness; and it is additionally repulsive in a refined-looking, delicate little thing like this; besides, it destroys the sentiment of the situation—and when I, as Bob, ought to feel most pathetic, I am always wondering where the goose and the pudding are, or whether anything serious in the way of a fit will happen to Tiny Tim before the audience, in consequence of her unnatural gorging!’ Mrs. Mellon laughed at me at first, but eventually we decided to watch Tiny Tim together. “We watched as well as we could, and the moment Tiny Tim was seated, and began to eat, we observed a curious shuffling movement at the stage-fireplace, and everything that I had given her, goose and potatoes, and apple-sauce disappeared behind the sham stove, the child pretending to eat as heartily as ever from the empty plate. When the performance was over, Mrs. Mellon and myself asked the little girl what became of the food she did not eat, and, after a little hesitation, she confessed that her little sister (I should mention that they were the children of one of the scene-shifters) waited[Pg 260] on the other side of the fireplace for the supplies, and then the whole family enjoyed a hearty supper every night. “Dickens was very much interested in the incident. When I had finished, he smiled a little sadly, I thought, and then, shaking me by the hand, he said, ‘Ah! you ought to have given her the whole goose.’” <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 261] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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