Country-house life—An Englishwoman at her best—Guests’ comforts—What to eat at the first meal—A few choice recipes—A noble grill-sauce—The poor outcast—Appetising dishes—Hotel “worries”—The old regime and the new—“No cheques”; no soles, and “whitings is hoff”—A halibut steak—Skilly and oakum—Breakfast out of the rates.
By far the pleasantest meal of the day at a large country-house is breakfast. You will be staying there, most likely, an you be a man, for hunting or shooting—it being one of the eccentric dispensations of the great goddess Fashion that country-houses should be guestless, and often ownerless, during that season of the year when nature looks at her loveliest. An you be a woman, you will be staying there for the especial benefit of your daughter; for flirting—or for the more serious purpose of riveting the fetters of the fervid youth who may have been taken captive during the London season—for romping, and probably shooting and hunting, too; for lovely woman up-to-date takes but little account of such frivolities as Berlin wool-work, piano-practice, or drives, well wrapped-up, in a close carriage, to pay calls with her hostess. As for going out with the “guns,” or meeting the sterner sex at luncheon in the keeper’s cottage, or the specially-erected pavilion, the darlings are not content, nowadays, unless they can use dapper little breech-loaders, specially made for them, and some of them are far from bad shots.
Yes, ’tis a pleasant function, breakfast at the Castle, the Park, or the Grange. But, as observed in the last chapter, there must be no undue punctuality, no black looks at late arrivals, no sarcastic allusions to late hours, nor inane chaff from the other guests about the wine cup or the whisky cup, which may have been drained in the smoking-room, during the small hours.
Her ladyship looks divine, or at all events regal, as she presides at what our American cousins would call the “business end” of the long table, whilst our host, a healthy, jolly-looking, “hard-bitten” man of fifty, faces her. His bright keen eye denotes the sportsman, and he can shoot as straight as ever, whilst no fence is too high, too wide, nor too deep for him. Sprinkled about, at either side of the table, amongst the red and black coats, or shooting jackets of varied hues—with a vacancy here and there, for “Algie” and “Bill,” and the “Angel,” who have not yet put in appearance—are smart, fresh-looking women, young, and “well-preserved,” and matronly, some in tailor-made frocks, and some in the silks and velvets suited for those of riper age, and some in exquisitely-fitting habits. It is at the breakfast-table that the Englishwoman can defy all foreign competition; and you are inclined to frown, or even say things under your breath, when that mincing, wicked-looking little Marquise, all frills, and ribbons, and lace, and smiles, and Ess Bouquet, in the latest creation of the first man-milliner of Paris, trips into the room in slippers two sizes too small for her, and salutes the company at large in broken English. For the contrast is somewhat trying, and you wonder why on earth some women will smother themselves with scents and cosmetiques, and raddle their cheeks and wear diamonds so early in the morning; and you lose all sense of the undoubted fascination of the Marquise in speculating as to what manner of “strong woman” her femme de chambre must be who can compress a 22-inch waist into an 18-inch corset.
There should, of course, be separate tea and coffee equipments for most of the guests—at all events for the sluggards. The massive silver urn certainly lends a tone to the breakfast-table, and looks “comfortable-like.” But it would be criminally cruel to satisfy the thirst of the multitude out of the same tea-pot or coffee-pot; and the sluggard will not love his hostess if she pours forth “husband’s tea,” merely because he is a sluggard. And remember that the hand which has held two by honours, or a “straight flush” the night before, is occasionally too shaky to pass tea-cups. No. Do not spare your servants, my lord, or my lady. Your guests must be “well done,” or they will miss your “rocketing” pheasants, or fail to go fast enough at that brook with the rotten banks.
“The English,” said an eminent alien, “have only one sauce.” This is a scandalous libel; but as it was said a long time ago it doesn’t matter. It would be much truer to say that the English have only one breakfast-dish, and its name is
Eggs and Bacon.
Pardon, I should have written two; and the second is ham and eggs. A new-laid egg—poached, not fried, an ye love me, O Betsy, best of cooks—and a rasher of home-cured hog are both excellent things in their way; but, like a partridge, a mother-in-law, and a baby, it is quite possible to have too much of them. The English hostess—I do not refer to the typical “her ladyship,” of whom I have written above, but to the average hostess—certainly launches out occasionally in the direction of assorted fish, kidneys, sausages, and chops, but the staple food upon which we are asked to break our fast is, undoubtedly, eggs and bacon.
The great question of what to eat at the first meal depends greatly upon whether you sit down to it directly you emerge from your bedroom, or whether you have indulged in any sort of exercise in the interim. After two or three hours “amateur touting” on such a place as Newmarket Heath, the sportsman is ready for any sort of food, from a dish of liver and bacon to a good, thick fat chop, or an underdone steak. I have even attacked cold stewed eels (!) upon an occasion when the pangs of hunger would have justified my eating the tom-cat, and the landlady as well. But chops and steaks are not to be commended to furnish forth the ordinary breakfast-table. I am coming to the hotel breakfast presently, so will say nothing about fried fish just yet. But here follows a list of a few of what may be called
Allowable Breakfast Dishes
Mushrooms (done plainly in front of the fire), sausages (toasted), scrambled eggs on toast, curried eggs, fish balls, kidneys, savoury omelette. Porridge may be useful for growing boys and briefless barristers, but this chapter is not written solely in their interests. Above all, do not, oh! do not, forget the grill, or broil. This should be the feature of the breakfast. Such simple recipes as those for the manufacture of fish balls or omelettes or curried eggs—though I shall have plenty to say about curries later on—need not be given here; but the following, for a grill-sauce, will be found invaluable, especially for the “sluggard.”
Gubbins Sauce
The legs and wings of fowl, turkey, pheasant, partridge, or moor-hen should only be used. Have these scored across with a sharp knife, and divided at the joints. And when your grill is taken, “hot as hot,” but not burnt, from the fire, have poured over it the following sauce. Be very particular that your cook pours it over the grill just before it is served up. And it is of the most vital importance that the sauce should be made, and well mixed, on a plate over hot water—for instance, a slop-basin should be filled with boiling water and a plate placed atop.
Melt on the plate a lump of butter the size of a large walnut. Stir into it, when melted, two teaspoonfuls of made mustard, then a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, half that quantity of tarragon vinegar, and a tablespoonful of cream—Devonshire or English. Season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne, according to the (presumed) tastes and requirements of the breakfasters.
Let your sideboard—it is assumed that you have a sideboard—sigh and lament its hard lot, under its load of cold joints, game, and pies,—I am still harping on the country-house; and if you have a York ham in cut, it should be flanked by a Westphalian ditto. For the blend is a good one. And remember that no York ham under 20 lb. in weight is worth cutting. You need not put it all on the board at once. A capital adjunct to the breakfast-table, too, is a reindeer’s tongue, which, as you see it hung up in the shops, looks more like a policeman’s truncheon in active employment than anything else; but when well soaked and then properly treated in the boiling, is very tasty, and will melt like marrow in the mouth.
A simple, excellent August breakfast can be made from a dish of freshly-caught trout, the legs and back of a cold grouse, which has been roasted, not baked, and
A Large Peach.
But what of the wretched bachelor, as he enters his one sitting-room, in his humble lodging? He may have heard the chimes at midnight, in some gay and festive quarter, or, like some other wretched bachelors, he may have been engaged in the composition of romances for some exacting editor, until the smallish hours. Poor outcast! what sort of appetite will he have for the rusty rasher, or the shop egg, the smoked haddock, or the “Billingsgate pheasant,” which his landlady will presently send up, together with her little account, for his refection? Well, here is a much more tasty dish than any of the above; and if he be “square” with Mrs. Bangham, that lady will possibly not object to her “gal” cooking the different ingredients before she starts at the wash-tub. But let not the wretched bachelor suffer the “gal” to mix them.
I first met this dish in Calcutta during the two months of (alleged) cold weather which prevail during the year.
Calcutta Jumble.
A few fried fillets of white fish (sole, or plaice—sole for choice), placed on the top of some boiled rice, in a soup plate. Pour over them the yolks of two boiled eggs, and mix in one green chili, chopped fine. Salt to taste.
“Another way:”
Mix with the rice the following ingredients:—
The yolks of two raw eggs, one tablespoonful anchovy sauce, one small teaspoonful curry powder (raw), a sprinkling of cayenne, a little salt, and one green chili chopped fine. Each ingredient to be[Pg 17] added separately, and the eggs and curry powder to be stirred into the rice with a fork. Fillets of sole to be served atop.
How many cooks in this England of ours can cook rice properly? Without pausing for a reply, I append the recipe, which should be pasted on the wall of every kitchen. The many cookery books which I have read give elaborate directions for the performance, of what is a very simple duty. Here it is, in a few lines—
To cook Rice for Curry, etc.
Soak a sufficiency of rice in cold water for two hours. Strain through a sieve, and pop the rice into boiling water. Let it boil—“gallop” is, I believe, the word used in most kitchens—for not quite ten minutes (or until the rice is tender), then strain off the water through a sieve, and dash a little cold water over the rice, to separate the grains.
Here is another most appetising breakfast dish for the springtime—
Asparagus with Eggs.
Cut up two dozen (or so) heads of cooked asparagus into small pieces, and mix in a stewpan with the well-beaten yolks of two raw eggs. Flavour with pepper and salt, and stir freely. Add a piece of butter the size of a walnut (one of these should be kept in every kitchen as a pattern), and keep on stirring for a couple of minutes or so. Serve on delicately-toasted bread.
An Hotel Breakfast.
What memories do these words conjure up of a snug coffee-room, hung with hunting prints, and portraits of Derby winners, and churches, and well-hung game; with its oak panellings, easy arm-chairs, blazing fire, snowy naperies, and bright silver. The cheery host, with well-lined paunch, and fat, wheezy voice, which wishes you good-morning, and hopes you have passed a comfortable night between the lavender-scented sheets. The fatherly interest which “William,” the grey-headed waiter, takes in you—stranger or habitué—and the more than fatherly interest which you take in the good cheer, from home-made “sassingers” to new-laid eggs, and heather honey, not forgetting a slice out of the mammoth York ham, beneath whose weight the old sideboard absolutely grunts.
Heigho! we, or they, have changed all that. The poet who found his “warmest welcome in an inn” was, naturally enough, writing of his own time. I don’t like fault-finding, but must needs declare that the “warmest” part of an inn welcome to be found nowadays is the bill. As long as you pay it (or have plenty of luggage to leave behind in default), and make yourself agreeable to the fair and haughty bookkeeper (if it’s a “she”) who allots you your bedroom, and bullies the page-boy, nobody in the modern inn cares particularly what becomes of you. You lose your individuality, and become “Number 325.” Instead of welcome, distrust lurks, large, on the very threshold.
“No Cheques Accepted”
is frequently the first announcement to catch the eye of the incoming guest; and although you cannot help admiring the marble pillars, the oak carving, the gilding, the mirrors, and the electric light, an uncomfortable feeling comes over you at meal times, to the effect that the cost of the decorations, or much of it, is taken out of the food.
“Waiter,” you ask, as soon as your eyes and ears get accustomed to the incessant bustle of the coffee-room, and your nostrils to the savour of last night’s soup, “what can I have for breakfast?”
“What would you like, sir?”
“I should like a grilled sole, to begin with.”
“Very sorry, sir, soles is hoff—get you a nice chop or steak.”
“Can’t manage either so early in the day. Got any whitings?”
“Afraid we’re out of whitings, sir, but I’ll see.”
Eventually, after suggesting sundry delicacies, all of which are either “hoff,” or unknown to the waiter, you settle down to the consumption of two fried and shrivelled shop eggs, on an island of Chicago ham, floating in an Ægean Sea of grease and hot water; whilst a half quartern loaf, a cruet-stand the size of a cathedral, a rackful of toast of the “Zebra” brand, and about two gallons of (alleged) coffee, are dumped down in succession in front of you.
There are, of course, some hostelries where they “do” you better than this, but my experience of hotel breakfasts at this end of the nineteenth century has not been encouraging, either to appetite or temper; and I do vow and protest that the above picture is not too highly coloured.
The toothsome, necessary bloater is not often to be met with on the hotel’s bill-of-fare; but, if soft roed—use no other—it will repay perusal. Toast it in a Dutch oven in front of a clear fire, and just before done split it up the back, and put a piece of butter on it. The roe should be well plumped, and of the consistency of Devonshire cream. A grilled sole for breakfast is preferable to a fried one, principally because it is by no means impossible that the fried sole be second-hand, or as the French call it réchauffé. And why, unless directions to the contrary be given, is the modest whiting invariably placed, tail in mouth, on the frying pan? A grilled whiting—assassinate your cook if she (or he) scorches it—is one of the noblest works of the kitchen, and its exterior should be of a golden brown colour.
Do not forget to order sausages for breakfast if you are staying at Newmarket; there is less bread in them than in the Metropolitan brand. And when in Lincoln attempt a
Halibut Steak,
of which you may not have previously heard. The halibut should, previous to grilling or frying in salad oil, be placed on a shallow dish and sprinkled with salt. Then the dish should be half filled with water, which must not cover the salt. Leave the fish to soak for an hour, then cut into slices, nearly an inch thick, without removing the skin. Sprinkle some lemon juice and cayenne over the steaks before serving.
If you wish to preserve an even mind, and be at peace with the world, a visit to
The Hotel Parish
is not to be recommended. The Irish stew at dinner is not bad in its way, though coarse, and too liberally endowed with fat. But the breakfasts! Boiled oatmeal and water, with salt in the mess, and a chunk of stale brown bread to eat therewith, do not constitute an altogether satisfactory meal, the first thing in the morning; and it is hardly calculated to inspire him with much pride in his work, when the guest is placed subsequently before his “task” of unbroken flints or tarred rope.
CHAPTER III
BREAKFAST (continued)
And lang-leggit callants gaun wanting the breeks.”
Bonnie Scotland—Parritch an’ cream—Fin’an haddies—A knife on the ocean wave—À la Français—In the gorgeous East—Chota hazri—English as she is spoke—Dâk bungalow fare—Some quaint dishes—Breakfast with “my tutor”—A Don’s absence of mind.
For a “warm welcome” commend me to Bonnie Scotland. Though hard of head and “sae fu’ o’ learning” that they are “owre deeficult to conveence, ye ken,” these rugged Caledonians be tender of heart, and philanthropic to a degree. Hech, sirs! but ’tis the braw time ye’ll hae, gin ye trapese the Highlands, an’ the Lowlands as well for the matter o’ that—in search o’ guid refreshment for body an’ soul.
Even that surly lexicographer, Doctor Samuel Johnson (who, by the way, claimed the same city for his birthplace as does the writer), who could not be induced to recognise the merits of Scotch scenery, and preferred Fleet Street to the Trossachs, extolled the luxury of a Scotch breakfast above that of all other countries. And Sir Walter Scott, who never enthused much about meat and drink, is responsible in Waverley for a passage calculated to make the mouths of most people water:
“He found Miss Bradwardine presiding over the tea and coffee, the table loaded with warm bread, both of flour, oatmeal, and barley meal, in the shape of loaves, cakes, biscuits, and other varieties, together with eggs, reindeer ham, mutton and beef ditto, smoked salmon, and many other delicacies. A mess of oatmeal porridge, flanked by a silver jug which held an equal mixture of cream and buttermilk, was placed for the Baron’s share of the repast.”
“And,” as Mr. Samuel Weller would have observed, “a wery good idea of a breakfast, too.”
A beef-ham sounds like a “large order” for breakfast, even when we come to consider that the Scotch “beastie,” in Sir Walter Scott’s time, was wanting in “beam” and stature. I have seen and partaken of a ham cut from a Yorkshire pig, and weighing 52 lbs.; but even a Scotch beef-ham must have topped that weight considerably. Fortunately the sideboards of those times were substantial of build.
Missing from the above bill-of-fare is the haddock,
The Fin’an Haddie,
a bird which at that period had probably not been invented. But the modern Scottish breakfast-table is not properly furnished without it. The genuine “Fin’an” is known by its appetising savour and by its colour—a creamy yellow, which is totally distinct from the Vandyke browny hue of the haddock which is creosoted in the neighbourhood of the Blackfriars Road, London, S.E. “Strip off the skin,” says the recipe in one cookery book, “and broil before the fire or over a quick clear one.” Another way—my way—is not to strip off the skin and to steam your haddies. Place them in a dish which has been previously heated. Throw boiling water on them, and cover closely with a plate; place on a hot stove, and in from 10 to 15 minutes the Fin’ans will be accomplished. Drain, and serve hot as hot, buttered, with a sprinkling of cayenne, and, maybe, a dash of Worcester sauce.
Salmon is naturally a welcome guest at the table of the land of his birth, served fresh when in season, and smoked or kippered at all times.
A Salmon Steak
with the “curd” between the flakes, placed within a coat of virgin-white paper (oiled) and grilled for 15 minutes or so, is an excellent breakfast dish. A fry of small troutlets, a ditto of the deer’s interior economy—Mem. When up at the death of a hunted stag, always beg or annex a portion of his liver—are also common dishes at the first meal served by the “gudewife”; and I once met a cold haggis at 9.30 A.M. But this, I rather fancy, was “a wee bit joke” at my expense. Anyhow I shall have plenty to say about the “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” in a later chapter.
Off to Gold-land!
Those that go down to the sea in ships, and can summon up sufficient presence of mind to go down to the saloon at meal times, have far from a bad time of it. Living was certainly better on the ocean wave in the days when livestock was kept on board, and slaughtered as required; for the effect of keeping beef, pork, and mutton in a refrigerating chamber for any length of time is to destroy the flavour, and to render beef indistinguishable from the flesh of the hog, and mutton as tasteless as infantine pap. But the ship’s galley does its little utmost; and the saloon passenger, on his way to the other side of the equator, may regale himself with such a breakfast as the following, which is taken from the steward’s book of a vessel belonging to the Union Line:—
Porridge, fillets of haddock with fine herbs, mutton chops and chip potatoes, savoury omelet, bacon on toast, minced collops, curry and rice, fruit, rolls, toast, etc., tea and coffee.
Cannot my readers imagine a steward entering the state-room of the voyager who has succumbed to the wiles and eccentricities of the Bay of Biscay, with the observation: “Won’t you get up to breakfast, sir?—I’ve reserved a beautiful fat chop, with chips, o’ purpose for you, sir.”
And the lot of the third-class passenger who is conveyed from his native land to the Cape of Good Hope, for what Mr. Montague Tigg would have called “the ridiculous sum of” £16: 16s., is no such hard one, seeing that he is allotted a “bunk” in a compact, though comfortable cabin, and may break his fast on the following substantial meal:—
Porridge, Yarmouth bloaters, potatoes, American hash, grilled mutton, bread and butter, tea or coffee.
An American breakfast is as variegated (and I fear I must add, as indigestible) as a Scotch one; and included in the bill of fare are as many, or more, varieties of bread and cake as are to be found in the land o’ shortbread. The writer has, in New York, started the morning meal with oysters, run the gamut of fish, flesh, and fowl, and wound up with buckwheat cakes, which are brought on in relays, buttered and smoking hot, and can be eaten with or without golden syrup. But, as business begins early in New York and other large cities, scant attention is paid to the first meal by the merchant and the speculator, who are wont to “gallop” through breakfast and luncheon, and to put in their “best work” at dinner.
A Mediterranean Breakfast
is not lacking in poetry; and the jaded denizen of Malta can enjoy red mullet (the “woodcock of the sea”) freshly taken from the tideless ocean, and strawberries in perfection, at his first meal, whilst seated, maybe, next to some dreamy-eyed houri, who coos soft nothings into his ear, at intervals. The wines of Italy go best with this sort of repast, which is generally eaten with “spoons.”
In fair France, breakfast, or the déjeûner à la fourchette, is not served until noon, or thereabouts. Coffee or chocolate, with fancy bread and butter, is on hand as soon as you wake; and I have heard that for the roisterer and the p’tit crevé there be such liquors as cognac, curaçoa, and chartreuse verte provided at the first meal, so that nerves can be strung together and headaches alleviated before the “associated” breakfast at midday. In the country, at the château of Monsieur et Madame, the groom-of-the-chambers, or maître d’hôtel, as he is designated, knocks at your bedroom door at about 8.30.
“Who’s there?”
“Good-morning, M’sieu. Will M’sieu partake of the chocolat, or of the café-au-lait, or of the tea?”
Upon ordinary occasions, M’sieu will partake of the chocolat—if he be of French extraction; whilst the English visitor will partake of the café-au-lait—tea-making in France being still in its infancy. And if M’sieu has gazed too long on the wine of the country, overnight, he will occasionally—reprobate that he is—partake instead of the vieux cognac, diluted from the syphon. And M’sieu never sees his host or hostess till the “assembly” sounds for the midday meal.
I have alluded, just above, to French tea-making. There was a time when tea, with our lively neighbours, was as scarce a commodity as snakes in Iceland or rum punch in Holloway Castle. Then the thin end of the wedge was introduced, and the English visitor was invited to partake of a cup of what was called (by courtesy) thé, which had been concocted expressly for her or him. And tea à la Française used to be made somewhat after this fashion. The cup was half-filled with milk, sugar à discrétion being added. A little silver sieve was next placed over the cup, and from a jug sufficient hot water, in which had been previously left to soak some half-dozen leaf-fragments of green tea, to fill the cup, was poured forth. In fact the visitor was invited to drink a very nasty compound indeed, something like the “wish” tea with which the school-mistress used to regale her victims—milk and water, and “wish-you-may-get” tea! But they have changed all that across the Channel, and five o’clock tea is one of the most fashionable functions of the day, with the beau monde; a favourite invitation of the society belle of the fin de siècle being: “Voulex-vous fivoclocquer avec moi?”
The déjeûner usually begins with a consommé, a thin, clear, soup, not quite adapted to stave off the pangs of hunger by itself, but grateful enough by way of a commencement. Then follows an array of dishes containing fish and fowl of sorts, with the inevitable côtelettes à la somebody-or-other, not forgetting an omelette—a mess which the French cook alone knows how to concoct to perfection. The meal is usually washed down with some sort of claret; and a subsequent café, with the accustomed chasse; whilst the welcome cigarette is not “defended,” even in the mansions of the great.
There is more than one way of making coffee, that of the lodging-house “general,” and of the street-stall dispenser, during the small hours, being amongst the least commendable. Without posing as an infallible manufacturer of the refreshing (though indigestible, to many people) beverage, I would urge that it be made from freshly-roasted seed, ground just before wanted. Then heat the ground coffee in the oven, and place upon the perforated bottom of the upper compartment of a cafetière, put the strainer on it, and pour in boiling water, gradually. “The Duke” in Geneviève de Brabant used to warble as part of a song in praise of tea—
That you should not spare the tea.
So is it of equal importance that you should not spare the coffee. There are more elaborate ways of making coffee; but none that the writer has tried are in front of the old cafetière, if the simple directions given above be carried out in their entirety.
As in France, sojourners (for their sins) in the burning plains of Ind have their first breakfast, or chota hazri, at an early hour, whilst the breakfast proper—usually described in Lower Bengal, Madras, and Bombay as “tiffin”—comes later on. For
Chota Hazri
(literally “little breakfast”)—which is served either at the Mess-house, the public Bath, or in one’s own bungalow, beneath the verandah—poached eggs on toast are de rigueur, whilst I have met such additions as unda ishcamble (scrambled eggs), potato cake, and (naughty, naughty!) anchovy toast. Tea or coffee are always drunk with this meal. “Always,” have I written? Alas! In my mind’s eye I can see the poor Indian vainly trying to stop the too-free flow of the Belati pani (literally “Europe water”) by thrusting a dusky thumb into the neck of the just-opened bottle, and in my mind’s ear can I catch the blasphemous observation of the subaltern as he remarks to his slave that he does not require, in his morning’s “livener,” the additional flavour of Mahommedan flesh, and the “hubble-bubble” pipe, the tobacco in which may have been stirred by the same thumb that morning.
“Coffee shop” is a favourite function, during the march of a regiment in India, at least it used to be in the olden time, before troops were conveyed by railway. Dhoolies (roughly made palanquins) laden with meat and drink were sent on half way, overnight; and grateful indeed was the cup of tea, or coffee, or the “peg” which was poured forth for the weary warrior who had been “tramping it” or in the saddle since 2 A.M. or some such unearthly hour, in order that the column might reach the new camping-ground before the sun was high in the heavens. It was at “coffee-shop” that “chaff” reigned supreme, and speculations as to what the shooting would be like at the next place were indulged in. And when that shooting was likely to take the form of long men, armed with long guns, and long knives, the viands, which consisted for the most part of toast, biscuits, poached eggs, and unda bakum (eggs and bacon), were devoured with appetites all the keener for the prospect in view. It is in troublous times, be it further observed, that the Hindustan khit is seen at his best. On the field of battle itself I have known coffee and boiled eggs—or even a grilled fowl—produced by the fearless and devoted nokhur, from, apparently, nowhere at all.
At the Indian breakfast proper, all sorts of viands are consumed; from the curried prawns and Europe provisions (which arrive in an hermetically sealed condition per s.s. Nomattawot), to the rooster who heralds your arrival at the dak bungalow, with much crowing, and who within half an hour of your advent has been successively chased into a corner, beheaded, plucked, and served up for your refection in a scorched state. I have breakfasted off such assorted food as curried locusts, boiled leg of mutton, fried snipe, Europe sausages, Iron ishtoo (Irish stew), vilolif (veal olives, and more correctly a dinner dish), kidney toast—chopped sheep’s kidneys, highly seasoned with pepper, lime-juice, and Worcester sauce, very appetising—parrot pie, eggs and bacon, omelette (which might also have been used to patch ammunition boots with), sardines, fried fish (mind the bones of the Asiatic fish), bifishtake (beef steak), goat chops, curries of all sorts, hashed venison, and roast peafowl, ditto quail, ditto pretty nearly everything that flies, cold buffalo hump, grilled sheep’s tail (a bit bilious), hermetically-sealed herring, turtle fins, Guava jelly, preserved mango, home-made cake, and many other things which have escaped memory. I am coming to the “curry” part of the entertainment later on in the volume, but may remark that it is preferable when eaten in the middle of the day. My own experience was that few people touched curry when served in its normal place at dinner—as a course of itself—just before the sweets.
“Breakfast with my tutor!” What happy memories of boyhood do not the words conjure up, of the usually stern, unbending preceptor pouring out the coffee, and helping the sausages and mashed potatoes—we always had what is now known as “saus and mash” at my tutor’s—and the fatherly air with which he would remind the juvenile glutton, who had seated himself just opposite the apricot jam, and was improving the occasion, that eleven o’clock school would be in full swing in half an hour, and that the brain (and, by process of reasoning, the stomach) could not be in too good working-order for the fervid young student of Herodotus. The ordinary breakfast of the “lower boy” at Eton used to be of a very uncertain pattern. Indeed, what with “fagging,” the preparation of his lord-and-master’s breakfast, the preparation of “pupil-room” work, and agile and acute scouts ever on the alert to pilfer his roll and pat of butter, that boy was lucky if he got any breakfast at all. If he possessed capital, or credit, he might certainly stave off starvation at “Brown’s,” with buttered buns and pickled salmon; or at “Webber’s,” or “the Wall,” with three-cornered jam tarts, or a “strawberry mess”; but Smith minor, and Jones minimus as often as not, went breakfastless to second school.
At the University, breakfast with “the Head” or any other “Don” was a rather solemn function. The table well and plentifully laid, and the host hospitality itself, but occasionally, nay, frequently, occupied with other thoughts. A departed friend used to tell a story of a breakfast of this description. He was shaken warmly by the hand by his host, who afterwards lapsed into silence. My friend, to “force the running,” ventured on the observation—
“It’s a remarkably fine morning, sir, is it not?”
No reply came. In fact, the great man’s thoughts were so preoccupied with Greek roots, and other defunct horrors, that he spoke not a word during breakfast. But when, an hour or so afterwards, the time came for his guest to take leave, the “Head” shook him by the hand warmly once more, and remarked abstractedly—
“D’you know, Mr. Johnson, I don’t think that was a particularly original remark of yours?”
CHAPTER IV
LUNCHEON
More honoured in the breach than the observance.”
Why lunch?—Sir Henry Thompson on overdoing it—The children’s dinner—City lunches—Ye Olde Cheshyre Cheese—Doctor Johnson—Ye pudding—A great fall in food—A snipe pudding—Skirt, not rump steak—Lancashire hot pot—A Cape “brady.”
“‘More honoured in the breach,’ do you say, Mr. Author?” I fancy I hear some reader inquire. “Are these your sentiments? Do you really mean them?” Well, perhaps, they ought to be qualified. Unless a man breakfast very early, and dine very late, he cannot do himself much good by eating a square meal at 1.30 or 2.0 P.M. There can be no question but that whilst thousands of the lieges—despite soup-kitchens, workhouses, and gaols—perish of absolute starvation, as many of their more fortunate brethren perish, in the course of time, from gluttony, from falling down (sometimes literally) and worshipping the Belly-god.
Years ago Sir Henry Thompson observed to a friend of the writer’s:
“Most men who seek my advice are suffering under one of two great evils—eating too much good food, or drinking too much bad liquor; and occasionally they suffer under both evils.”
“This luncheon,” writes Oliver Wendell Holmes, “is a very convenient affair; it does not require any special dress; it is informal; and can be light or heavy as one chooses.”
The American—the male American at all events—takes far more count of luncheon than of breakfast.
But in many cases luncheon and early dinner are synonymous terms. Take the family luncheon, for instance, of the middle classes, where mother, governess, and little ones all assemble in front of the roast and boiled, at the principal meal of the day, and the more or less snowy tablecloth is duly anointed with gravy by “poor baby,” in her high chair, and the youngest but one is slapped at intervals by his instructress, for using his knife for the peas—at the risk of enlarging his mouth—or for swallowing the stones of the cherries which have been dealt him, or her, from the tart. This is not the sort of meal for the male friend of the family to “drop in” at, if he value the lapels of his new frock-coat, and be given to blushing. For children have not only an evil habit of “pawing” the visitor with jammy fingers, but occasionally narrate somewhat “risky” anecdotes. And a child’s ideas of the Christian religion, nay, of the Creator himself, are occasionally more quaint than reverent.
“Ma, dear,” once lisped a sweet little thing of six, “what doth God have for hith dinner?”
“S-sh-sh, my child!” replied the horrified mother, “you must not ask such dreadful questions. God doesn’t want any dinner, remember that.”
“Oh-h-h!” continued the unabashed and dissatisfied enfant terrible. And, after a pause, “then I thuppose he hath an egg with hith tea.”
In a country-house, of course, but few of the male guests turn up at the domestic luncheon, being otherwise engaged in killing something, or in trying to kill something, or in that sport which is but partially understood out of Great Britain—the pursuit of an evil-savoured animal who is practically worthless to civilisation after his capture and death.
It is in “the City” that vile man, perhaps, puts in his best work as an eater of luncheons. Some city men there be, of course—poor, wretched, half-starved clerks, whose state nobody ever seems to attempt to ameliorate—whose midday refections are not such as would have earned a meed of commendation from the late Vitellius, or from the late Colonel North. For said refections but seldom consist of more important items than a thick slice of bread and a stale bloater; or possibly a home-made sandwich of bread and Dutch cheese—the whole washed down with a tumbler of milk, or more often a tumbler of the fluid supplied by the New River Company. During the winter months a pennyworth of roasted chestnuts supplies a filling, though indigestible meal to many a man whose employer is swilling turtle at Birch’s or at the big house in Leadenhall Street, and who is compelled, by the exigencies of custom, to wear a decent black coat and some sort of tall hat when on his way to and from “business.”
But the more fortunate citizens—how do they “do themselves” at luncheon? For some there is the cheap soup-house, or the chop-and-steak house reviled of Dickens, and but little changed since the time of the great novelist. Then, for the “gilt-edged” division there is
Birch’s,
the little green house which, although now “run” by those eminent caterers, Messrs. Ring and Brymer, is still known by the name of the old Alderman who deserved so well of his fellow citizens, and who, whilst a cordon bleu of some celebrity, had also a pretty taste as a playwright. The old house has not changed one jot, either in appearance, customs, or fare. At the little counter on the ground floor may be obtained the same cheesecakes, tartlets, baked custards, and calf’s-foot jellies which delighted our grandfathers, and the same brand of Scottish whisky. Upstairs, in the soup-rooms, some of the tables are covered with damask tablecloths, whilst at others a small square of napery but partially obscures the view of the well-polished mahogany.
Turtle Soup
is still served on silver plates, whilst the cheaper juices of the bullock, the calf, and the pea, “with the usual trimmings,” repose temporarily on china or earthenware. Pâtés, whether of oyster, lobster, chicken, or veal-and-ham, are still in favour with habitué and chance customer alike, and no wonder, for these are something like pâtés. The “filling” is kept hot like the soups, in huge stewpans, on the range, and when required is ladled out into a plate, and furnished with top and bottom crust—and such crust, flaky and light to a degree; and how different to the confectioner’s or railway-refreshment pâté, which, when an orifice be made in the covering with a pickaxe, reveals nothing more appetising than what appear to be four small cubes of frost-bitten india-rubber, with a portion or two of candle end.
A more advanced meal is served in Leadenhall Street, at
“The Ship and Turtle,”
said to be the oldest tavern in London, and which has been more than once swept and garnished, and reformed altogether, since its establishment during the reign of King Richard II. But they could have known but little about the superior advantages offered by the turtle as a life-sustainer, in those days; whereas at the present day some hundreds of the succulent reptiles die the death on the premises, within a month, in order that city companies, and stockbrokers, and merchants of sorts, and mining millionaires, and bicycle makers, and other estimable people, may dine and lunch.
Then there are the numerous clubs, not forgetting one almost at the very door of “The House,” where the 2000 odd (some of them very odd) members are regaled on the fat of the land in general, and of the turtle in particular, day by day; and that mammoth underground palace the “Palmerston,” where any kind of banquet can be served up at a few minutes’ notice, and where “special Greek dishes” are provided for the gamblers in wheat and other cereals, at the adjacent “Baltic.” There be also other eating-houses, far too numerous to mention, but most of them worth a visit.
A “filling” sort of luncheon is a portion of a
Cheshire Cheese Pudding.
A little way up a gloomy court on the north side of Fleet Street—a neighbourhood which reeks of printers’ ink, bookmakers’ “runners,” tipsters, habitual borrowers of small pieces of silver, and that “warm” smell of burning paste and molten lead which indicates the “foundry” in a printing works—is situated this ancient hostelry. It is claimed for the “Cheese” that it was the tavern most frequented by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Mr. C. Redding, in his Fifty Years’ Recollections, Literary and Personal, published in 1858, says: “I often dined at the
“Cheshire Cheese.”
Johnson and his friends, I was informed, used to do the same, and I was told I should see individuals who had met them there. This I found to be correct. The company was more select than in later times, but there are Fleet Street tradesmen who well remembered both Johnson and Goldsmith in this place of entertainment.”
Few Americans who visit our metropolis go away without making a pilgrimage to this ancient hostelry, where, upstairs, “Doctor Johnson’s Chair” is on view; and many visitors carry away mementoes of the house, in the shape of pewter measures, the oaken platters upon which these are placed, and even samples of the long “churchwarden” pipes, smoked by habitués after their evening chops or steaks.
Ye Pudding,
which is served on Wednesdays and Saturdays, at 1.30 and 6.0, is a formidable-looking object, and its savour reaches even into the uttermost parts of Great Grub Street. As large, more or less, as the dome of St. Paul’s, that pudding is stuffed with steak, kidney, oysters, mushrooms, and larks. The irreverent call these last named sparrows, but we know better. This pudding takes (on dit) 17½ hours in the boiling, and the “bottom crust” would have delighted the hearts of Johnson, Boswell, and Co., in whose days the savoury dish was not. The writer once witnessed a catastrophe at the “Cheshire Cheese,” compared to which the burning of Moscow or the bombardment of Alexandria were mere trifles. 1.30 on Saturday afternoon had arrived, and the oaken benches in the refectory were filled to repletion with expectant pudding-eaters. Burgesses of the City of London were there—good, “warm,” round-bellied men, with plough-boys’ appetites—and journalists, and advertising agents, and “resting” actors, and magistrates’ clerks, and barristers from the Temple, and well-to-do tradesmen. Sherry and gin and bitters and other adventitious aids (?) to appetite had been done justice to, and the arrival of the “procession”—it takes three men and a boy to carry the pièce de résistance from the kitchen to the dining-room—was anxiously awaited. And then, of a sudden we heard a loud crash! followed by a feminine shriek, and an unwhispered Saxon oath. “Tom” the waiter had slipped, released his hold, and the pudding had fallen downstairs! It was a sight ever to be remembered—steak, larks, oysters, “delicious gravy,” running in a torrent into Wine Office Court. The expectant diners (many of them lunchers) stood up and gazed upon the wreck of their hopes, and then filed, silently and sadly, outside. Such a catastrophe had not been known in Brainland since the Great Fire.
Puddings of all sorts are, in fact, favourite autumn and winter luncheon dishes in London, and the man who can “come twice” at such a “dream” as the following, between the hours of one and three, can hardly be in devouring trim for his evening meal till very late. It is a
Snipe Pudding.
A thin slice of beef-skirt,[2] seasoned with pepper and salt, at the bottom of the basin; then three snipes beheaded and befooted, and with gizzards extracted. Leave the liver and heart in, an you value your life. Cover up with paste, and boil (or steam) for two-and-a-half hours. For stockbrokers and bookmakers, mushrooms and truffles are sometimes placed within this pudding; but it is better without—according to the writer’s notion.
Most of the fowls of the air may be treated in the same way. And when eating cold grouse for luncheon try (if you can get it) a fruit salad therewith. You will find preserved peaches, apricots, and cherries in syrup, harmonise well with cold brown game.
Lancashire Hot-Pot
is a savoury dish indeed; but I know of but one eating-house in London where you can get anything like it. Here is the recipe—
Place a layer of mutton cutlets, with most of the fat and tails trimmed off, at the bottom of a deep earthenware stewpan. Then a layer of chopped sheep’s kidneys, an onion cut into thin slices, half-a-dozen oysters, and some sliced potatoes. Sprinkle over these a little salt and pepper and a teaspoonful of curry powder. Then start again with cutlets, and keep on adding layers of the different ingredients until the dish be full. Whole potatoes atop of all, and pour in the oyster liquor and some good gravy. More gravy just before the dish is ready to serve. Not too fierce an oven, just fierce enough to brown the top potatoes.
In making this succulent concoction you can add to, or substitute for, the mutton cutlets pretty nearly any sort of flesh or fowl. I have met rabbit, goose, larks, turkey, and (frequently) beef therein; but, believe me, the simple, harmless, necessary, toothsome cutlet makes the best lining.
In the Cape Colony, and even as high up as Rhodesia, I have met with a dish called a Brady, which is worthy of mention here. It is made in the same way as the familiar Irish stew; but instead of potatoes tomatoes are used.