————
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.
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, 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:—
“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.”
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 subjects of eating and drinking. Need his name be mentioned? What is, after all, the great secret of the popularity of
Charles Dickens
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. 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; 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.
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 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 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, 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 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.
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 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 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.
“‘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 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.’”
CHAPTER XXII
RESTORATIVES
And with some antibilious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the soul.”
William of Normandy—A “head” wind at sea—Beware the druggist—Pick-me-ups of all sorts and conditions—Anchovy toast for the invalid—A small bottle—Straight talks to fanatics—Total abstinence as bad as the other thing—Moderation in all things—Wisely and slow—Carpe diem—But have a thought for the morrow.
“I care not,” observed William of Normandy to his quartermaster-general, on the morning after the revelry which followed the Battle of Hastings, “who makes these barbarians’ wines; send me the man who can remove the beehive from my o’erwrought brain.”
This remark is not to be found in Macaulay’s History of England; but learned authorities who have read the original MS. in Early Norman, make no doubt as to the correct translation.
“It is excellent,” as the poet says, “to have a giant’s thirst; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.” And not only “tyrannous” but short-sighted. For the law of compensation is one of the first edicts of Nature. The same beneficent hand which provides the simple fruits of the earth for the delectation of man, furnishes also the slug and the wasp, to see that he doesn’t get too much. Our friend the dog is deprived of the power of articulation, but he has a tail which can be wagged at the speed of 600 revolutions to the minute. And the man who overtaxes the powers of his inner mechanism during the hours of darkness is certain to feel the effects, to be smitten of conscience, and troubled of brain, when he awakes, a few hours later on. As this is not a medical treatise it would be out of place to analyse at length the abominable habit which the human brain and stomach have acquired, of acting and reacting on each other; suffice it to say that there is no surer sign of the weakness and helplessness of poor, frail, sinful, fallen humanity than the obstinacy with which so many of us will, for the sake of an hour or two’s revelry, boldly bid for five times the amount of misery and remorse. And this more especially applies to a life on the ocean wave. The midshipmite who over-estimates his swallowing capacity is no longer “mast-headed” next morning; but the writer has experienced a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, ere the effects of a birthday party on the previous night had been surmounted; and the effects of “mast-heading” could hardly have been less desirable. In that most delightful work for the young, Dana’s Two years before the Mast, we read:
“Our forecastle, as usual after a liberty-day, was a scene of tumult all night long, from the drunken ones. They had just got to sleep toward morning, when they were turned up with the rest, and kept at work all day in the water, carrying hides, their heads aching so that they could hardly stand. This is sailors’ pleasure.”
Dana himself was ordered up aloft, to reef “torpsles,” on his first morning at sea; and he had probably had some sort of a farewell carouse, ’ere quitting Boston. And the present writer upon one occasion—such is the irony of fate—was told off to indite a leading article on “Temperance” for an evening journal, within a very few hours of the termination of a “Derby” banquet.
But how shall we alleviate the pangs? How make that dreadful “day after” endurable enough to cause us to offer up thanks for being still allowed to live? Come, the panacea, good doctor!
First of all, then, avoid the chemist and his works. I mean no disrespect to my good friend Sainsbury, or his “Number One Pick-me-up,” whose corpse-reviving claims are indisputable; but at the same time the habitual swallower of drugs does not lead the happiest life. I once knew a young subaltern who had an account presented to him by the cashier of the firm of Peake and Allen, of the great continent of India, for nearly 300 rupees; and the items in said account were entirely chloric ether, extract of cardamoms—with the other component parts of a high-class restorative, and interest. Saddening! The next thing to avoid, the first thing in the morning, is soda-water, whether diluted with brandy or whisky. The “peg” may be all very well as an occasional potation, but, believe one who has tried most compounds, ’tis a precious poor “livener.” On the contrary, although a beaker of the straw-coloured (or occasionally, mahogany-coloured) fluid may seem to steady the nerves for the time being, that effect is by no means lasting.
But the same panacea will not do in every case. If the patient be sufficiently convalescent to digest a
Doctor
(I do not mean a M.R.C.S.) his state must be far from hopeless. A “Doctor” is a mixture of beaten raw egg—not forgetting the white, which is of even more value than the yolk to the invalid—brandy, a little sifted sugar, and new milk. But many devotees of Bacchus could as soon swallow rum-and-oysters, in bed. And do not let us blame Bacchus unduly for the matutinal trouble. The fairy Ala has probably had a lot to do with that trouble. A “Doctor” can be made with sherry or whisky, instead of brandy; and many stockbrokers’ clerks, sporting journalists, and other millionaires prefer a
Surgeon-Major,
who appears in the form of a large tumbler containing a couple of eggs beaten, and filled to the brim with the wine of the champagne district.
A Scorcher
is made with the juice of half a lemon squeezed into a large wine-glass; add a liqueur-glassful of old brandy, or Hollands, and a dust of cayenne. Mix well, and do not allow any lemon-pips to remain in the glass.
Prairie Oyster.
This is an American importation. There is a legend to the effect that one of a hunting party fell sick unto death, on the boundless prairie of Texas, and clamoured for oysters. Now the close and cautious bivalve no more thrives in a blue grass country than he possesses the ability to walk up stairs, or make a starting-price book. So one of the party, an inventive genius, cudgelled his brains for a substitute. He found some prairie hen’s eggs, and administered the unbroken yolks thereof, one at a time, in a wine-glass containing a teaspoonful of vinegar. He shook the pepper-castor over the yolks and added a pinch of salt. The patient recovered. The march of science has improved on this recipe. Instead of despoiling the prairie hen, the epicure now looks to Madame Gobble for a turkey egg. And a
Worcester Oyster
is turned out ready made, by simply substituting a teaspoonful of Lea and Perrins’ most excellent sauce for vinegar.
Brazil Relish.
This is, I am assured, a much-admired restorative in Brazil, and the regions bordering on the River Plate. It does not sound exactly the sort of stimulant to take after a “bump supper,” or a “Kaffir” entertainment, but here it is: Into a wine-glass half full of curaçoa pop the unbroken yolk of a bantam’s egg. Fill the glass up with maraschino. According to my notion, a good cup of hot, strong tea would be equally effectual, as an emetic, and withal cheaper. But they certainly take the mixture as a pick-me-up in Brazil.
Port-flip
is a favourite stimulant with our American cousins. Beat up an egg in a tumbler—if you have no metal vessels to shake it in, the shortest way is to put a clean white card, or a saucer, over the mouth of the tumbler, and shake—then add a little sugar, a glass of port, and some pounded ice. Strain before drinking. Leaving out the ice and the straining, this is exactly the same “refresher” which the friends of a criminal, who had served his term of incarceration in one of H.M. gaols, were in the habit of providing for him; and when the Cold Bath Fields Prison was a going concern, there was a small hostelry hard by, in which, on a Monday morning, the consumption of port wine (fruity) and eggs (“shop ’uns,” every one) was considerable. This on the word of an ex-warder, who subsequently became a stage-door keeper.
One of the most unsatisfactory effects of good living is that the demon invoked over-night does not always assume the same shape in your waking hours. Many sufferers will feel a loathing for any sort of food or drink, except cold water. “The capting,” observed the soldier-servant to a visitor (this is an old story), “ain’t very well this morning, sir; he’ve just drunk his bath, and gone to bed again.” And on the other hand, I have known the over-indulger absolutely ravenous for his breakfast. “Brandy and soda, no, dear old chappie; as many eggs as they can poach in five minutes, a thick rasher of York ham, two muffins, and about a gallon and a half of hot coffee—that’s what I feel like.” Medical men will be able to explain those symptoms in the roysterer, who had probably eaten and drunk quite as much over-night as the “capting.” For the roysterer with a shy appetite there are few things more valuable than an
Anchovy Toast.
The concoction of this belongs to bedroom cookery, unless the sitting-room adjoins the sleeping apartment. For the patient will probably be too faint of heart to wish to meet his fellow-men and women downstairs, so early. The mixture must be made over hot water. Nearly fill a slop-basin with the boiling element, and place a soup-plate over it. In the plate melt a pat of butter the size of a walnut. Then having beaten up a raw egg, stir it in. When thoroughly incorporated with the butter add a dessert-spoonful of essence of anchovies. Cayenne ad lib. Then let delicately-browned crisp toast be brought, hot from the fire. Soak this in the mixture, and eat as quickly as you can. The above proportions must be increased if more than one patient clamours for anchovy toast; and this recipe is of no use for a dinner, or luncheon toast; remember that. After the meal is finished turn in between the sheets again for an hour; then order a “Doctor,” or a “Surgeon-Major” to be brought to the bedside. In another twenty minutes the patient will be ready for his tub (with the chill off, if he be past thirty, and has any wisdom, or liver, left within him). After dressing, if he live in London and there be any trace of brain-rack remaining, let him take a brisk walk to his hair-dresser’s, having his boots cleaned en route. This is most important, whether they be clean or dirty; for the action of a pair of briskly-directed brushes over the feet will often remove the most distressing of headaches. Arrived at the perruquier’s, let the patient direct him to rub eau de Cologne, or some other perfumed spirit, into the o’er-taxed cranium, and to squirt assorted essences over the distorted countenance. A good hard brush, and a dab of bay rum on the temples will complete the cure; the roysterer will then be ready to face his employer, or the maiden aunt from whom he may have expectations.
If the flavour of the anchovy be disagreeable, let the patient try the following toast, which is similar to that used with wildfowl: Melt a pat of butter over hot water, stir in a dessert-spoonful of Worcester sauce, the same quantity of orange juice, a pinch of cayenne, and about half a wine-glassful of old port. Soak the toast in this mixture. The virtues of old port as a restorative cannot be too widely known.
St. Mark’s Pick-me-up.
The following recipe was given to the writer by a member of an old Venetian family.
Ten drops of Angostura in a liqueur-glass, filled up with orange bitters. One wine-glassful of old brandy, one ditto cold water, one liqueur-glassful of curaçoa, and the juice of half a lemon. Mix well together. I have not yet tried this, which reads rather acid.
For an
Overtrained
athlete, who may not take kindly to his rations, there is no better cure than the lean of an underdone chop (not blue inside) hot from the fire, on a hot plate, with a glass of port poured over. A
Hot-pickle Sandwich
should be made of two thin slices of crisp toast (no butter) with chopped West Indian pickles in between. And for a
Devilled Biscuit
select the plain cheese biscuit, heat in the oven, and then spread over it a paste composed of finely-pounded lobster worked up with butter, made mustard, ground ginger, cayenne, salt, chili vinegar, and (if liked) a little curry powder. Reheat the biscuit for a minute or two, and then deal with it. Both the last-named restoratives will be found valuable (?) liver tonics; and to save future worry the patient had better calculate, at the same time, the amount of Estate Duty which will have to be paid out of his personalty, and secure a nice dry corner, out of the draught, for his place of sepulture. A
Working-Man’s Livener,
(and by “working-man” the gentleman whose work consists principally in debating in taverns is intended) is usually a hair of the dog that bit him over-night; and in some instances where doubt may exist as to the particular “tufter” of the pack which found the working-man out, the livener will be a miscellaneous one. For solid food, this brand of labourer will usually select an uncooked red-herring, which he will divide into swallow-portions with his clasp-knife, after borrowing the pepper-castor from the tavern counter. And as new rum mixed with four-penny ale occasionally enters into the over-night’s programme of the horny-handed one, he is frequently very thirsty indeed before the hour of noon.
I have seen a journalist suck half a lemon, previously well besprinkled with cayenne, prior to commencing his matutinal “scratch.” But rum and milk form, I believe, the favourite livener throughout the district which lies between the Adelphi Theatre and St. Paul’s Cathedral. And, according to Doctor Edward Smith (the chief English authority on dietetics), rum and milk form the most powerful restorative known to science. With all due respect to Doctor Smith I am prepared to back another restorative, commonly known as “a small bottle”; which means a pint of champagne. I have prescribed this many a time, and seldom known it fail. In case of partial failure repeat the dose. A valuable if seldom-employed restorative is made with
Bovril
as one of the ingredients. Make half-a-pint of beef-tea in a tumbler with this extract. Put the tumbler in a refrigerator for an hour, then add a liqueur-glassful of old brandy, with just a dust of cayenne. This is one of the very best pick-me-ups known to the faculty. A
Swizzle,
for recuperative purposes is made with the following ingredients:—a wine-glassful of Hollands, a liqueur-glassful of curaçoa, three drops of Angostura bitters, a little sugar, and half a small bottle of seltzer-water. Churn up the mixture with a swizzle-stick, which can be easily made with the assistance of a short length of cane (the ordinary school-treat brand) a piece of cork, a bit of string, and a pocket knife.
A very extraordinary pick-me-up is mentioned by Mr. F. C. Philips, in one of his novels, and consists of equal parts of brandy and chili vinegar in a large wine-glass. Such a mixture would, in all probability, corrode sheet-iron. I am afraid that writers of romance occasionally borrow a little from imagination.
The most effectual restorative for the total abstainer is unquestionably, old brandy. It should be remembered that a rich, heavy dinner is not bound to digest within the human frame, if washed down with tea, or aerated beverages. In fact, from the personal appearances of many worthy teetotallers I have known digestion cannot be their strong suit. Then many abstainers only abstain in public, for the sake of example. And within the locked cupboard of the study lurks a certain black bottle, which does not contain Kopps’s ale. Therefore I repeat that the most effectual restorative for the total abstainer—whether as a direct change, or as a hair of the dog—is brandy.
Our ancestors cooled their coppers with small ale, and enjoyed a subsequent sluice at the pump in the yard; these methods are still pursued by stable-helpers and such like. A good walk acts beneficially sometimes. Eat or drink nothing at all, but try and do five miles along the turnpike road within the hour. Many habitual roysterers hunt the next morning, with heads opening and shutting alternately, until the fox breaks covert, when misery of all sorts at once takes to itself wings. And I have heard a gallant warrior, whilst engaged in a Polo match on York Knavesmire, protest that he could distinctly see two Polo balls. But he was not in such bad case as the eminent jockey who declined to ride a horse in a hood and blinkers, because “one of us must see, and I’m hanged if I can!” It was the same jockey who, upon being remonstrated with for taking up his whip at the final bend, when his horse was winning easily, replied: “whip be blowed! it was my balance pole: I should have fell off without it!”
Straight Talks.
In the lowest depth there is a lower depth, which not only threatens to devour, but which will infallibly devour the too-persistent roysterer. For such I labour not. The seer of visions, the would-be strangler of serpents, the baffled rat-hunter, and other victims to the over-estimation of human capacity will get no assistance, beyond infinite pity, from the mind which guides this pen. The dog will return to his own vomit; the wilful abuser of the goods sent by a bountiful Providence is past praying for. But to others who are on the point of crossing the Rubicon of good discretion I would urge that there will assuredly come a time when the pick-me-up will lose its virtue, and will fail to chase the sorrow from the brow, to minister to the diseased mind. Throughout this book I have endeavoured to preach the doctrine of moderation in enjoyment. Meat and drink are, like fire, very good servants, but the most oppressive and exacting of slave-drivers. Therefore enjoy the sweets of life, whilst ye can; but as civilised beings, as gentlemen, and not as swine. For here is a motto which applies to eating and drinking even more than to other privileges which we enjoy: